|
Clytemnestra (dance)
''Clytemnestra'' is a 90-minute ballet choreographed by Martha Graham. It premiered on April 1, 1958, at the Adelphi Theatre in New York with music composed by Halim El-Dabh and sets designed by Isamu Noguchi. Following ''Cave of the Heart'', '' Errand into the Maze'', and ''Night Journey'', ''Clytemnestra'' continued Graham's series of choreography inspired by Greek mythology. Development In the late 1950s, after being acquainted with Eugene Lester, the composer and arranger for Martha Graham, at a party, Halim El-Dabh was invited to Graham's studio. Graham commissioned a 15-minute music piece after being impressed by his music. However, the music was not used after he sensed a hesitation from Graham. The music was then recomposed and developed into the music used for the ballet. Theme ''Clytemnestra'' was inspired by Aeschylus' Oreseteia and tells of the events that precede Clytemnestra's choice to murder her husband, Agamemnon, upon his return home from the Trojan War. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martha Graham
Martha Graham (May 11, 1894 – April 1, 1991) was an American modern dancer and choreographer. Her style, the Graham technique, reshaped American dance and is still taught worldwide. Graham danced and taught for over seventy years. She was the first dancer to perform at the White House, travel abroad as a cultural ambassador, and receive the highest civilian award of the US: the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction. In her lifetime she received honors ranging from the Key to the City of Paris to Japan's Imperial Order of the Precious Crown. She said, in the 1994 documentary ''The Dancer Revealed'': "I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It's permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant. Sometimes it is fearful. But nevertheless it is inevitable." Founded in 1926 (the same year as Graham's professional dance company), the Martha Graham School is the oldest school of dance in the United States. First located ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agamemnon
In Greek mythology, Agamemnon (; grc-gre, Ἀγαμέμνων ''Agamémnōn'') was a king of Mycenae who commanded the Greeks during the Trojan War. He was the son, or grandson, of King Atreus and Queen Aerope, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra and the father of Iphigenia, Electra, Laodike (Λαοδίκη), Orestes and Chrysothemis. Legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different names for the same area. Agamemnon was killed upon his return from Troy, either by his wife's lover Aegisthus or by his wife herself. Etymology His name in Greek, Ἀγαμέμνων, means "very steadfast", "unbowed" or "resolute". The word comes from *Ἀγαμέδμων (''*Agamédmōn'') from ἄγαν, "very much" and μέδομαι, "think on". Description In the account of Dares the Phrygian, Agamemnon was described as ". . .blond, large, and powerful. He was eloquent, wise, and noble, a man richly endowed." Ancestry and early life Agamem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1958 Ballet Premieres
Events January * January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being. * January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed. * January 4 ** Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the third overland journey to the South Pole, the first to use powered vehicles. ** Sputnik 1 (launched on October 4, 1957) falls to Earth from its orbit, and burns up. * January 13 – Battle of Edchera: The Moroccan Army of Liberation ambushes a Spanish patrol. * January 27 – A Soviet-American executive agreement on cultural, educational and scientific exchanges, also known as the "Lacy-Zarubin Agreement, Lacy–Zarubin Agreement", is signed in Washington, D.C. * January 31 – The first successful American satellite, Explorer 1, is launched into orbit. February * February 1 – Egypt and Syria unite, to form the United Arab Republic. * February 6 – Seven Manchester United F.C., Manchester United footballers are among the 21 people killed i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iphigenia
In Greek mythology, Iphigenia (; grc, Ἰφιγένεια, , ) was a daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra, and thus a princess of Mycenae. In the story, Agamemnon offends the goddess Artemis on his way to the Trojan War by hunting and killing one of Artemis' sacred stags. She retaliates by preventing the Greek troops from reaching Troy unless Agamemnon kills his eldest daughter, Iphigenia, at Aulis as a human sacrifice. In some versions, Iphigenia dies at Aulis, and in others, Artemis rescues her. In the version where she is saved, she goes to the Taurians and meets her brother Orestes.Evans (1970), p. 141 Name "Iphigenia" means "strong-born," "born to strength," or "she who causes the birth of strong offspring." Iphianassa Iphianassa () is the name of one of Agamemnon's three daughters in Homer's ''Iliad'' (ix.145, 287) The name Iphianassa may be simply an older variant of the name Iphigenia. "Not all poets took Iphigenia and Iphianassa to be two names for the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cassandra
Cassandra or Kassandra (; Ancient Greek: Κασσάνδρα, , also , and sometimes referred to as Alexandra) in Greek mythology was a Trojan priestess dedicated to the god Apollo and fated by him to utter true prophecies but never to be believed. In modern usage her name is employed as a rhetorical device to indicate a person whose accurate prophecies, generally of impending disaster, are not believed. Cassandra was a daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. Her elder brother was Hector, the hero of the Greek-Trojan war. The older and most common versions of the myth state that she was admired by the god Apollo, who sought to win her love by means of the gift of seeing the future. According to Aeschylus, she promised him her favours, but after receiving the gift, she went back on her word. As the enraged Apollo could not revoke a divine power, he added to it the curse that nobody would believe her prophecies. In other sources, such as Hyginus and Pseudo-Apollodorus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electra
Electra (; grc, Ήλέκτρα) is one of the most popular mythological characters in tragedies.Evans (1970), p. 79 She is the main character in two Greek tragedies, '' Electra'' by Sophocles and '' Electra'' by Euripides. She is also the central figure in plays by Aeschylus, Alfieri, Voltaire, Hofmannsthal, and Eugene O'Neill. She is a vengeful soul in ''The Libation Bearers'', the second play of Aeschylus' '' Oresteia'' trilogy. She plans out an attack with her brother to kill their mother, Clytemnestra. In psychology, the Electra complex is named after her. Family Electra's parents were King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra. Her sisters were Iphigeneia and Chrysothemis, and her brother was Orestes. In the ''Iliad'', Homer is understood to be referring to Electra in mentioning "Laodice" as a daughter of Agamemnon. Murder of Agamemnon Electra was absent from Mycenae when her father, King Agamemnon, returned from the Trojan War. When he came back, he brought with him h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helen Of Troy
Helen of Troy, Helen, Helena, (Ancient Greek: Ἑλένη ''Helénē'', ) also known as beautiful Helen, Helen of Argos, or Helen of Sparta, was a figure in Greek mythology said to have been the most beautiful woman in the world. She was believed to have been the daughter of Zeus and Leda, and was the sister of Clytemnestra, Castor and Pollux, Philonoe, Phoebe and Timandra. She was married to King Menelaus of Sparta "who became by her the father of Hermione, and, according to others, of Nicostratus also." The usual tradition is that after the goddess Aphrodite promised her to Paris in the Judgement of Paris, she was seduced by him and carried off to Troy. This resulted in the Trojan War when the Achaeans set out to reclaim her. Another ancient tradition, told by Stesichorus, tells of how "not she, but her wraith only, had passed to Troy, while she was borne by the Gods to the land of Egypt, and there remained until the day when her lord Menelaus, turning aside on the h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trojan War
In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology and has been narrated through many works of Greek literature, most notably Homer's ''Iliad''. The core of the ''Iliad'' (Books II – XXIII) describes a period of four days and two nights in the tenth year of the decade-long siege of Troy; the ''Odyssey'' describes the journey home of Odysseus, one of the war's heroes. Other parts of the war are described in a cycle of epic poems, which have survived through fragments. Episodes from the war provided material for Greek tragedy and other works of Greek literature, and for Roman poets including Virgil and Ovid. The ancient Greeks believed that Troy was located near the Dardanelles and that the Trojan War was a historical event of the 13th or 12th century BC, but by the mid-19th century AD, bot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clytemnestra
Clytemnestra (; grc-gre, Κλυταιμνήστρα, ''Klytaimnḗstrā'', ), in Greek mythology, was the wife of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, and the twin sister of Helen of Troy. In Aeschylus' '' Oresteia'', she murders Agamemnon – said by Euripides to be her second husband – and the Trojan princess Cassandra, whom Agamemnon had taken as a war prize following the sack of Troy; however, in Homer's ''Odyssey'', her role in Agamemnon's death is unclear and her character is significantly more subdued. Name Her Greek name ''Klytaimnḗstra'' is also sometimes Latinized as Clytaemnestra. It is commonly glossed as "famed for her suitors". However, this form is a later misreading motivated by an erroneous etymological connection to the verb ''mnáomai'' (, "woo, court"). The original name form is believed to have been ''Klytaimḗstra'' () without the ''-n-''. The present form of the name does not appear before the middle Byzantine period. Homeric poetry shows an awareness of bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Halim El-Dabh
Halim Abdul Messieh El-Dabh ( ar, حليم عبد المسيح الضبع, ''Ḥalīm ʻAbd al-Masīḥ al-Ḍab''ʻ; March 4, 1921 – September 2, 2017) was an Egyptian-American composer, musician, ethnomusicologist, and educator, who had a career spanning six decades. He is particularly known as an early pioneer of electronic music. In 1944 he composed one of the earliest known works of tape music, or musique concrète. From the late 1950s to early 1960s he produced influential work at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. Early life El-Dabh was born and grew up in Sakakini, Cairo, Egypt, a member of a large and affluent Coptic Christian family that had earlier emigrated from Abutig in the Upper Egyptian province of Asyut. The family name means "the hyena" and is not uncommon in Egypt. In 1932 the family relocated to the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis. Following his father's profession of agriculture, he graduated from Fuad I University (now Cairo University) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oresteia
The ''Oresteia'' ( grc, Ὀρέστεια) is a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus in the 5th century BCE, concerning the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, the murder of Clytemnestra by Orestes, the trial of Orestes, the end of the curse on the House of Atreus and the pacification of the Erinyes. The trilogy—consisting of '' Agamemnon'' (), ''The Libation Bearers'' (), and '' The Eumenides'' ()—also shows how the Greek gods interacted with the characters and influenced their decisions pertaining to events and disputes. The only extant example of an ancient Greek theatre trilogy, the ''Oresteia'' won first prize at the Dionysia festival in 458 BCE. The principal themes of the trilogy include the contrast between revenge and justice, as well as the transition from personal vendetta to organized litigation. ''Oresteia'' originally included a satyr play, ''Proteus'' (), following the tragic trilogy, but all except a single line of ''Proteus'' has been lost. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Mythology
A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities of deities, heroes, and mythological creatures, and the origins and significance of the ancient Greeks' own cult and ritual practices. Modern scholars study the myths to shed light on the religious and political institutions of ancient Greece, and to better understand the nature of myth-making itself. The Greek myths were initially propagated in an oral-poetic tradition most likely by Minoan and Mycenaean singers starting in the 18th century BC; eventually the myths of the heroes of the Trojan War and its aftermath became part of the oral tradition of Homer's epic poems, the '' Iliad'' and the '' Odyssey''. Two poems by Homer's near contemporary Hesiod, the ''Theogony'' and the '' Works and Days'', contain accounts of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> 1958 Ballet Premieres")
