The purpose of this work is to attract researchers and facilitate studies of ancient Greek dance and ancient dance in general. We focus on ancient sources of information, aiming to present all relative texts and pictures. Like a mosaic, once the little colored stones are put together the picture appears. Fortunately there is enough material in museums and libraries awaiting to be studied. Once we know what the ancients had to say, then we can see how modern writers have interpreted it.

   Since around the year 1600 scholars write about Greek dance. The need to get an adequate picture by filling the gaps is understandable, so they resort to extrapolations and speculations. Sometimes this is successful, other times it creates fallacies subsequently repeated and taken as facts. Example: a long lineage of authors tried to squeeze Greek dance into the confines of ballet ignoring the fact that one cannot dance ballet without ballet shoes, and pointe shoes were invented in the 19th century!

   Many thought they could guess the movements seen on vases and reproduce them. Even if we could find videos taken 25 centuries ago and copied their ‘choreographies’ we would not be very advanced. The essence of any dance is not its mere movements but the spirit they convey as a whole, the notions distilled by generations of amateurs, of choreographers and of teachers, the way society regards it and is reflected on it – call it the soul of the dance.

   During the last 100 years works by dance historians have gradually brought the theoretical study of dance to almost the same level as scholarly work on theater or music. Recently the science of dance history has turned to idolizing choreographers, a sign that it is time for change. Let me propose dance sociology and dance anthropology as tools for the future.

    Unlike previous researchers I use additionally the viewpoint of traditional Greek dance. Same as in language, there is change within continuity in music and in dance. Rulers can change overnight but deeply ingrained features need outside pressure for many generations of to change, if ever. This fact has been abused in presenting dances of today as survivals of ancient dance, we use it to interpret ancient dances. Dance forms in other countries can shed light too, Indian classical dance and African dances have been helpful.

    I started studying Greek dance around 1980. I was corresponding with Lillian Lawler and translated her book. I had met Germaine Prudhommeau before, at congresses on dance research in the Sorbonne; we later had exciting discussions in Paris when we were both teaching at the short-lived but still unsurpassed Cursus de Danse of the Sorbonne. When Selma Jeanne Cohen asked me to write for the monumental International Encyclopedia of Dance (2,000 articles by scholars from 50 countries) I took it as a calling. In 1991 I organized the International Congress “Dance and Ancient Greece” with about 200 conferees. Proceedings were published in two volumes, while some articles were later included in the books Dance and Ancient Greece (in Greek) and Orchesis. Texts on Ancient Greek Dance (in English). Finally the handbook Dance in classical Greece was published in 2019.

   As regards practice, the Study Group on Ancient Orchesis within the Dora Stratou Dance Theatre I co-direct with Anna Lazou for the past 30 years has been active continuously offering weekly classes, lectures, workshops, performances, research and publications.  

    A companion website to this encyclopedia is the Ancient Greek Dance Pandect of textual and pictorial sources AncientGreekPandect.Raftis.org

     Responsibility for editorial decisions and other matters rests solely with the editor.