Over the past few months, a team of researchers from the Faculty of Classics and the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Oxford have been conducting a practice-based study into the ancient dance form tragoedia saltata, or Roman tragic pantomime. The pilot phase of this study is now complete, and the team hope now to present initial findings in conjunction with open discussion of the place of dance in academia, approaches to dance history, and intersections between dance scholarship and practice.

Confirmed speakers at the colloquium include Ruth Webb (Lille), whose work on tragoedia saltata in antiquity provided essential groundwork for this study; Armand D’Angour (Oxford), specialising in the relationship between ancient music and poetic metre; and Stacey Prickett (Roehampton), addressing cultural aspects of dance reconstruction. Project participants Ségolène Tarte (Oxford) and Emily Biggs (Birmingham) will be reflecting on the process from the perspective of dance practitioner and classicist respectively. There will also be live performances by dancers Marie-Louise Crawley, Heidi Seppälä, and Susie Crow with musician Malcolm Atkins.  It is hoped that the format of the day will allow plenty of opportunity for cross-disciplinary discussions and interaction.

Tuesday 1st October 2013, 11.00am-6.30pm

Ioannou Centre, 66 St. Giles, Oxford OX1 3LU

For more information, please contact helen.slaney@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk

or visit the project website: www.torch.ox.ac.uk/ancientdance