What is a Classic?

Monday, September 28th | 6:00PM
CBA Studio
16 Cooper Square
New York, NY 10003

Dance is always about presence: movement in the living, breathing moment, no matter how classical. Antiquity, by contrast, is absence: everything is lost but for some incomplete texts and broken objects. What, then, does it mean to call a dance "classical," and what can the ancient world really tell us about traditions still performed today?

In this lecture, classicist Barbara Graziosi (Princeton) brings newly examined ancient evidence into dialogue with live performances by dancers trained in kathak and ballet: two traditions each shadowed by contested claims to antiquity, and each capable of provoking real resentment when those claims are challenged or imposed. Working with Kathak artist Radha Varadan and Sara Mearns (Principal Dancer, New York City Ballet), Graziosi traces overlooked historical connections between narrative dance in the ancient Mediterranean and the Indian subcontinent and proposes a fresh way of understanding "the classical" not as a fixed inheritance from the past, but as something made new through embodied practice, contact, and collaboration.

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This event is co-sponsored by NYU Center for Ancient Studies, NYU Art History, NYU Classics, and is presented as the annual Rose-Marie Lewent Conference in Ancient Studies.

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