Festival Dionysia

Hi guys

It has been a while, I have just been a bit busy with Uni and life in general and thought I would blog about what I learnt in my lecture on Thursday. So the lecture was painting the picture of theatre and the dramatic festivals that took place in Athens. The festival Dionysia takes place annually in late March or early April. And next year it will be on the 15th of March, 2011. How exciting! I will celebrate it, in honour of Dionysus!!

During the festival there were many ceremonies that took place. One very interesting one, was where all the citizens of Athens including slaves, women and children would carry a phallus and walk up to the sanctuary of Dionysus in honour of him. This symbolised fertility. Also I'm currently studying the Bacchae, so I'm really understanding this whole other side

to Dionysus and his importance that I had never really seen before.

(Birth of Dionysus, you can see Zeus in the middle sitting, and Dionysus has been just born from his thigh).

It's interesting the resemblance his birth has to that of Athena, in that they both were born from Zeus himself, and that I think ultimately highlights their importance. And also, their qualities and judgements are perhaps similar to those of Zeus.

That's it for now!

Yags

xxxx