DIONYSOS ZAGREAS

The fundamental myth of Dionysos narrates the torments, death and resurrection of the divine child.

The Titanes stole the newborn son of Zeus, Dionysos (or Zagreas in other versions). He tried to escape from the tormentors or to mislead them by transforming himself to successively into a goat, a lion, a tiger and a bull. It was in this last transformation that the Titanes cut him into pieces and devoured his row flesh.

Zeus slew the Titanes with thunderbolt, and from their ash and smoke was born the human race. Athena or Rhea rescued the head of Dionysos, his scattered limbs were put together and he was resurrected. The tearing apart and putting together of Dionysos is a cosmic myth of perpetual return and renewal, a myth of death and rebirth, of chaos and the world.

The rituals by which this myth is established and repeated have persisted since man first cultivated the earth until the present day. In these myths and rituals of lament, women have taken up the part of the priests. It is they who tear apart the body and share the row flesh. The holy victim is always a male: a male child or a teenager, or even a goat or a sheep buck.

The play revives these rituals in theatrical terms but also uses dance too. Music brings in mind tunes from all around Greece while the costumes outline the mythical symbolisms.

The Greek Dionysos was the incarnation of all vital fluids: water, milk, wine and semen. Dionysos is the god that can be drunk. Dionysos Zagreas is the god that gets into the body through dance. Ritual dance and ritual love are a prayer of the body. "A dance always initiates archetypical movement or bring to mind a mythical moment". Mirdea Eliade.