La Papesse
This page is under writing and modification. Come back later and refresh the page in your browser.
Thank you.
What if Empress Theodora did not exist and was in fact a myth inspired from the Geek theater ? What if she was just a comedian, a medieval character for the purpose of governing and setting up the sovereignty upon the raising Byzantine Empire ? What if she was not a woman ?
The importance may not have been that Theodora would have been a woman, but that her role in a basilica was representing the institution of law. She was a representation of the weak, of the fragile, of the endangered gender and this fragility became a canon that was saying "the standard is not the soldier, the standard is the woman in her most fragile instance while she creates and while she delivers her inner femininity, while she is young and while she is naive, while she is old and while her modest virtue has become a marble". The law in the mosaic says that this house, the emerald house, is the house of every women. Here they have a voice.
The mosaics were a language for the people who could not read, or even speak the official language. The empire has changed hands many times, and the official language has changed. With the language, the interpretation of the laws has changed and the perception that the people may have. With symbols, and with pictures, the Byzantine Empire has done what the Egyptians had done before. They have created a universal language that talks to the consciousness, the imagination and lastly, the spirit of the people. It's easier to have a good word from a dancer than from a speaker and I have chosen the three videos below to show the language in an Empire that encompasses so many diversities and tribes.
On the first video, when you see Illan dancing, he brings an emotion that puts the life inside the sculpture. The light on the body is creating the sculpture and the life inside, animated with the emotion and the inspiration from the music, creates this movement of grace. On the second video, Illan responds to an interview, he does not speak very well English but he can understand it. He is dressed like a bird, like an Horus. When a question is asked, he responds in French, because he wants to speak with his heart, not with his mind. On the third video, the young man could be pausing as a model for the Christ. He is almost naked. "Keep concentrating, just relax" says the voice. The image is telling a story.
Male belly dancers are very creative and their dramatic interpretation of the dance removes the sexual aspect of it. The body is a language, it is not an object. Once you remove the sexual aspect of the body, the dancing tells you a story and women are telling their version of the story, making the move of the rivers, of the mountains, of the sand in the Sahara. Would you believe there is some life over there? They express the pulse that creates the life and they embody something that is bigger than mankind. They place the humanity in the world. They place the man to face his mystery, the mystery of the lamb.
The heart is the center of the emotions while the law is given with the mind. Men give the law with the mind. They organize the society with the mind. The women suffer in their heart and a humanized society is hypnotized with its emotions. Emotions can spread like the oil in the water, like the seeds in the win, like the wine in the brain. There is no control over it that would not change the world. The basilica San Vitale in Ravenne could have been an opera. The Arion is supporting the rumor, the apostles and the dome.
During the 6th century BE, Thespis is credited to have been the first actor to play and not to speak for himself. He was a dithyramb singer who created a very new style that introduced masks to interpret the different roles. He also created the skene from where the hypokrites were other actors giving him the answers. With acting, the actors would step out of their normal being to reach the ecstasy that brings to a state of divinity, the enthoustase. Before Thespis, the song of the dithyramb were directed to celebrate Dionysus, the God of religious ecstasy, of fertility, of wine and harvest. The ritual would take place in a valley, at the bottom of a slope. An altar would be placed, the Thymele. A goat would be sacrificed, the Tragos. Men would sing in choir around the altar what became later the dithyrambs of Arion, this religious literature that has become the sacred texts. The labyrinth symbolizes the orchestra in which the men sing in circle around the altar of the sacrifice. This is the vertical axis between life to death, where the soul meets with the God.
The orchestra of the Greek opera has become the octagon of the San Vitale basilica. The Skene has become the Narthex. The Thymele has become the vertical axis between the labyrinth and the oculus inside the cupola. The Tragos has become the lamb inside the oculus. The open sky has become the cupola that was probably inspired from the adobe architecture of Egypt. The Arion has become the fish of the Christian symbols. The actors and the hypokrites have become the priests, the judges and the lawyers. The masks have become wigs. The choir has become a music with men and castrates. Just like in the Greek theater, women were forbidden to perform the rituals of the law.