When Theater Becomes Worship

I am in absolute awe of this production of The Bacchae performed by the Teatro Oficina in São Paulo, Brazil.  I can't recall if someone recommended it to me, or if I stumbled upon it, but it's been on my list to watch for over a year after watching an hour of it last year, and then I finally watched the whole thing over the most recent Lenaia.  (No mean feat, considering it's an epic 5 hours long - but totally worth it.) 

I can't imagine anything like this being performed in the U.S. It feels like the closest thing we could get to seeing how things might have been performed in Ancient Greece. Not because of the setting (most of it takes place in an building, albeit a really unconventional one), but because of the way it feels like devotional theater, like being part of a huge public ritual. There's nods to Brazil's Carnival tradition in the production, which only adds to it. But I can't imagine that these people were NOT overtaken with Dionysian ecstasy while doing this. And I can't imagine that anyone who wasn't in love with Dionysos would have gone through the effort of putting together something this madly ambitious.

Warning: Extremely NSFW.

I was able to dig up an article about the theater company, in case you were as curious as I was.  Now visiting this theater is a new travel goal of mine.

Activities for Lenaia

Lenaia falls on January 25-28th this year.  It will be my 11th year observing!  Here’s some ideas for celebrating and observing that I came up with for my students.

• Watch Dionysian-themed movies and plays 

• Mix wine with water for both drinking and offering (You could do this throughout the festival, although typically I only do it during my formal rites on the last day)

• Set up a mask on a pillar to represent Dionysos - decorate with draping cloth, lights, ivy, etc - put an offering bowl in front of it to pour libations into

• Say prayers to the nymphs, nurses, and Lenai/Maenads

• Say prayers to Persephone and Semele who birthed Dionysos

• Have a procession through nature and/or through your city - pour out offerings of wine onto the earth to find their way to the Underworld

• Connect with the land spirits - ask for the their permission and help in calling forth Dionysos’ blessings to the land, and in preparing for Anthesteria

• Visit a vineyard so that you can taste how Dionysos manifests in the grapes of your region - whisper prayers to the dormant grape vines while you're there

• Make feast foods - give portions to the gods and spirits 

• Play music

• Ask Dionysos to speak to you through music and put your music on shuffle - dance to whatever comes up

• Dance like you're seducing the god 

• Dance like the spring depends on it

• Rattle, blow a bull horn, swing a bull-roarer, ring bells, play drums

• Call on Dionysos as "Iacchos" and "Son of Semele"

• Get a wicker basket (Liknon), place symbols of fertility within it, and leave it veiled until the last day of the festival or your final rites

• Stare into the eyes of the mask until you think you're going mad

• Scry into a bowl of wine and water that’s been blessed

• Make a mask

• Make a thyrsos

• Make devotional art

• Weave an ivy crown to wear during the festival

• Burn herbs, especially evergreens and resins and aromatics (pine, rosemary, copal, frankincense, myrrh, mint, juniper, citrus peel, sage)

• Pay attention to omens and messages in nature, music, everyday life

• Draw the Greek delta symbol (a triangle) in snow, in chalk, in the earth, etc as a gateway through which Dionysos will emerge come Anthesteria (borrowed from Sannion)