Dionysus is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre in ancient Greek religion and myth. He is also known as Bacchus by the Greeks. This name was later adopted by the Romans; the frenzy that he induces is bakkheia. As Eleutherios, his wine, music, and ecstatic dance free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. His thyrsus, a fennel-stem sceptre, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself.
In Greek mythology, maenads were the female followers of Dionysus and the most significant members of the Thiasus, the god's retinue. Their name literally translates as "raving ones". Maenads were known as Bassarids, Bacchae, or Bacchantes in Roman mythology after the penchant of the equivalent Roman god, Bacchus, to wear a bassaris or fox skin.
The Bacchae is an ancient Greek tragedy, written by the Athenian playwright Euripides during his final years in Macedonia, at the court of Archelaus I of Macedon. It premiered posthumously at the Theatre of Dionysus in 405 BC as part of a tetralogy that also included Iphigeneia at Aulis and Alcmaeon in Corinth, and which Euripides' son or nephew is assumed to have directed. It won first prize in the City Dionysia festival competition.
In Greek mythology, Pentheus was a king of Thebes. His father was Echion, the wisest of the Spartoi. His mother was Agave, the daughter of Cadmus, the founder of Thebes, and the goddess Harmonia. His sister was Epeiros.
In Greek mythology, Ino was a mortal queen of Boeotia, who after her death and transfiguration was worshiped as a goddess under her epithet Leucothea, the "white goddess." Alcman called her "Queen of the Sea", which, if not hyperbole, would make her a doublet of Amphitrite.
In Greek mythology, Agave was a princess of Thebes and the queen of the Maenads.
In Greek mythology, Tiresias was a blind prophet of Apollo in Thebes, famous for clairvoyance and for being transformed into a woman for seven years. He was the son of the shepherd Everes and the nymph Chariclo. Tiresias participated fully in seven generations in Thebes, beginning as advisor to Cadmus himself.
Cithaeron or Kithairon is a mountain and mountain range about sixteen kilometres long, in Central Greece. The range is the physical boundary between Boeotia in the north and Attica in the south. It is mainly composed of limestone and rises to 1,409 metres (4,623 ft). The north-east side of the range is formed by the mountain Pastra.
The Dionysia was a large festival in ancient Athens in honor of the god Dionysus, the central events of which were the theatrical performances of dramatic tragedies and, from 487 BC, comedies. It was the second-most important festival after the Panathenaia. The Dionysia actually consisted of two related festivals, the Rural Dionysia and the City Dionysia, which took place in different parts of the year. They were also an essential part of the Dionysian Mysteries.
The Dionysian Mysteries were a ritual of ancient Greece and Rome which sometimes used intoxicants and other trance-inducing techniques to remove inhibitions and social constraints, liberating the individual to return to a natural state. It also provided some liberation for men and women marginalized by Greek society, among which were slaves, outlaws, and non-citizens. In their final phase the Mysteries shifted their emphasis from a chthonic, underworld orientation to a transcendental, mystical one, with Dionysus changing his nature accordingly. By its nature as a mystery religion reserved for the initiated, many aspects of the Dionysian cult remain unknown and were lost with the decline of Greco-Roman polytheism; modern knowledge is derived from descriptions, imagery and cross-cultural studies.
The Bassarids is an opera in one act and an intermezzo, with music by Hans Werner Henze to an English libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, after Euripides's The Bacchae.
Omophagia, or omophagy is the eating of raw flesh. The term is of importance in the context of the cult worship of Dionysus.
Sparagmos is an act of rending, tearing apart, or mangling, usually in a Dionysian context.
Brad Mays is an independent filmmaker and stage director, living and working in Los Angeles, California.
Lorenda Starfelt was an independent film producer, as well as a committed political activist and blogger who notably dug up president Barack Obama's birth announcement in an August 1961 edition of The Honolulu Advertiser while researching her documentary on the 2008 presidential election, The Audacity of Democracy.
Kim Weild is a Drama Desk Award-nominated American theatre director, educator, writer, actor and choreographer.
Dionysus in '69 is a 1970 film by Brian De Palma, Robert Fiore and Bruce Rubin. The film records a performance of The Performance Group's stage play of the same name, an adaptation of The Bacchae. It was entered into the 20th Berlin International Film Festival.
Dionysus in 69 was a theatrical production directed and conceived by Richard Schechner, founder and longtime artistic director of the Performance Group (TPG), a New York-based experimental theater troupe. An adaptation of The Bacchae by Greek playwright Euripides, Dionysus in 69 was an example of Schechner's practice of site-specific theatre, utilizing space and the audience in such ways as to bring them in close contact with each other. Dionysus in 69 challenged notions of the orthodox theater by deconstructing Euripides' text, interpolating text and action devised by the performers, and involving the spectators in an active and sensory artistic experience. Brian de Palma, Bruce Joel Rubin, and Robert Fiore made a film of Dionysus, merging footage from the final two performances of the play in June and July 1969.
The Bacchantes is a 1961 adventure-fantasy film directed by Giorgio Ferroni. It is loosely based on the Euripides' tragedy The Bacchae.
The Gods of Comedy is a play by American playwright Ken Ludwig. It was first produced as a co-production between McCarter Theatre and Old Globe Theatre. It was directed by Amanda Dehnert, with Scenic Design by Jason Sherwood, Costume Design by Linda Roethke, Wig and Makeup Design by Carissa Thorlakson, Lighting Design by Brian Gale, Sound Design by Darron L West, Illusion Design by Jim Steinmeyer and Choreography by Ellenore Scott. It opened at McCarter Theatre on March 16, 2019 and at Old Globe Theatre on May 16, 2019.
