Byzantine Dancer

Dances were a major part of Byzantine daily life and culture; thus they were often performed in public during major days of celebration such as in Constantinople’s founding day (May 11) or when the Byzantine army returns victorious from battle. There were many types of dances in the Byzantine era, and some included ones where female dancers displayed a lot of movement. However, we do not know much about dances, and dancers, and dancers’ attire in the Byzantine Empire as historical sources written by Byzantine authors do no really record anything about everyday life in Byzantium, thus the limited evidence we have for Byzantine dancers come from illustrated manuscripts from their time such as the Paris Psalter manuscript which shows the Biblical king David of Israel glorified by women dressed as dancers from the Byzantine era. In this illustration, the dancer’s outfit was slightly based on the loose dresses the dancers in the manuscript mentioned earlier are seen wearing, however the outfit she wears in this illustration was based too on an existing illustration of a Byzantine dancer possibly in the 6th century wearing a dress very much like this. Unlike the dancers seen in the manuscript mentioned earlier, the one in this illustration and in the existing illustration it was based on wears a dress more revealing than in the manuscript which exposes both shoulders and upper chest as well as the legs as the cut is to allow the dancer more movement. It is known as well that Byzantine era dancers wore gold bands in their arms and ankles, hence the one in the illustration wears them with the addition of more accessories. Supposedly, this dancer in the illustration is the empress Theodora from the 6th century before she became empress and the wife of the emperor Justinian I the Great (r. 527-565). Before marrying Justinian in around 525, Theodora was an actress as well as dancer who according to the although biased Secret History of the historian of this time Procopius performed explicit acts on stage as an actress.
*
© Art by myself, 2022