Enactments of Power: The Politics of Performance Space

Abstract

realm of values, this was expressed through performance. The community learned and passed its moral codes and aesthetic judgments through narratives, dances, theatre, rituals, music, games, and sports. With the emergence of the state, the artist and the state become not only rivals in articulating the laws, moral or formal, that regulate life in society, but also rivals in determining the manner and circumstances of their delivery. This is best expressed in Plato's dialogue: The Laws. The Athenian describes how they, as the representatives of the state, must respond should the tragic poets come to their city and ask for permission to perform: