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CHORUS

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Logo for the network CHORUS, ancient drama receptions

CHORUS is a network of researchers working on receptions of ancient Greek and Roman performance texts, including ancient comedy, tragedy, satyr plays, pantomime, and epic poetry. Reception is taken here as the creative process of making something new out of one or more ancient sources (a new performance, dance, translation, film adaptation etc).

The network was born of a collective awareness that studying receptions of ancient drama is a transnational effort, which thrives on confronting academic and creative traditions, methodologies, and concepts. Every year a two-day colloquium, held in March/April, brings together researchers who share their work-in-progress or address the annual topic, highlighting circulations, contaminations, and the diversity of contexts and formats in which the ancient sources find new meanings and forms. We are fortunate that a number of our members are themselves performers, dramaturgs, choreographers, dancers, and stage directors, ensuring exchanges between scholarship and performance.

CHORUS members

CHORUS aims to open a space for discussion, exchanges, and feedback by bringing together members from over 30 different institutions based in the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK. 

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A photograph of researchers sat around a conference table working on laptops
CHORUS 2023, Universidade de Lisboa / University of Lisbon
The first CHORUS colloquium was convened in Portugal and focussed on the theme of: Subversion and Entertainment

The CHORUS colloquium

CHORUS was founded by Cécile Dudouyt (Sorbonne Paris Nord), Sofia Frade (Lisboa), Tiphaine Karsenti (Nanterre Paris Ouest), and Fiona Macintosh (Oxford). Its first annual colloquium was held in Lisbon in 2023. It is co-funded by Pléiade (Sorbonne Paris Nord) and moves to a different member’s institution every year.

CHORUS' origins, the APGRD/HAR Symposia

CHORUS' origins can be traced to 2011, when Christian Biet (Nanterre Paris Ouest Histoire des Arts et des Représentations) and Fiona Macintosh (APGRD, University of Oxford) created an annual symposium between their two research centres to foster multilingual exchanges at the intersection between theatre studies and reception studies, these symposia were co-organised by Cécile Dudouyt and Tiphaine Karsenti.

The APGRD/HAR symposia - on chorality/choralité, epic/épique and classic/classique - each threw into relief the differences between concepts across languages. These conferences soon became a source of inspiration both for individual and for collective research, not only in French and English, but, because of the diversity of researchers in both research centres, in many different languages and countries.

PDF Programmes of the 2011-2022 APGRD/HAR Symposia:

Contact CHORUS

The CHORUS organisation committee can be contacted at receptionchorus@gmail.com