Performance Power and the Art of the Aegean Bronze Age

Are we to believe that Late Minoan Crete was over-run with dancers and bull leapers? As Senta German shows, dancing and bull-leaping were the most prevalent themes of Late Bronze Age glyptic art although, aside from their demonstration of a social and perhaps symbolic activity, they also had a much deeper function in Late Minoan society. German examines archaeological and art-historical evidence and uses it to create a typology of performance art (performativty, performative art and social drama). She questions the role of gender, class and age as social categories within this art and concludes that the seals, as `vehicles of the value-laden message of performace at the palaces', were symbolic of power centred around palatial life.