Roderyk Lange

Preface.

Lange, Roderyk: «Preface», Raftis, Alkis: Dances of the whole world on postage stamps. Athens, Dora Stratou Theatre, 1998 (reprinted in 2006).

Preface

It is 'well known that iconography plays a vital role in tracing dance

activities in the past. When there are no descriptions of the dance progression available, when no music survives the pictorial representations of dance scenes supply us at least with a visual record, proving, that certain dance activities existed. Even if a picture on its own does not convey the movement, one may deduce from it some information on the type and style of dancing during a certain period. For this reason iconography is a much respected source material in dance research.

Alkis Raftis has collected postal stamps with dance representations for a long time. This domain was until now quite neglected. It represents, though, an important document of the appreciation of dance in our time, and is an indication of the recognition of its growing status.

The author has drawn together extensive material in this publication, and catalogued it. For this labor of love future generations of dance researchers will certainly be grateful.

Roderyk Lange