I wonder if any of the Ginner-Mawer Dancers mimed playing the musical instruments used in ancient Greece? The students would mime the ancient weapons used by Greek warriors, so I would expect that they also mimed the playing of musical instruments.
Two famous stringed instruments of ancient Greece are the lyre and the kithara. They look a bit like harps, but are held in your lap, rather than stand on the floor.
By looking at vase paintings which have survived through the centuries, we can see that the lyre was most commonly played by men, though women did play it in private in religious or artistic settings.
Certainly, the goddesses of the arts were associated with the lyre and similar instruments. We get our modern term for someone who provides artistic inspiration, ‘muse’, from ancient Greece. Originally, there were nine goddesses who were the muses of literature, science, and the arts. One of them was called Terpsichore and she was the muse of dance (so Miss Ginner may have felt an affinity with her), while Miss Mawer may have been inspired by Erato, who was the muse of Lyric Poetry – right up Miss Mawer’s street!
The image attached to this blog post is generated by Ai. Do you think it is a fair image of a dancer from ancient Greece? It generated two types of foliage, which I think are the olive branch and the laurel wreath, plus a stringed instrument. And what about the dancer? Is she an Ancient Greek – or just a pretty lady who is moving gracefully? I would be pleased to know what you think.