Dance of the Seven Veils

For other uses, see Seven Veils (disambiguation).
Dance of Salome. Armand Point, 1898[1]

The Dance of the Seven Veils is the dance performed by Salome before King Herod Antipas in modern stage, literature, and visual arts.[2] It is an elaboration on the New Testament story of the Feast of Herod and the execution of John the Baptist, which refers to Salome dancing before the king, but does not give the dance a name.

The name "Dance of the Seven Veils" was chiefly popularized in modern culture with the 1894 English translation of Oscar Wilde's 1893 French play Salome in the stage direction "Salome dances the dance of the seven veils".[3] The dance was also incorporated into Richard Strauss's 1905 opera Salome.

  1. ^ "Point, Armand." Benezit Dictionary of Artists, Oxford Art Online, Oxford University Press. Retrieved 20 June 2014.
  2. ^ Bourne, Joyce. Bourne, Joyce. "Salome", A Dictionary of Opera Characters, Oxford University Press, January 2008 (subscription required)
  3. ^ Toni Bentley, Sisters of Salome, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 2005, pp. 30-36. ISBN 0-8032-6241-8