The Bibasis (Ancient Greek: βίβασις, romanized: bíbasis) was a common dance in ancient Sparta, which was much practised both by men and women. 1
History
The Bibasis, a dance of men and women, was of the gymnastic kind. The dance consisted in springing rapidly from the ground, and striking the feet behind; a feat of which the Spartan woman Lampito, in the Lysistrata of Aristophanes, prides herself. She derives her strength and her beauty essentially from this exercise. 1
μάλα γ' οἰῶ, ναὶ τὼ σιώ· γυμνάδδομαί γα καὶ ποτὶ πυγὰν ἅλλομαι.It's true, I think, by the Twin Gods. I do take exercise, and I jump-kick my butt.
The dance consisted in kicking one's own buttocks, to music, as rapidly as possible. The number of successful strokes was counted, and the most skilful received prizes in competitions. We are told by a verse from an epigram, which has been preserved by Pollux, that a Laconian girl had won by dancing the Bibasis a thousand times, which was more than had ever been done before. 1
χήλι' ἅδε ποκὰ βίβαντι, πλεῖστα δὴ τᾶν πήποκα.This girl once jumped a thousand times, the most ever. 1
The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Bibasis (dance)”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. 1
Bibasis is Dance at ancient Sparta, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. 2
