Two of the most well-known aspects of mythical Ariadne are the way she betrays and is betrayed. Hers is the ultimate ancient Greek karma story. She casts off the burden of her father’s narcissism, her mother’s bewitchment, her half-brother’s torment. No one thinks she has it in her. But she does. In the thick night, she holds the thread for her lover while he makes his kill and flees with him into the dark open sea. Then, in the most vulnerable space between sleep and wakefulness, she finds herself abandoned. Here, on an island in the middle of nowhere, she cries out and is moved. Did the ancient Greeks tell this tale as warning for women, or advice?
What kind of woman would do what Ariadne did – leave everything – her inheritance, her kingdom, her role as a priestess – for the unknown other? Why would a daughter do that?
She wanted to exist.
I know a little about this. My betrayal of my father is not mythical, but rather, textual. I write about Ariadne and do not tell him about it. Although it was his love and knowledge of ancient Greece that introduced me to her, I claim her as my own and do not share. Over my lifetime, I followed the breadcrumbs left for me by inherited curiosity about the Greek myths. And then, I forswore the King who baked the bread.
Looking back, I can see this rejecting and reclaiming started with my budding womanhood. My father took me on a six-week trek through Turkey and Greece when I was 16 years old. He wanted to share his passion for the ancient culture with me. We lugged heavy duffel bags over our shoulders, stayed in hostels, and hitch hiked. On Paros, we rented a basement room in a small house. I often sat alone in the back garden, writing. One time, an old woman dressed completely in black entered the garden, seemingly from nowhere. She had a soft brown paper bag in her hands that was rumpled as if it had been lovingly used many times. She, repeated the same word over and over in Greek, motioning for me to open the paper bag. “Figs!” I said upon seeing the contents held within. The old woman nodded and repeated the word in Greek, gesturing to me to eat one. I didn’t think I liked figs but put one into my mouth politely. As my teeth cut through the skin, I felt as if an ancient elixir burst onto my tongue. The sweet nectar exploded in my mouth, syrupy, succulent, and mine. The old woman watched as I chewed the fruit and clapped her hands together, talking to herself in Greek as she walked away. I ate the whole bag of figs, and never told my father. My betrayal of him and his myth of us – of me – started with the figs and has grown larger ever since. As I became a person, I had to cut the thread that my father had wound around me. Even recently, after completing my thesis on a depth psychological analysis of Ariadne’s liminal immanence, I contemplated sending it to my father. I was walking with one of my childhood friends. She wagged her finger in my face, saying gently, “No. He’ll make it his.”
And what about my people, my kingdom? How have I betrayed them? My father took me to my first ballet performance and then to my first ballet class. According to him, I came out of the womb dancing, and so it was. Dance became a way for me to be as great as him, or rather to serve his greatness. But from the beginning, something about me did not fit the dancer mold. I was not silent. Later, as a choreographer, I made talking dances where the dancers spoke. At the height of my career, the Los Angeles Times said I was “the Diane Keaton of dance – quirky, endearing, and eminently watchable.” My “quirk” confounded audiences and critics alike. The San Francisco Chronicle said I should “talk less and dance more.”
What did I want? To be seen or heard? I couldn’t have both.
And so, in my mid-forties, after a lifetime of trying to bend dance to my existence, I bent my existence and transcended dance. I no longer believe in dance – or at least the kind of dance that most people think of as dance. I must admit, my entire body curdles when I see advertisements for dance performances with long sinewy bodies kicking and twirling. I have betrayed dance. But perhaps dance betrayed me. Like Ariadne, I awoke alone one day waving and cursing as dance sailed away. I hit my breast and screamed only for dance to perceive me! Yet it sailed on, and I was left with my own body, my own expression. There, I began writing my own myth, moving through my own labyrinth. It was not enough for me to be a side story to a father’s realm or a hero’s adventure.
Now, I sit in a small room with another human being and do a different kind of talking dance. While we converse, we place our heads in our hands, we rub our chests, we shake. Sometimes we lie on the floor and whisper. Sometimes, stomp our feet and yell. And something occurs on this small private island/stage that is far more beautiful than any grand performance, a divine human connection, a revelation of self. This is what can happen to a woman who betrays her father and her people: glorious bodily autonomy, radiant expression of voice, the power to see and listen to mortals who move and are moved by gods and goddesses.
Bio: Arianne MacBean a licensed marriage and family therapist in California with a certificate in somatic psychotherapies and practices at Synergy Somatic Psychotherapy She holds a BA in Dance from UCLA, a Double MFA in Dance and Critical Writing from CalArts, and an MA in Counseling Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her first book, Tough Shit – the angry woman’s guide to embodying change was published in Nov. 2025 by Tehom Center Publishing, which celebrates feminist, queer and BIPOC authors. Her essays have been published by Mutha Magazine, Nasty Women Writers Project, and the academic journal Dance Chronicle. You can find more of her writing on Substack @writebig
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