Leading ARIELA, LLC is its dynamic Company President, Dr. Bella Vivante, Professor Emerita of Classics, The University of Arizona.

Every aspect of this company is in Bella’s blood. She has been a multi-lingual world traveler since her earliest years, having lived in 3 different countries and speaking that many languages before moving to the States and learning English at age 4-1/2.Her interest in travel and learning about other cultures and their languages has expanded over the years.

Travel Bio

Bella has led numerous study tours through Greece and Turkey under the auspices of several American universities, the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Greece, as Study Leader for Smithsonian Journeys, and as an independent contractor. As a result of these travels, she is well familiar with the major attractions in the following locations:

Greece

• Athens & environs; Delphi
• Peloponnesos: Corinth, Mycenae, Epidauros, Olympia, Sparta, Kalamata, Pylos, Patras
• Northern Greece: Meteora, Thessaloniki, Pella, Vergina, Dion, Dimini
• Islands: Aegina, Crete, Santorini, Paros, Naxos, Mykonos, Delos, Samos, Kos, Rhodes, Lesbos, Samothrace

Turkey

• Istanbul and Ankara
• West coast: Gallipoli, Troy, Pergamum, Ephesus, Priene, Miletus, Didyma, Bodrun
• Southern coast and central: Aphrodisias, Termessos, Antalya, Cappadocia, Konya, Çatal Höyük

Performance Bio

Bella studied acting professionally in New York City—the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Martha Graham School of Dance. She has performed on community and professional stages, including roles in Ancient Greek—Agave in Euripides’ Bacchae, Helen in his Trojan Women, and Creusa in his Ion. She has written lively translations of two ancient Greek plays—Euripides’ Helen published in Women on the Edge: Four Plays by Euripides, and Aristophanes’ Women at Demeter’s Thesmophoria Festival, which she directed in two public staged readings in Tucson, AZ and before an international audience in San Antonio, TX. Bella wrote the script for and performed the lead role in the DVD Women, Marriage and the Family, produced by the Paideia Project. And she is an avid folk dancer.

Academic Bio

Bella first became interested in ancient Greek mythology in the third grade. Through a lengthy, circuitous journey that included more travels and living abroad, receiving a B.A. in French and American Drama at Columbia University, she ultimately returned to this early interest by earning her Ph.D. in Classics (Ancient Greek) and Humanities at Stanford University. She has over three decades experience as a university professor of Classics (Ancient Greek and Latin) and Humanities at Emory University, The University of Arizona, and as Hennebach Distinguished Visiting Professor of Humanities at the Colorado School of Mines.

She has lectured nationally and internationally to diverse audiences at numerous American, Canadian and Swedish universities, and she has led workshops and taught courses from elementary to adult continuing education students.

Academics and the General Public

Since her graduate school days, Bella has always shared her professional expertise and academic activity with the general public. These include presentations on some aspect of ancient Greek culture—at the opening of Judy Chicago’s “The Dinner Table” at the San Francisco Museum of Art; at Martin Luther King events at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, GA; at art museums, bookstores and other community settings in numerous cities across the U.S.

Publications

Bella has numerous publications aimed at general audiences, that include articles in Blackwell’s, Oxford, Pauly-Wissowa and Routledge Encyclopedias on Women, Ancient History and Greek Tragedy, while many of her scholarly articles also have general appeal:

Scriptwriter and Lead Performer in Women, Marriage and the Family in Ancient Greece, DVD (Paideia Project, 2012)

Author, Daughters of Gaia: Women in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Praeger Publishers, hardcover 2007; University of Oklahoma Press, paper 2008)

Author, The Female Angle: Women’s Lives in Ancient Civilizations (Colorado School of Mines Journal Monograph 2010)

Author and Editor, Events That Changed Ancient Greece (Greenwood Press 2002)

Author and Editor, Women’s Roles in Ancient Civilizations: A Reference Guide (Greenwood Press 1999)

Author, Translation, Introduction & Commentary of Euripides’ Helen, in Women on the Edge: Four Plays by Euripides, co-ed. w/ R. Blondell, et al. (Routledge 1999)

“Helen’s Gaze: Helen as Polysemous Icon in Robert Wise’s Helen of Troy and Michael Cacoyannis’ Trojan Women,” in K. Nikoloutsis, ed., Ancient Greek Women on Film, pp. 19-50 (Oxford University Press 2013)

“The Primal Mind: Using Native American Models to Study Women in Ancient Greece,” in N.S. Rabinowitz & A. Richlin, eds., Feminist Theory and the Classics, pp. 145-180 (Routledge 1993)

“The Only Women Who Give Birth to Men: Women in Ancient Sparta,” in M. DeForest, ed., Woman’s Power, Man’s Game: Essays on Classical Antiquity in Honor of Joy King, pp. 32-53 (Bolchazy-Carducci 1993)

“The Mute Nude Female Character in Aristophanes’ Plays,” in A. Richlin, ed., Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome, pp. 73-89 (Oxford University Press 1992)

“Paean to Helen,” Woman/Spirit 28, pp. 23-25 (Summer 1981)

“Drawing from Mythology in Women’s Quests for Selfhood,” in C. Spretnak, ed., The Politics of Women’s Spirituality, pp. 138-151 (Doubleday 1981)