Baroque dance
Encyclopedia
Baroque dance is dance
of the Baroque
era (roughly 1600–1750), closely linked with Baroque music
, theatre and opera.
s, such as those in the many editions of Playford's
The Dancing Master
. Playford only gives the floor patterns of the dances, with no indication of the steps. However other sources of the period, such as the writings of the French dancing-masters Feuillet
and Lorin, indicate that steps more complicated than simple walking were used at least some of the time.
English country dance survived well beyond the Baroque era and eventually spread in various forms across Europe and its colonies, and to all levels of society. See the article on English country dance
for more information.
The great innovations in dance in the 17th century originated at the French court under Louis XIV
, and it is here that we see the first clear stylistic ancestor of classical ballet
. The same basic technique was used both at social events, and as theatrical dance in court ballets and at public theaters. The style of dance is commonly known to modern scholars as the French noble style or belle danse (French, literally "beautiful dance"), however it is often referred to casually as baroque dance in spite of the existence of other theatrical and social dance styles during the baroque era.
Primary sources include more than three hundred choreographies in Beauchamp-Feuillet notation
, as well as manuals by Raoul Auger Feuillet
and Pierre Rameau
in France, Kellom Tomlinson and John Weaver
in England, and Gottfried Taubert in Germany. This wealth of evidence has allowed modern scholars and dancers to recreate the style, although areas of controversy still exist. The standard modern introduction is Hilton.
French dance types include:
The English, working in the French style, added their own hornpipe
to this list.
Many of these dance types are familiar from baroque music, perhaps most spectacularly in the stylized suite
s of J. S. Bach
. Note however, that the allemande
s, that occur in these suites do not correspond to a French dance from the same period.
was widespread, but as time progressed, French ballroom dances such as the minuet were widely adopted at fashionable courts. Beyond this, the evolution and cross-fertilisation of dance styles is an area of ongoing research.
, it wasn't until the mid-20th century that serious scholarship commenced in deciphering the notation and reconstructing the dances.
Perhaps best known among these pioneers was Britain's Melusine Wood, who published several books on historical dancing in the 1950s. Miss Wood passed her research on to her student Belinda Quirey, and also to Pavlova Company ballerina & choreographer Mary Skeaping (1902–1984). The latter became well known for her reconstructions of baroque ballets for London's "Ballet for All" company in the 1960s.
The leading figures of the second generation of historical dance research include Shirley Wynne and her Baroque Dance Ensemble which was founded at Ohio State University in the early 1970s and Wendy Hilton (1931–2002), a student of Belinda Quirey who supplemented the work of Melusine Wood with her own research into original sources. A native of Britain, Hilton arrived in the U.S. in 1969 joining the faculty of the Juilliard School
in 1972 and establishing her own baroque dance workshop at Stanford University
in 1974 which endured for more than 25 years.
Catherine Turocy began her studies in Baroque dance in 1971 as a student of dance historian Shirley Wynne. She founded The New York Baroque Dance Company (http://www.nybaroquedance.org/) in 1976 with Ann Jacoby, and the company has since toured internationally. In 1982/83 as part of the French national celebration of Jean Philippe Rameau's 300th birthday, Turocy choreographed the first production of Jean-Philippe Rameau
's Les Boréades - it was never performed during the composer's lifetime. This French supported production with John Eliot Gardiner, conductor, and his Orchestra was directed by Jean Louis Martinoty. Ms. Turocy has been decorated as Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
by the French government.
In 1973, French dance historian Francine Lancelot
(1929–2003) began her formal studies in ethnomusicology which later lead her to researching French traditional dance forms and eventually Renaissance and Baroque dances. In 1980, at the invitation of the French Minister of Culture, she founded the baroque dance company "Ris et Danceries". Her work in choreographing the landmark 1986 production of Lully
's 1676 tragedie-lyrique Atys
was part of the national celebration of the 300th anniversary of Lully's death. This production propelled the career of William Christie
and his ensemble Les Arts Florissants
. Since the Ris et Danseries company was disbanded circa 1993, choreographers from the company have continued with their own work. Béatrice Massin with her "Compagnie Fetes Galantes", along with Marie Genevieve Massé and her company "L'Eventail" are among the most prominent. In 1986 Francine Lancelot's catalogue raisonné
of baroque dance, entitled "La Belle Dance" was published.
Dance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
of the Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
era (roughly 1600–1750), closely linked with Baroque music
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
, theatre and opera.
English country dance
The majority of surviving choreographies from the period are English country danceEnglish Country Dance
English Country Dance is a form of folk dance. It is a social dance form, which has earliest documented instances in the late 16th century. Queen Elizabeth I of England is noted to have been entertained by "Country Dancing," although the relationship of the dances she saw to the surviving dances of...
s, such as those in the many editions of Playford's
John Playford
John Playford was a London bookseller, publisher, minor composer, and member of the Stationers' Company, who published books on music theory, instruction books for several instruments, and psalters with tunes for singing in churches...
The Dancing Master
The Dancing Master
The Dancing Master is a dancing manual containing the music and instructions for English Country Dances. It was published in several editions by John Playford and his successors from 1651 until c1728...
. Playford only gives the floor patterns of the dances, with no indication of the steps. However other sources of the period, such as the writings of the French dancing-masters Feuillet
Raoul Auger Feuillet
Raoul Auger Feuillet was a French dance notator, publisher and choreographer most well-known today for his Chorégraphie, ou l'art de décrire la danse which described Beauchamp-Feuillet notation, and his subsequent collections of ballroom and theatrical dances, which included his own...
and Lorin, indicate that steps more complicated than simple walking were used at least some of the time.
English country dance survived well beyond the Baroque era and eventually spread in various forms across Europe and its colonies, and to all levels of society. See the article on English country dance
English Country Dance
English Country Dance is a form of folk dance. It is a social dance form, which has earliest documented instances in the late 16th century. Queen Elizabeth I of England is noted to have been entertained by "Country Dancing," although the relationship of the dances she saw to the surviving dances of...
for more information.
The French Noble style
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
, and it is here that we see the first clear stylistic ancestor of classical ballet
Classical ballet
Classical Ballet is the most formal of the ballet styles, it adheres to traditional ballet technique. There are variations relating to area of origin, such as Russian ballet, French ballet, British ballet and Italian ballet...
. The same basic technique was used both at social events, and as theatrical dance in court ballets and at public theaters. The style of dance is commonly known to modern scholars as the French noble style or belle danse (French, literally "beautiful dance"), however it is often referred to casually as baroque dance in spite of the existence of other theatrical and social dance styles during the baroque era.
Primary sources include more than three hundred choreographies in Beauchamp-Feuillet notation
Beauchamp-Feuillet notation
Beauchamp–Feuillet notation is a system of dance notation used in Baroque dance.The notation was commissioned by Louis XIV , and devised in the 1680s by Pierre Beauchamp. It was published in 1700 by Raoul-Auger Feuillet, who began a programme of publishing notated dances...
, as well as manuals by Raoul Auger Feuillet
Raoul Auger Feuillet
Raoul Auger Feuillet was a French dance notator, publisher and choreographer most well-known today for his Chorégraphie, ou l'art de décrire la danse which described Beauchamp-Feuillet notation, and his subsequent collections of ballroom and theatrical dances, which included his own...
and Pierre Rameau
Pierre Rameau
Pierre Rameau , was the French dancing master to Elisabetta Farnese, and the author of two books that now provide us with valuable information about Baroque dance....
in France, Kellom Tomlinson and John Weaver
John Weaver
John Weaver was an English dancer and choreographer, and is often regarded as the father of English pantomime....
in England, and Gottfried Taubert in Germany. This wealth of evidence has allowed modern scholars and dancers to recreate the style, although areas of controversy still exist. The standard modern introduction is Hilton.
French dance types include:
- BourréeBourréeThe bourrée is a dance of French origin common in Auvergne and Biscay in Spain in the 17th century. It is danced in quick double time, somewhat resembling the gavotte. The main difference between the two is the anacrusis, or upbeat; a bourrée starts on the last beat of a bar, creating a...
- CanarieCanarie (dance)The canarie is a fast dance from the Renaissance and Baroque eras. It was in 3/8 or 6/8 meter. The dance was named for the Canary Islands, the dance's place of origin. Also called canario, it was an energetic dance that featured jumps, stamping of the feet and violent movement, accompanied by...
(canary) - ChaconneChaconneA chaconne ; is a type of musical composition popular in the baroque era when it was much used as a vehicle for variation on a repeated short harmonic progression, often involving a fairly short repetitive bass-line which offered a compositional outline for variation, decoration, figuration and...
- (French) couranteCouranteThe courante, corrente, coranto and corant are some of the names given to a family of triple metre dances from the late Renaissance and the Baroque era....
- Entrée grave
- Forlane (forlana)
- GavotteGavotteThe gavotte originated as a French folk dance, taking its name from the Gavot people of the Pays de Gap region of Dauphiné, where the dance originated. It is notated in 4/4 or 2/2 time and is of moderate tempo...
- GigueGigueThe gigue or giga is a lively baroque dance originating from the British jig. It was imported into France in the mid-17th century and usually appears at the end of a suite...
- LoureLoureThe loure, also known as the gigue lente or slow gigue, is a French Baroque dance, probably originating in Normandy and named after the sound of the instrument of the same name ....
(slow gigue) - MenuetMinuetA minuet, also spelled menuet, is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in 3/4 time. The word was adapted from Italian minuetto and French menuet, and may have been from French menu meaning slender, small, referring to the very small steps, or from the early 17th-century popular...
(minuet) - MusetteBal-musetteBal-musette is a style of French music and dance that first became popular in Paris in the 1880s.Auvergnats settled in large numbers in the 5th, 11th, and 12th districts of Paris during the 19th century, opening cafés and bars where patrons danced the bourrée to the accompaniment of musette de...
- PassacaillePassacagliaThe passacaglia is a musical form that originated in early seventeenth-century Spain and is still used by contemporary composers. It is usually of a serious character and is often, but not always, based on a bass-ostinato and written in triple metre....
(passacaglia) - PassepiedPassepiedThe passepied is a 17th- and 18th-century dance that originated in Brittany. The term can also be used to describe the music to which a passepied is set...
- RigaudonRigaudonThe rigaudon is a French baroque dance with a lively duple metre. The music is similar to that of a bourrée, but the rigaudon is rhythmically simpler with regular phrases ....
- SarabandeSarabandeIn music, the sarabande is a dance in triple metre. The second and third beats of each measure are often tied, giving the dance a distinctive rhythm of quarter notes and eighth notes in alternation...
- TambourinTambourinA tambourin is a piece of music that imitates a drum, usually as a repetitive not-very-melodic figure in the bass.A tambourin itself is a small, two-headed drum of Arabic origin, mentioned as early as the 1080s . It was played together with a small flute .A tambourin, as a dance, hails from Provence...
The English, working in the French style, added their own hornpipe
Hornpipe
The term hornpipe refers to any of several dance forms played and danced in Britain and elsewhere from the late 17th century until the present day. It is said that hornpipe as a dance began around the 16th century on English sailing vessels...
to this list.
Many of these dance types are familiar from baroque music, perhaps most spectacularly in the stylized suite
Suite
In music, a suite is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral pieces normally performed in a concert setting rather than as accompaniment; they may be extracts from an opera, ballet , or incidental music to a play or film , or they may be entirely original movements .In the...
s of J. S. Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
. Note however, that the allemande
Allemande
An allemande is one of the most popular instrumental dance forms in Baroque music, and a standard element of a suite...
s, that occur in these suites do not correspond to a French dance from the same period.
Theatrical dance
The French noble style was danced both at social events and by professional dancers in theatrical productions such as opera-ballets and court entertainments. However, 18th century theatrical dance had at least two other styles: comic or grotesque, and semi-serious. h.j.Other social dance styles
Other dance styles, such as the Italian and Spanish dances of the period are much less well studied than either English country dance or the French style. The general picture seems to be that during most of the 17th century, a style close to that of late Renaissance danceRenaissance dance
Renaissance dances belong to the broad group of historical dances.During the Renaissance period, there was a distinction between country dances and court dances. Court dances required the dancers to have been trained and were often for display and entertainment, whereas country dances could be...
was widespread, but as time progressed, French ballroom dances such as the minuet were widely adopted at fashionable courts. Beyond this, the evolution and cross-fertilisation of dance styles is an area of ongoing research.
Modern reconstructions
The revival of baroque music in the 1960s and '70s sparked renewed interest in 17th and 18th century dance styles. While some 300 of these dances had been preserved in Beauchamp-Feuillet notationBeauchamp-Feuillet notation
Beauchamp–Feuillet notation is a system of dance notation used in Baroque dance.The notation was commissioned by Louis XIV , and devised in the 1680s by Pierre Beauchamp. It was published in 1700 by Raoul-Auger Feuillet, who began a programme of publishing notated dances...
, it wasn't until the mid-20th century that serious scholarship commenced in deciphering the notation and reconstructing the dances.
Perhaps best known among these pioneers was Britain's Melusine Wood, who published several books on historical dancing in the 1950s. Miss Wood passed her research on to her student Belinda Quirey, and also to Pavlova Company ballerina & choreographer Mary Skeaping (1902–1984). The latter became well known for her reconstructions of baroque ballets for London's "Ballet for All" company in the 1960s.
The leading figures of the second generation of historical dance research include Shirley Wynne and her Baroque Dance Ensemble which was founded at Ohio State University in the early 1970s and Wendy Hilton (1931–2002), a student of Belinda Quirey who supplemented the work of Melusine Wood with her own research into original sources. A native of Britain, Hilton arrived in the U.S. in 1969 joining the faculty of the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...
in 1972 and establishing her own baroque dance workshop at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
in 1974 which endured for more than 25 years.
Catherine Turocy began her studies in Baroque dance in 1971 as a student of dance historian Shirley Wynne. She founded The New York Baroque Dance Company (http://www.nybaroquedance.org/) in 1976 with Ann Jacoby, and the company has since toured internationally. In 1982/83 as part of the French national celebration of Jean Philippe Rameau's 300th birthday, Turocy choreographed the first production of Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François...
's Les Boréades - it was never performed during the composer's lifetime. This French supported production with John Eliot Gardiner, conductor, and his Orchestra was directed by Jean Louis Martinoty. Ms. Turocy has been decorated as Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
by the French government.
In 1973, French dance historian Francine Lancelot
Francine Lancelot
Francine Lancelot was a French dancer, choreographer and dance historian. She was a pioneer in the revival of French baroque dance. Through her dance company, Ris et Danceries she created many magnificent performances including Bal à la cour, Tempore et misura, and the tragédie lyrique Atys by...
(1929–2003) began her formal studies in ethnomusicology which later lead her to researching French traditional dance forms and eventually Renaissance and Baroque dances. In 1980, at the invitation of the French Minister of Culture, she founded the baroque dance company "Ris et Danceries". Her work in choreographing the landmark 1986 production of Lully
Jean-Baptiste Lully
Jean-Baptiste de Lully was an Italian-born French composer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He is considered the chief master of the French Baroque style. Lully disavowed any Italian influence in French music of the period. He became a French subject in...
's 1676 tragedie-lyrique Atys
Atys (Lully)
Atys is a tragédie en musique in a prelude and five acts by Jean-Baptiste Lully to a French-language libretto by Philippe Quinault based on Ovid's Fasti. It was premiered at the royal court in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, January 10, 1676...
was part of the national celebration of the 300th anniversary of Lully's death. This production propelled the career of William Christie
William Christie (musician)
William Lincoln Christie is an American-born French conductor and harpsichordist. He is noted as a specialist in baroque repertoire and as the founder of the ensemble Les Arts Florissants....
and his ensemble Les Arts Florissants
Les Arts Florissants (ensemble)
Les Arts Florissants is a Baroque musical ensemble in residence at the Théâtre de Caen in Caen, France. The organization was founded by conductor William Christie in 1979. The ensemble derives its name from the 1685 opera by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. The organization consists of a chamber orchestra...
. Since the Ris et Danseries company was disbanded circa 1993, choreographers from the company have continued with their own work. Béatrice Massin with her "Compagnie Fetes Galantes", along with Marie Genevieve Massé and her company "L'Eventail" are among the most prominent. In 1986 Francine Lancelot's catalogue raisonné
Catalogue raisonné
The typical catalogue raisonné is a monograph giving a comprehensive catalogue of artworks by an artist.The essential elements of a catalogue raisonné are that it purports to be an exhaustive list of works for a defined subject matter describing the works in a way so that they may be reliably...
of baroque dance, entitled "La Belle Dance" was published.
External links
- BaroqueDance.info background information, period dancing manuals, and a large collection of links.
- The Calendar of Early Dance information about upcoming baroque events, choreographies and photos galleries