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

Baroque dance

Baroque dance is dance of the Baroque era , closely linked with Baroque music, theatre and opera.- English country dance :...

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Rameau's first book, Le Maître à Danser (1725, Paris), was a dance manual giving instruction on formal ballroom dancing in the French style. The first part covers posture, reverences, steps, and the ballroom minuet

Minuet

A 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...

, while the second part is concerned entirely with the use of the arms. His second book, Abbregé de la Nouvelle Methode (c1725, Paris), described a modified version of 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...

 and included several choreographies by Pécour in the new notation. While Rameau's notation was not generally adopted, his information about the shortcomings of Beauchamp-Feuillet notation provides dance historians with clarifications about the execution of the steps.

External links

The Library of Congress' An American Ballroom Companion

An American Ballroom Companion

An American Ballroom Companion is an online collection of over two hundred social dance manuals at the Library of Congress related to the period of cca. 1490--1920...

includes facsimiles of Rameau's works:

• Le Maître à Danser (1748 edition)
• Abbregé de la Nouvelle Methode