Contredanses of the Ferrère manuscript
(Carol Marsh)

The 1782 Ferrère manuscript contains several independent pantomime ballets, along with danced intermèdes that were inserted between the acts of contemporary French plays.  Notated contredanses were included in all of these entertainments, both as final dances (contredanses générales) to be performed by all the participants and as group dances for the corps de ballets that alternated with solos and duets for the protagonists.  Floor patterns—many of which are highly unusual—are carefully notated, and Baroque step names are included for some of the choreographies; thus this manuscript provides us with invaluable evidence for reconstructing theatrical contredanses in the second half of the eighteenth century. In this workshop we will work on two or three of the Ferrère contredanses.

Carol Marsh, Greensboro, North Carolina, USA

Carol G. Marsh has recently retired from the UNCG School of Music, where she taught music history and viola da gamba and was director of the Collegium Musicum.  She has been on the faculty at a number of early music workshops in North America and Europe, teaching both viol and Renaissance notation.  An internationally recognized authority on Baroque dance and dance notation, she has published extensively in this field and has lectured and given dance workshops at numerous universities in the US and abroad.  Two articles on the Ferrère manuscript appeared recently in The Grotesque Dancer on the Eighteenth-Century Stage: Gennaro Magri and His World (Studies in Dance History, 2005).