Mimesis in Jacques Callot’s Etchings
(Ekaterina Mikhailova-Smolniakova)

Using Callot's images as a visual source for the early dance and Dell'arte Theater is a tradition dating back to the 17th century. Nowadays pictorial analysis of Callot's etchings is still on the agenda in the academic community doing research into the history of dance and theater.
The object of the research is the Hermitage museum's collection of sketches and etchings by Jacques Callot, one of the biggest collections of his works in the world. The main question of the research is: "How can we use Callot's etchings as a visual source of early dance and dell'arte practice in Italy"? The interrelation between actual practice and Callot's images is not obvious and needs investigation, which are going to be presented as well as the descriptive technic we can use in the similar cases.

Ekaterina Mikhailova-Smolniakova, St. Petersburg, Russland:

Ekaterina Mikhailova-Smolniakova has started the career in historical dances in 2001. The leader of the renaissance dance ensemble "Vento del Tempo", one of the leaders of St. Petersburg Historical Dance Club, the secretary of the Historical Dance Association, a member of the organizing committee of the annual conference considering the reconstruction of European historical dances of XIII-XX c., the author of the book "Dance of the Renaissance" (published in Russian in 2010). Main field of interests is the dance and festival culture of the Renaissance in the context of aesthetic of the period.