Bohemian Lion Enchanted: Italian Cinquecento and Seicento in the Czech Countries
(Katerina Klementova)

A portray of the cultural atmosphere in the Czech Countries of the Renaissance period which has been strongly influenced by the Italian dance culture. Already the dance-style of the Italian quattrocento was brought to this area thanks to rich cultural exchanges of Charles IV. and succeding emperors. The turn of the 16th/17th century can be considered as a „lucky period" for the Italian dance forms being enjoyed at courts and in towns as well. They were brought in by the Czech courtiers as a result of their trips and studies in Italy, simoultaneusly with the significant import of other Italian artists, archictects, writers, composers etc. under the patronage of Rudolf II. Particularly for dance, one of the copies of the Negri´s Nuove Inventioni di Balli (1604) was sent to the Imperial Court Counselor F.G. Trolius à Lessoth. The Prague Copy is maintained in the National Library of Prague up to these days. (Negri himself performed in front of the Emperor Maxmilian II., and later before Rudolf II, who seems to have personally invited him to Prague in order to teach dance at the Imperial court.)
The aforementioned period gave rise to lots of different dance oportunities: in 1555, an allegorical intermezzo in the Italian style was held in Pilsen, in 1659 a Prague performance of Jewish dancers and dancing mastres is known, as well as a pastoral „balletto" of 1662. One of the most famous theatre and dance events in the Italian style performed outside Italy, the „Phasma Dionysiacum Pragense" of 1617, will be shortly described. It´s a unique (and singularly well documented) performance held at the Prague Castle which libretto, scene descriptions, pictures and other documents remianed up to these days.

Katerina Klementova, Prag, Tschechische Republik:

Dancer, teacher and choreographer specialized in the dance of renaissance period. Studied and taught in Czech Republic, Italy, Russia. Works as a cultural researcher by the Ministry of Culture. Member and co-leader of the early dance group Chorea Historica, since 2011 member of the Committee of Early Music Society (CZ). Since 2008 a teacher of the International Summer School of Early Music, Valtice (CZ). In 2007 has founded the Czech branch of the Società di Danza, Italian Society focused on 19th Century Social Dance. 

Revealing the Genius – Re-creating Angiolini's Didone abbadonata
(Helena Kazárová)

In 1766 Gasparo Angiolini created in Russia one of his greatest master pieces: ballo tragico pantomimo La partenza d´Enea, ò sia Didone abbadonata. About seven years later (after its successful Italian premiere at Teatro di S. Benedetto in Venice in 1773 and the same year in Milan) he let his particello score to be printed in Naples. This became the main source for the re-creation of this great work, as under the lines of the Violino primo score one can read Angiolini's own detailed instructions of what is to happen on stage at the precise time (sometimes in a musical phrase, sometimes in one or two bars of music). My poster will show the research and artistic process, which lead to the contemporary world premiere of this piece at the Baroque Theatre of Český Krumlov Castle (Czech Republic) in the historically informed style of performance in the hand painted original decorations from 1766 and thus show the geniality of Angiolini as a composer of both music and the scenic idea of a story-telling ballet (ballet d´action or ballo pantomimo).

Helena Kazárová, Prag, Tschechische Republik:

Helena Kazárová, Ph.D. is a Professor at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (AMU), where she reads lectures on dance and ballet history, dance aesthetics and teaches early dances. She specialises in the reconstruction and revitalisation of dances from written and graphic notation, choreography and movement culture of the eighteenth century. In 1997 she founded Hartig Ensemble-Dances and Ballets of 3 Centuries (www.hartigensemble.cz, facebook/hartigensemble.cz), she has danced and created dances, or advised on period movement style and gesture for numerous performances, including Baroque dances for various music festivals, film and TV. She staged Rococo ballets and Baroque operas in the castle theatres at Český Krumlov and Mnichovo Hradiště and elsewhere. Her publications include two books (Barokní taneční formy/Baroque Dance Forms, AMU Praha 2005), Barokní balet ve střední Evropě/Baroque Ballet in Central Europe, AMU Praha 2008) and numerous historical and theoretical articles and studies namely on dance, ballet, and opera of the 17th-18th centuries. She is often invited to read papers at international conferences (most recently Stockholm and Oxford Universities).

All-involving dances of late 16th- and early 17th-century Italy and the persistence of propensities and ideas across lands and centuries
(John Gardiner-Garden)

This poster is intended as a companion to the dance evening by the same name. The poster offers background on the dances and explores their possible connection with the less formal final phase of a ball. It is noted how four of them are the last or second last dance in contemporary dance books, three are said to be dances for which the lady should remove her gloves, two are said to be ones where men tend to rush for partners, and two are said to usefully follow on to one other. It is noted that these dances did not involve hierarchy and etiquette being fully suspended, but that their mechanisms and figures provided for communal playfulness. The poster attempts to identify the main ideas and propensities that ran through these dances' mechanisms and figures, and to show how some of these same ideas and propensities can be found in dances across three centuries and across many lands—where some were again associated with the last phase in a ball and described at the end of dance manuals.

John Gardiner-Garden, Yarralumla, Australien:

Dr John Gardiner-Garden has studied/researched/performed and taught historical dancingof all eras for more than 25 years. He has led and played for dancing at over 1000 events, produced 12 dance books and 8 dance CDs. He is the director of the Earthly Delights Historical Dance Academy that runs regular classes, balls and festivals in Canberra, Australia. He has guest taught around Australia, North America and Europe, and will shortly before this symposium release a new multi-volume study of historical dance from 1400 to 1900. He's accompanied by his wife Aylwen, a respected historical costumer.

An architect at the service of the dance: Cesare Carlo Scaletta and his book
(Letizia Dradi)

Choregraphie ò vero l'arte di descrivere i balli per caratteri figure e segni demostrativi. Per mezzo dei quali si puol facilmente apprendere da se medemo tutte le sorte di Balli. Opera utilissima ai Maestri di Ballo, e a tutte le Persone che vogliono applicarsi al ballare. Opera di M. Feuillet maestro di ballo tradotta dal Francese in Italiano e presentata a Madama la Marchesa Donna Catterina Obizzi Calcagnini. Da Carlo Cesare Scaletta Patrizio Faentino. Faenza 24 ottobre 1717.
This manuscript, held at the Newberry Library in Chicago, is the translation in Italian language of the Chorégraphie ou l'art de décrire la danse by Raoul Auger Feuillet published in Paris in 1700.
The italian translator isn't a dancing master but a man of culture who dedicated this book to the Marchesa Caterina Obizzi Calcagnini, daughter of Tommaso Obizzi Marquis of Orciano and Alessandra Pecori a Florentine Countess. The Marchesa Obizzi was a well cultured woman and a poetess. Cesare Carlo Scaletta, also a nobleman from Faenza, lived between 1666 and 1744. He attended the University in Bologna studying mathematics and architecture. His translation is very precise and corresponds to the French edition. Unfortunately only two choreographies conclude the translation, both copied from the Chorégraphie by R.A. Feuillet. They are an Entrata a due the Entrée à deux for two men and the famous courtly dance La Bourgogne for a couple.
Just one year before the completion of the manuscript Caterina married the Marquis Carlo Cesare Calcagnini from Fusignano and to celebrate the wedding Ippolito Zanelli composes a collection of Canzoni and an opera, the Clizia, a pastoral scene performed as introduction to the Ballo delle Dame e dei Cavalieri, music composed by Antonio Toschi from Ferrara. The dance was practiced by the nobles on festive occasions and the translations by Cesare Carlo Scaletta confirms the presence and the spread of the French style in Italy ten years before the Gian Batista Dufort's Trattato del Ballo Nobile published in Napoli in 1728.

Letizia Dradi, Mailand, Italien:

Dancer and choreographer she began studying ancient dance in 1992. She studied Musical Paleography and Philology at the University of Cremona. She choreographed and danced in Europe, Asia and America with severals early music groups as La Petite Bande S. Kujiken, Le Concert des Nations J. Savall, Dowland Consort of J. Lindberg and Norsk Barokkorkester Oslo. She has presented his researchs at the Society of Dance History Scholars (United States), Dolmetsch Historical Dance Society (London), Vaganova Academy (Russia). She is very active in teaching dance from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century in the Conservatives and Music Schools.

Curating Italian Renaissance Research Papers: Preserving Secondary Sources for Future Research
(Nena Couch, Rachelle Tsachor)

With the passing in this new century of some of our pioneer dance historians such as Ingrid Brainard, Barbara Sparti, Julia Sutton, and Wendy Hilton, researchers are faced with the loss of a generation of knowledge transmitted directly through conferences, teaching, and personal contact. When those dance scholars or their designees have made institutional arrangements for their scholarly legacies, we have the opportunity to make their personal perspectives – beyond publication, presentation, performance, and teaching – available more widely to future researchers through preservation and access to their scholarly working papers. These papers may contain a wide variety of the kinds of materials that have led to the scholar's published works, but which may reveal the dance scholarly process as well as hold unpublished materials and ideas.
Based on the presenters' experience in curating Julia Sutton's research papers, this poster considers research papers as an inroad into scholarly thinking, looks at scholars as role models of deep understanding or as landmarks of research into Renaissance dance, and explores the ways in which we value and curate foundational scholars' thinking, research practices, and decision-making models. The practice of preserving scholarly papers, the curatorial decisions that must be made in evaluating papers for accession, and the role of the special collections library/archive in honoring the achievements of past scholars and at the same time making those papers accessible for new scholarship are placed in the larger context of the importance of scholarly papers in the record of historical dance research.

Nena Couch, Columbus, Ohio, USA:

Nena Couch (BA, MM George Peabody College; MLS Vanderbilt University) is Head, Thompson Library Special Collections, Curator of the Theatre Research Institute and Professor, Ohio State University. Publications include "Dance in La dama boba" (Comedia Performance), "Choreography and Cholera: The Extended Life of Dance Notation" (A Tyranny of Documents), and others. Awards include the Harvard Rothschild Fellowship for Research in Dance, and the Theatre Library Association Distinguished Service in Performing Arts Librarianship Award. She serves on the board of the Dance Heritage Coalition. 

Rachelle Tsachor, Chicago, Illinois, USA:

Rachelle Palnick Tsachor (BFA Juilliard; MA, CUNY; CMA); is Assistant Professor of Theatre Movement, at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her historical dance publications include chapters in Dover's Courtly Dance of the Renaissance; Gordon & Breach's Moving Notation and the Institute for Historical Dance Practice's Terpsichore 1450-1900. Her reconstruction of Nido d'Amore was the basis for Dancetime's video The Majesty of Renaissance Dance. Tsachor was associate editor of Dances for the Sun King: André Lorin's Livre de Contredance. She researches the bodily expression of emotions with Dr. Tal Shafir.