Quadrilles and Contredanses at the time of the Unification of Italy
(Maria Cristina Esposito)
"L'occhio naturale, la bocca ridente, le mani innocenti, i piedi ambiziosi..."
("Artless eye, mouth smiling, innocent hands, feet ambitious ...")
In Teramo's Provincial Library (Abruzzo, Southern Italy) four booklets of Quadrilles and Contredanses are kept: Nouveau recueil de contredanses françaises composées par Mr Antoine Mennilli, 1855; Noveau recueil de contredanses à l'usage moderne avec des annotations en italien, 1863 (a reissue of the first in substance); Abrégé de nouvelles règles aux amateurs de danse, 1875; Abrégé de contredanses, 1892. Their author, Antoine Mennilli, refers to himself as "maître de danse au Collège National de Teramo". The first two booklets display specific technical instructions, while the other two take for granted the knowledge of the main steps and figures, which are standardized, and present rules of social behavior with notions of dance for dames and gentlemen - we'll dance figures a huit, a douze, a seize, a vingt-quatre. Instructions about the music are not contained; probably these dances were accompanied by the music of the Collège National music teacher, M° Alfonso Cipollone. With the Seize Contre-danses Françaises à Seize pour les Amateurs de Danse du Maître François De Sanctis (Chieti, 1868), these booklets represent an example of documents about the provincial bourgeoisie's social dance in the Southern Italy at the time of the Unification of Italy (1861).
Maria Cristina Esposito, Chieti, Italien:
Degree in Greek and Latin Literature at the University of Chieti (Italy), she studied ballet at the National Academy of Dance (Rome), dedicating herself to the study of historical dance later. She directed the Early dance Course of the Historical Festival "Giostra Cavalleresca di Sulmona" (1994-2013), and coordinated the Dance laboratory of the Marrucino Theatre in Chieti (1998-2006), where she choreographed for opera productions. Member of AIRDanza (Rome) and the CID-Unesco (Paris), she participated in international conferences on research into dance in Italy, Spain, France.
