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"Italiens Tanzikone: Die tarantella als Metapher eines utopischen Arkadiens von der Grand Tour bis zum Posttourismus"
(Fenger, Josephine)

Wie kein anderes kulturelles Phänomen verkörperte die tarantella „napoletana"die Utopie Arkadien. Für viele Grand Touristen war Neapel der südlichste Punkt ihrer Reise; in dem ekstatischen Volkstanz mit der Faszination des „Archaischen" schien sich für sie die Grenze ihrer Zivilisation zu manifestieren. Seit dem späten 18. Jahrhundert erreichte die Tarantella zunächst durch Reiseberichte europaweite Bekanntheit und künstlerischen Einfluss: als musikalischer oder choreographischer Bezugspunkt und als Metapher in Literatur und Drama für Krise, Entgrenzung und Erneuerung und die Identifikation mit der mediterranen Kultur. Die komplexe Entwicklungsgeschichte der unter dem Dachterminus Tarantella bezeichneten Tanzvarianten und die rezeptionsästhetische Erwartungshaltung der Reisenden gegenüber dem deshalb stark semantisch „aufgeladenen" Tanz begünstigten seine Mythifizierung. Zugleich als modischer „Nationaltanz" und fremdidealisierter Tanz eines utopischen „Südenorts" propagiert, zum Salon- und inszenierten Schautanz – einem touristischen „must-see" – synthetisiert, verlor die tarantella „napoletana" um die Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts ihre Authentizität. Der zum Klischee erstarrten „tarantella alberghiera" um 1900 steht die aktuelle Popularität regionaler tarantelle als dem kollektiven Embodiment eines „neuen Arkadiens" gegenüber, als das die Tarantella wieder zur touristischen Sehnsuchtsmetapher und zum folkloristischen (Massen)spektakel geworden ist.

Josephine Fenger, Berlin, Deutschland:

FengerJ bearb1swJosephine Fenger, Dr. phil.,arbeitete nach einer Ausbildung in Klassischem und Modernem Tanz als Balletttänzerin in Südamerika. Sie studierte Theaterwissenschaft, Publizistik, Wissenschaftsmanagement und Editionswissenschaft. Die promovierte Kulturwissenschaftlerin ist Mitherausgebern von tanzwissenschaftlichen Anthologien, Autorin von Auftritt derSchatten (2009) und veröffentlicht regelmäßig Beiträge zur Tanzforschung. Zu ihren gegenwärtigen Forschungs- und persönlichen Interessen gehört die Volkstanzkultur Süditaliens.

"Ces Bouffons venus d'Italie": Italian grotesque practice issues and its reception
(Fabbricatore, Arianna)

Throughout the eighteenth century, Europe saw a progressive identification among the words "grotesque", "virtuosity", "comic", "Italian", which directly associates, downgrading, the grotesque style and Italy. In his Letters on Dancing (1760), Jean-Georges Noverre is careful to distance his own practice of pantomime from that of the Italians; simultaneously, it links the Italian practice with a reference model: the Italian actor Antonio Rinaldi Fossano. The dancer and choreographer Gasparo Angiolini and the librettist Ranieri Calzabigi, both active at the court of Vienna, claim the belonging of the grotesque dance to Italy in order to keep them aside, while Louis Cahusac urges the French to transfer to the noble register, what it is "beyond the mountains, to the bottom." [Louis de Cahusac, La Danse ancienne et moderne ou Traité historique de la danse, (La Haye, chez Jean Neaulme, 1754), éd. Nathalie Lecomte, Laura Naudeix, Jean-Noël Laurenti, Paris, Desjonquères CND, 2004, p. 230].
The association of the "grotesque" style and Italy and its negative connotation seem to be the result of a series of concomitant factors related also to the actors all'improvviso and of the Commedia dell'arte. My work has the objective to look into the reality of the Italian comic dance: in particular it should define what a "grotesque" dancer in opposition to the serious style illustrated by the French, and to emphasize the factors and challenges of this negative connotation for the Italians.
From the study of the Letters to Mr. Noverre de Gasparo Angiolini (1773) and Trattato teorico Prattico del ballo de Gennaro Magri (1779), it will show how the Italian comic practice evolves throughout the eighteenth century, in a social and cultural space whose issues are related to the confrontation between nations and the definition of their identity.
This work is based on the research conducted as part of my doctoral thesis in Italian Studies (supported at Paris-Sorbonne) on "Quarrel of Pantomimes" and its multiple challenges (social, cultural, aesthetic and poetic). it is also based on a research project applied to Gennaro Magri, presented to the CND which aims to reading, commentary and interpretation of the steps described in his treaty.

Arianna Fabbricatore, Paris, Frankreich:

Studies of Philosophy and Aesthetic of theater, Italian Literature and Culture, dance. Doctor of the University Paris-Sorbonne, Teacher of Italian Langue and Literature, Professor of Danse. Topics of research: Social history, poetics and aesthetics of theater and dancing in the Early Modern Period, theoretical reflection on dance and its relationships with literature, music and theatre.
Publications on the quarrel of the ballet-pantomime, Gasparo Angiolini, J.G. Noverre. New interdisciplinary project on Gennaro Magri.

Risorgimento themes in Italian ballets of the nineteenth century
(Ertz, Matilda)

During the nineteenth century, ballet productions at the top Italian theaters such as La Scala in Milan, La Fenice in Venice, San Carlo in Naples, stood in an intimate partnership with opera. Though autonomous as entertainments, ballets and operas shared audiences, plots, music (earlier in the century), and musical topics. Some ballets (though certainly not all) subtly reflected Risorgimento themes. In my research of nineteenth-century Italian ballet music, I have begun to uncover these relationships, often hidden. In this paper I will discuss my initial findings of Risorgimento themes in nineteenth-century ballet including ballets ranging from Viganò's reign in Milan to the mid-century ballets that traveled the peninsula. I will discuss these in relation to ballet's more well-studied counterpart—the Italian opera. Musicologists are far from agreement about the extent of the role Risorgimento played in opera, especially Verdi's operas (for example, see Roger Parker's and Philip Gossett's discussions of the chorus from Nabucco). Scholars do seem to agree that the Risorgimento influenced the operatic stage. Though not studied yet in any systematic way, ballet must also have felt that influence. But scholars should be careful to assess ballet's Risorgimento ties with operatic reception in mind, since these productions were all part of the same theatrical system. Perhaps the ballet, as a "mute" entertainment, was an ideal vehicle for covert transmission of political ideas, more easily hidden and protected from censorship. For example, Viganò's La Vestale (La Scala, 1818) and Giovannad'Arco (La Scala, 1821) were received on political terms during Milan's turbulence early in the century. At the mid-century, Giuseppe Rota's Bianchi e negri (La Scala, 1853) adapted Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin for the stage. This ballet's celebration of the breaking of the bonds of slavery tapped into Risorgimento fervor, and was aided on at least one occasion by an insertion of revolutionary music. For certain, from a musicological standpoint, the lack of serious study of Italian ballets and their music during the nineteenth century creates a gap in our understanding of the period. For dance scholars, the understanding of these ballets and their music will deepen the narrative of Italy's dance history during national unification.

Matilda Ertz, Louisville, Kentucky, USA:

Ertz bearb1Matilda Ann Butkas Ertz teaches music historyat the University of Louisville and is director of the piano department at the Youth Performing Arts School. She has a PhD in Musicology from the University of Oregon and studies music and dance, particularly ballet music in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She is a pianist and harpsichordist with extensive dance training. Specializing in nineteenth-century Italian ballet music for her Phd dissertation, she has recently published research on Schneitzhoeffer's score to La Sylphide, Les Noces (Nijinska/Stravinsky), and Viganò's La Vestale.

 

"After the manner of Italy": tracing the influence of Italian dance culture on Late Renaissance England.
(Daye, Anne)

While Italian culture and language were highly admired in England, evidence of specific transmission of dance culture is scant. Nevertheless, for the first time, surviving details will be uncovered and analysed.
Records are full enough of the development of the masque to identify traces of Italian input: from the initiative of the young Henry VIII, through its regular occurrence in the festival culture of the Elizabethan court, to the sophisticated reinvention of the genre under the Stuart monarchies. Individuals, whether princes, noblemen, diplomats, dancers, designers or musicians, will emerge as key to the transmission of Italian practice to the Tudor and Stuart courts. The paper will also investigate the use of Italian texts known to have circulated at the time. The paucity of dance records in England limits what can be deduced with regard to dance style, but from the brief records of the masque revels, the social element of the show, we can also identify which aspects of Italian dance practice failed to develop in England.
Another intriguing dimension of Stuart dance theatre, in both Scotland and England, is the performance of characters and situations from the moresche and commedia dell'arte genres. While we have little evidence of visits by commedia troupes to the British Isles at the time, there was nevertheless widespread appreciation and imitation of this popular Italian theatre, as is clear from contemporary drama. This paper will present evidence from masque and antimasque of dance performances in the commedia style.

Anne Daye, Bedford, Grossbritannien:

DayeA bearb1Anne Daye pursues documentary research and reconstruction of dance of the past, with specialist study of the 16th and 17th centuries. Since completing a doctoral thesis on dance in the Stuart masque (2008), she continues to publish on dance on the London stage c.1600. Anne teaches in universities and for specialist courses; she is Director of Education and Research for the Dolmetsch Historical Dance Society.

Casanova und der Tanz – ein aktualisierter Blick in die "Histoire de ma vie"
(Bennett, Giles)

Wie kaum eine Persönlichkeit des 18. Jahrhunderts fasziniert der schillernde Giacomo Casanova bis heute. Besondere Bedeutung haben die Memoiren "Histoire de ma vie" des vielgereisten Sprosses aus einer venezianischen Schauspieler- und Tänzerfamilie. In dieser Lebensbeschreibung geht Casanova immer wieder auf den Tanz ein, sei es im Zusammenhang mit Reverenzen im Alltag oder als Tänzer auf Bällen, sei es als Zuschauer oder Librettist im Theater oder in der Oper. Von Konstantinopel bis London, von Russland bis Spanien, in Paris wie in fast allen bedeutenden Städten und Staaten Italiens tanzte er und beobachtete er mit venezianisch-italienischen Augen den Tanz sowie die Tänzerinnen und Tänzer. Auf Grundlage der Erkenntnisse der älteren Literatur (darunter vor allem der Arbeiten des Musikwissenschaftlers und Tanzforschers Paul Nettl bis in die 1950er Jahre) sowie dem erst nach 1960 zugänglichen unentstellten Text der ca. 3600 Seiten des Originalmanuskripts werden durch die Einbeziehung der Erkenntnisse der aktuellen Tanzgeschichtsforschung die Kontexte der Bemerkungen dieses venezianischen Weltbürgers zum Tanz seiner Zeit einer neuen Gesamtschau unterzogen.

Giles Bennett, München, Deutschland:

BennettG bearb1Giles Bennett, Historiker, wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Zentrum für Holocaust-Studien am Institut für Zeitgeschichte München im European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) Projekt, Tänzer im Ensemble La Danza München (Leitung: Jadwiga Nowaczek), Mitherausgeber des Bandes „Barocktanz im Zeichen französisch-deutschen Kulturtransfers. Quellen zur Tanzkultur um 1700" Hildesheim 2008, diverse Aufsätze zum Tanz im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert.

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Organisation:
Dance & History e.V.

Dance & History e.V. is a non-profit registered association based in Germany. Our objective is to promote research and the dissemination of knowledge in the field of historical dance. We work together with similar organisations in Europe and America.