The Tordiglione: Italian improvisational dance from the late 16th to early 17th centuries
(Dmitry Filimonov)

In the late 16th and early 17th centuries there were dances in Italy with wide opportunities for improvisation, and one of them, Tordiglione, has not yet been practically explored. In most musical dictionaries, Tordiglione is associated with the French dance Tourdion. The names of these dances are most likely related, however, both choreographically and musically Tordiglione and Tourdion are very different.

For this lecture I have compared all currently known versions of Tordiglione: in the books “Il Ballarino” and “Nobiltà di Dame” by Fabritio Caroso, “Gratia d'Amore” by Cesare Negri, “Libro di gagliarda, tordiglione, passo è mezzo canari è passegi” by Livio Lupi and in the Chigi manuscript. The analysis of these sources allows not only to find the main structure of the dance and to reconstruct each of the versions described, but also to trace possible changes in the style of the performance of the Tordiglione. Furthermore, on the basis of all available descriptions,it is possible to make suggestions for the way of improvisation in this dance.

Dmitry Filimonov, Moskau, Russland:

Dmitry Filimonov started his dancing career in 1993 as a competitive dancer and came to early dances in 2002. He teaches historical dance in the “Golden Forests” dance studio (a co-leader of the studio). He is head of the historical dance research seminar in Moscow. Dmitry gave lectures at many international conferences and has published several articles on early dance topics from 16th to 19th century.