The principles of researching the mutual influence of dances (using the example of tango and its predecessors)
(Dmitry Nikitin)

The history of the tango's formation (1854–ca. 1900) is well documented. This world-famous dance is truly folk and has absorbed various cultural traditions. It provides a useful model for researching the mutual influence of dances. Studying the history of the tango and analysing its predecessors, such as the Habanera, the Milonga, the Andalusian tango, the Malambo, the European enlazar dances and the Candombe, allows us to formulate the principles proposed below:

1. Gradual changes over time.
2. Contact between dances in space and time.
3. Rhythm and other musical characteristics.
4. Identical lyrics, sizes and themes.
5. Changes in choreography, including not only movements and figures, but also types of sets, drama, participants and their roles.
6. Same native dancers.
7. Similar ideas.
8. The existence of a borrowing mechanism, including its goals and reasons.
9. Presenting the dance to borrowers in a way they can understand.
10. The borrowed dance should be widely represented.
11. Conducting a linguistic study of dance-related words.

Thus, researching the mutual influence between dances is a multifactorial procedure. The same principles should be applied to the process of reconstructing historical dances. The table below shows the influence of predecessor dances on tango.

Dmitry Nikitin, Vladimir, Russia

Dmitry Nikitin began to study historical social dance in 1975 at the age of 16 under the guidance of the choreographer-methodist of the Ministry of Culture of the USSR Golden O. D. For a long time, he worked in the system of higher and special education, and also taught various types of dance. He obtained his PhD in 1989. In 2011, he founded the Historical and Social Dance Club in Vladimir. He is currently its head and teacher. His areas of activity include the reconstruction of 19th-century and modern dances, dance theory, and the theory and practice of dance pedagogy, as well as the organisation of historical events. He has published several articles on dance reconstruction and delivered lectures at conferences.

Pierre Rameau in transit: Three weddings and some funerals
(Guillaume Jablonka)

Little is known today about Pierre Rameau's personal life, although he is a major contributor to the practice of what we call baroque dance. Régine Astier's entry in the International Encyclopedia of Dance from 1998 is the most thorough biographical account in English. (The article in the German Wikipedia translates most of Astier’s article and adds some information that has come to light more recently.) The 300th anniversary of Rameau’s two fundamental publications is the occasion of a conference taking place in Paris in December 2025 and focusing on "Teaching the manner of performing all steps". I decided to further investigate Pierre Rameau's personal life, and although my paper will not limit itself to biography, I am in contact with several dance historians and have benefited already from the research project EnDansant led by Marie Glon, Emmanuelle Delattre-Destemberg and Guillaume Sintès: as part of this project Yseult Martinez has been
commissioned to explore the French National Archives and digitize several documents from notarial records.

The poster will show some aspects of this new information, namely Rameau’s activities in various parts of France. In Lyon Pierre Rameau took part in the troupe of M. Leguay, who held the "privilege" for the Opéra of Lyon. There he married Elisabeth de La Haye, who, like him, was originally from the parish of Saint-Sulpice in Paris. Next they moved to Strasbourg where Elizabeth died a few months after giving birth to Jean Rameau, who was later a dancing master in La Rochelle. Pierre Rameau remarried there, to Catherine Muffat, and both came to Paris. His third marriage was to Marie-Anne Courbe, but they eventually left for Nanterre, a suburb of Paris, where they both died. In this poster, I plan to provide a map of the parts of France where Pierre Rameau travelled, supplemented by boxes linked to the different trips or towns, explaining what he did, with whom he mingled there, and also highlighting the three women with whom he was in transit.

Guillaume Jablonka, Asnières sur Seine, France

Guillaume Jablonka's career as a dancer took him to the Ballet du Nord (Roubaix), where he met Jean Guizerix and Wilfride Piollet, before incorporating their Barres Flexibles into his training and teaching. He discovered Baroque dance with Marie-Geneviève Massé's Cie l'Éventail and went on to found the Cie Divertimenty, creating Le Petit Chaperon rouge as a pantomime ballet (Festival Baroque de Pontoise) and Les Coulisses du Ballet vénitien (Opéra-Comique). At the same time, his research focuses on the reconstruction of dances notated during the eighteenth century, notably in the Ferrère manuscript. He has benefited from the Centre National de la Danse's Aide à la Recherche et au Patrimoine en Danse scheme in 2011 and 2020. As ballet master, he contributes to the practical application of the sources in performances at the Théâtre Molière Sorbonne.

The History and Evolution of Money Musk
(Barbara Menard Pugliese, Antonia Pugliese)

We begin with a short biography of Sir Archibald Grant of Monemusk, his scandalous foray into speculation, his acquisition of wealth through marriage to a widow who owned West Indies property and enslaved people, and finally his settling down to become a patron of music and dance. From there we trace the popularity of the tune Money Musk in the American Revolution and the contemporary prevalence of Money Musk as a dance. We examine different versions of the dance and how the mechanics of the dance change over time to reflect social dance style. Then we describe revivals of Money Musk in folk dance and current day movements to re-popularize the dance.

Barbara Menard Pugliese, Medford, MA, USA

Barbara Pugliese has been co-director of the Commonwealth Vintage Dancers since 2007. Founded in 1983, CVD specializes in reconstructing, teaching, and performing American ballroom dances of the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. The dance company sponsored an international dance week in Newport, Rhode Island for 25 years, and are currently hosting seven formal balls a year as well as performing for museums and festivals. Barbara researches ballroom dances from 1770 to 1929, and is an expert in material culture and women's studies of the same time period. She has a Masters in Library and Information Science and has worked as an administrator for human rights charities and academic institutions. 

Antonia Pugliese, Woburn, MA, USA

Dr. Antonia Pugliese has been co-director of the Commonwealth Vintage Dancers since 2012. She researches and reconstructs dancing and social events of the years 1770 to 1929. Her teaching style, which is exacting but tempered with kindness and humor, is popular with young people. She loves curating fairytale experiences for dancers, and recently taught the Charleston to a crowd of over 800 people at the Great Gatsby Ball in Boston. Antonia recently received her PhD in Molecular Microbiology from Tufts University.

Dancing with AI: Adventures and Misadventures
(Alan Jones)

This poster presents some of the surprising advantages that the controversial field of Artificial Intelligence offers to researchers in early dance, particularly to those who specialize in transitional periods or obscure repertory that left behind limited iconography. However, every new door that AI opens is liable to lead to technical roadblocks and deceptive pathways, even potentially dangerous trains of thought. These shortcomings are represented as well.

Alan Jones, Paris, France

Paris-based researcher and choreographer Alan Jones has given papers and classes at Burg Rothenfels on a number of occasions. Having performed Baroque dance widely in North America and Europe from the 1980s into the early 2000s, he now gives priority to choreographies of the late 18^th and early 19th centuries, principally those of the United States. A frequent collaborator with the New York Baroque Dance Company (Catherine Turocy, director), he recently realized a suite of American dances for the company, including the Congo Minuet; this project was conducted in collaboration with Julia Bengtsson, and with support from the Centre National de la Danse. In addition to papers at Burg Rothenfels, he has presented at conferences hosted by the City University of New York, the court theater of Český Krumlov, and the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, among others. He is presently laying the groundwork for a website chronicling all the dancers, ballet masters, and dancing masters active in the early United States, along with the repertory they created. Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..