Balls of the Russian Empire in the 18-19th centuries. How we can look at them in the light of modern ideas about the quality of dance events.
(Dmitry Nikitin)

The grandiosity and pomp of court balls in the Russian Empire has been steadily increasing since the time of Peter the Great. In the beginning of the 18th century the Russian emperors were mostly copying the court balls in the German states, and then the balls of London, Versailles, Vienna and other European capitals. But starting with a simple imitation of the West, they not only managed to reach the European level by the end of the 19th century, but also developed their own ballroom tradition. This was facilitated by both - the typical features of the Russian character and the economic opportunities of the powerful state. The report examines the most grandiose court balls in the Russian Empire in the 19th century, describes and evaluates them. The analysis and evaluation is carried out according to criteria, which were developed by the author and set out in the framework of his lecture at the Academy of Russian Ballet Vaganova in 2016.

Dmitry Nikitin, Vladimir, Russia.

Dmitry NikitinI 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 taught various types of dance. In 2011 he organized the Club of historical and social dance in the city of Vladimir. Currently, he is it's head and teacher. Areas of his activities are the reconstruction of dances of the 19th century and the modern era, dance theory, theory and practice of dance pedagogy, organization of historical events. He pulished several articles on dance reconstruction and lectures at conferences. he holds a PhD in Integrated Automated Systems at the Moscow Aviation Institute in 1989. For a long time he worked in the system of higher and special education.

Dissertationsprojekt: Performing Gender? Geschlechterrollen in den Tanztraktaten der italienischen Renaissance
(Michaela Mettel)

Grundlage des Dissertationsprojektes ist die hermeneutische Untersuchung der Rollen von Mann und Frau in den Tanztraktaten des Quattro- und Cinquecento anhand verschiedener geschichts-, sozial- und kulturwissenschaftlicher Theorien und Methoden, die in ihrer Kombination (hier vor allem im Umgang mit dem spezifischen und bisher marginal betrachteten Thema „Tanz“) eine neue Herangehensweise in diesen Disziplinen darstellen.

Der Tanz der italienischen Renaissance dient als Ausgangspunkt, um öffentliche Geschlechterrollen in einem mikrogeschichtlichen, eng definierten Handlungsraum zu analysieren. Die sozialen Rollen, die beide Geschlechter innerhalb ihrer gesellschaftlichen Schicht innehaben, sind klar definiert. Schwerpunkt der Analyse ist die Frage, ob sich diese im eigenständigen sozialen Raum des Tanzes durch Neuinszenierungen und Neudefinierungen von geschlechtlicher Identität vom gesellschaftlichen status quo emanzipieren oder diesen weiterführen.

Fragestellungen u. a. nach Selbstdarstellung, Selbstinszenierung, dem performativen Akt des Tanzens, ebenso wie das „Spiel zwischen den Geschlechtern“, die nonverbale Kommunikation des Körpers und die Ambivalenz von flüchtiger Performanz und einem ritualhaften Charakter der Tänze und deren Aufführungen erweitern die Analysekriterien.

Das Poster wird noch keine Ergebnisse präsentieren können, da es sich um ein laufendes Projekt handelt, sondern wird den Fokus auf die methodische Herangehensweise legen.

Michaela Mettel, Saarbrücken, Deutschland:

Michaela Mettel ist Promovendin mit dem Schwerpunkt auf Geschlechterrollen in den Tanztraktaten der italienischen Renaissance. Weitere Forschungsinteressen liegen in den Bereichen Körpergeschichte, Militärgeschichte (mit Schwerpunkt auf Fechttraktaten der italienischen Renaissance), Living History, geisteswissenschaftliche Methodologie und Theorie sowie historisch-performative Konzepte in der Kulturellen Bildung. Sie arbeitet als freie Referendarin für Renaissancetanz, Darstellende Geschichte, Geschichts- und Kulturvermittlung, Kulturelle Bildungsprojekte sowie als Lehrbeauftragte an der Universität des Saarlandes.

The career of Franco-American dancing master Pierre Landrin Duport
(Alan Jones)

The poster focuses on the career of dancing master Pierre Landrin Duport, from his childhood playing violin at the public balls of the Paris Opéra, to his years as dancing master in Dublin, to his career teaching in Philadelphia, Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C. It sheds light on the respective Dance Evening.

Alan Jones, Paris, Frankreich:

Alan Jones is an American dance historian based in Paris. After performing as a Baroque dancer in the United States and Europe, he is presently working on a book concerning ballet and pantomime in the United States from 1785 to 1812. His first book, Dictionnaire du désir de la bonne chère (Honoré Champion, 2011), concerned culinary history in the eighteenth century.

The Waltz in the late 18th - early 19th century: styles, use and techniques
(Maria Derkach and Dmitry Filimonov)

The study of a German turning dance (which appeared as Deutscher, Dreher, Länderer, Waltzer and under many other names) in the first half of the 18th century is not that easy to fulfil because in Germany it was considered not that appropriate for a ballroom in comparison with French dances. Dancing masters became more tolerant towards this dance in the second half of the 18th century and even started to include it into other dance forms. Still there are no clear German descriptions of the techniques of this dance. The situation changes right on the turn of the century. After 1800 lots of German sources appear, which are quite unanimous in describing three types of turning dances: slow turning, quick turning and jumping turning, though their names may differ from source to source. The latter type seems to mix with the second one and evolves in 1820s into a huge variety of "hops" waltzes. As to the first one, the descriptions remain the same.

Knowing the situation in the first third of the 19th century we can try to find descriptions of the 18th century turning techniques. No wonder that German authors didn’t describe their own national dance, as everybody at that time knew how to dance it. Luckily for us there was a French choreographer Brives, who described 4 techniques of «Valx»: one French and three German ones.

The relationship between waltz techniques in 1800s and in 1820s gives food for thought and casts doubts on the modern reconstruction of the French slow waltz based on the description by Thomas Wilson. We can also find the source for Wilson’s arm positions by comparing this English treatise to German dance books of the early 19th century.

Maria Derkach, Moskau, Russland:

Graduated from Kaluga Dance College in 1998, Maria Derkach began to study historical dances in 2005. Now Maria is one of the leaders of the "Golden Forests" early dance school and teaches classes of different levels on various topics from Baroque to XIX century social dancing. She gave classes all over Russia as well as in Ukraine and Belarus. Currently Maria's main interest is German and Russian dancing culture in the first third of the XIX century.

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.

Using Russian-German relationship for the reconstruction of a Russian ball at the beginning of the 19th century
(Maria Derkach)

The reconstruction of a ball in Russia at the beginning of the 19th century is quite complicated because of the lack of dance manuals at that time. Indeed, between Kuskov’s (1794) and Petrovsky’s (1825) books no dance manuals and even mentions of the existence of such sources have not been found yet. Nevertheless the balls in Russia were surely an essential part of leasure time of Russian aristocracy, as the memoirs tell us. In search for solutions many links lead us to German sources. First we need to remember that beginning with Catherine II all wifes of Russian monarchs were German. Secondly, very often the tutors of Russian aristocracy were German as well. There are also some clues in books: the style of the language, in which Petrovsky writes his book, makes us think he had German roots in his language. Another valuable German source of 1806 is the book of Ivensen published in Riga, which already had become a part of Russia.

On the other hand Russian dance culture was not identical to the German one and some dances were poplular in one country and almost not danced in another. For example, Monimask and Matredur much more popular in Russia while Anglaises, which were an essential part of a German ball of the 1st decade of XIX century, were rarely danced in Russia. Studying German dance books together with Russian memoirs helps us to understand the true picture of the Russian dance culture.

Maria Derkach, Moskau, Russland:

Graduated from Kaluga Dance College in 1998, Maria Derkach began to study historical dances in 2005. Now Maria is one of the leaders of the "Golden Forests" early dance school and teaches classes of different levels on various topics from Baroque to XIX century social dancing. She gave classes all over Russia as well as in Ukraine and Belarus. Currently Maria's main interest is German and Russian dancing culture in the first third of the XIX century.