French branles for opening the ball in the late 16th–17th centuries
(Dmitry Filimonov)

This workshop is dedicated to three branles: Simple, Gay and Poitou. These dances in different combinations were a part of an opening suite for French balls in the late 16th–17th centuries. Three most complete descriptions of these branles survived in Arbeau’s “Orchesographie” (1589), “Instruction pour dancer” (c. 1602), and de Lauze’s “Apologie de la Danse” (1623). While Arbeau’s branle descriptions are relatively straightforward, two other sources lack music and present more challenges for dance historians. Taking into account all currently known sources for these dances, as well as work on a textual and contextual analysis of “Instruction...”, we arrived at reconstructions that are compatible with each other, fit the descriptions quite well and help to explain some peculiarities of these descriptions. It allowed us to uncover underlying choreographic principles for these three branles that are the same in each of three descriptions as well as highlight differences between them. In the workshop, we’ll present our reconstructions of these dances for each of the three main descriptions. For each of the dances, we’ll discuss how these three variants relate to each other, what common features seem to persist and what differences in style can be seen there.

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.

Setting up the "Allemande" within the space of a ballroom: Hypothesis based on Brives Nouvelle Méthode from 1779
(Guillaume Jablonka)

This workshop aims at experimenting the alternation of "passes d'allemande" on the center spot and promenades in an "attitude" around a cotillon square set. The three following sequences will constitute the core of the workshop: learning a few figures of "allemande à deux" by Brives, then training a few figures taken from 1770 Jean Robert's Allemande Orleanoise on a cotillon square set or from French country dances where "passes d’allemande" happen and finally having several square sets of couples improvising "passes d'allemandes" and promenades in the same room.

Reconstructing the "Allemande" of the late 18th century is nowadays mainly based on the positions detailed by Mr. Guillaume in 1769 and the principles taught by Mr Dubois around the same period. Both treatises show engravings of the attitudes typical of this dance and explain how to manage the changes of handholds between these attitudes. But neither explains clearly how this happens in the ballroom or how the different figures are organized in the general flow of the dance. Thanks to Brives and Jean Robert it is now possible to know how to dance the allemande as a whole : the different "passes" or figures are danced in the center of the dancing space and each of them is followed by a certain portion of promenade or "course" around this space.

The explanations given by Brives and Jean Robert relate with coherence to French country dancing of the late 18th century including some "passes d’Allemande". Called German or not, country dances may contain Allemande handholds that are performed on spot and then a "tour de course" follows in the attitude in which the dancers finished. This has nothing to do with the "tour d'allemande" that is one of the different couplets of French country dancing.

While dancing the "Allemande", a common rule is needed so that all the couples can dance together in the same room: this is what this workshop is about. Brives makes a difference between the "Valx" and the "Allemande", the occupation of space is one of its aspects.

Guillaume Jablonka, Asnieres sur Seine, Frankreich:

Guillaume Jablonka trained as a ballet dancer in Strasbourg and discovered baroque dance while working for L'Eventail (M.G. Masse). He then performed for Ana Yepes, Sigrid T'Hooft, Deda Cristina Colonna or Hubert Hazebroucq. In 2006 he founded Divertimenty and choreographed several shows. His research focuses mainly on the reconstruction of the divertissements and pantomime ballets notated in 1782 by Auguste Ferrere. Paris Sorbonne University invited him to teach baroque dance to students interested in HIP.

Dancing the corantoes (circa 1630) in the light of European sources
(Hubert Hazebroucq)

The courante has been the most practised ballroom couple dance in France, during the Seventeenth Century, before being supplanted by the minuet. However, very few technical sources document its practice before 1700, and nearly all were written or published out of France. Some descriptions of steps or variations can thus be found in Italy for the first decades of the XVIIth C, notably thanks to Negri (1600) and Santucci (1614) and England provides a second corpus of sources, with the publication in London of Apologie de la Danse, 1623, by F. De Lauze, and moreover with a manuscript describing two corantoes and belonging to the Inns of court context (Ms. Rawlinson D 864, Bodleian Library, Oxford, circa 1630, according to Ian Payne).

The mystery of the sketchy notations for the "Coranto Dance" and "The Firstt Corantt" is deepened by the small and unclear diagrams annotated by some numbers, at the top of the two pages, plausibly drawing the spatial track. While several attempts of reconstruction have been done for the courante réglée by F. de Lauze, there has apparently been no extensive analysis of these corantoes, and no publication proposing a consistent interpretation linking the textual indications and the diagrams. My recent research intends to give some consistent hypotheses for a complete reconstruction.

The workshop will first propose, as a groundwork, to practice the basic steps according to the sources of the first half of the XVIIth century in Italy and England, in order to experiment the analogies and their stylistic variants. We will then focus on the interpretation of the corantoes in Ms. Rawlinson, in order to practice their main sequences and combinations, and to link the steps with the space. We will also experiment some comparisons with the sequences from De Lauze’s courante réglée, showing the structural similarities which open new perspectives and questions on the figured French courantes in England before 1650. We will here explore how much the courantes of that period were a canvas with constants, more than a really improvised dance, or a fixed choreography.

Hubert Hazebroucq, Paris, Frankreich:

Hubert Hazebroucq is a choreographer, dancer, teacher and independant researcher specialized in Renaissance and Baroque dance since 1998. With his company Les Corps Eloquents, founded in 2008, he is invited in many international festivals (Utrecht) and he performs with famous early music ensembles like Doulce Mémoire. He is a board member of the association of searchers ACRAS17-18, and holds a Master degree on ballroom dancing around 1660. He works principally on the technique and poetics in dance from the 15th to the 18th century.

Waltzes, Newports, and Rackets: Common Movement Units in Late 19th Century American Couple Dance
(Susan de Guardiola)

The rapid explosion in published dances, dance sequences, and dance steps for the couple dance repertoire in America during the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the practice of annotating such dances beat-by-beat and movement by movement (slide/glissé, leap/jeté, cut/coupé, etc.) leads to the conceptualization of variations in couple dancing of this era primarily as fixed, often lengthy, sequences of steps with weirdly colorful names: Eclair, Metropole, Antlers, Pasadena, Bronco, Manitou, etc. As a result, dance pedagogy in late nineteenth-century social dance can devolve into teaching historically insignificant sequences - dances, rather than dancing - which masks the substantial similarities among them and inhibits the development of partner connection and improvisational ability. Extracting and analyzing larger movement units employed by dancing masters across different couple dances and musical forms enables the isolation of common elements which, when taught as such, enable more effective development of high-level improvisational skill and the efficient mastery of the elaborately named choreographic sequences of the era. In this workshop, a selection of frequently-employed movement units will be taught and applied across several different dance forms, demonstrating how a relatively small repertoire of movements allows dancers to enjoy couple dancing to a wide range of music and to quickly understand and perform lengthier published dance variations.

Susan de Guardiola, New Haven, CT, USA:

Susan de Guardiola (BA, Yale; MSEd, University of New Haven) is an independent scholar in social dance history, an American resident in Russia. She has presented her work at conferences including the Dolmetsch Historical Dance Society Conference, the International Congress for Medieval Studies, and Stanford University Historical Dance Week. In 2013-2014 she conducted research at Harvard University as a New England Regional Fellow. Research interests include improvisation in social dance, the evolution of the ballroom repertoire over the course of the nineteenth century, and the development of American social dance from its European origins. Her teaching focuses on exploring and recreating both the skill sets and mindsets of the social dancers of the past. She publishes brief dance reconstructions and research excerpts online at Capering & Kickery (http:// www.kickery.com).

Variations of the « trait de la contredanse » in the 19th Century
(Irène Feste)

The « trait de la contredanse », the key element of the quadrille de contredanse, in the early nineteenth century, allows dancers to move, even within the formation of a quadrille, according to a specific pattern using an elaborate combination of steps from the vocabulary of the theatrical dance (temps levé, chassé, jeté, assemblé, temps de Zéphir, pirouette, entrechat...). Thus, the « trait de la contredanse » offers multiple opportunities for dancers to show their virtuosity during the ball.

For the workshop, from one or two selected figures of the quadrille de contredanse, we work on the variety of some traits de la contredanse proposed by different dancing masters, as Gourdoux-Daux, Blanchard, Blasis, Claudius, to bring out technical differences and recurring forms. From these « traits de la contredanse », the dancers can also improvise, as did Mr Trénis, « the Vestris of ballroom », and create their own traits to show their brilliant steps.

Irène Feste, Arcueil, France:

Irène Feste is a choreographer, dancer and teacher of classical ballet and historical dance, from the Renaissance to the late 19th century. After a diploma of master engineer in telecommunications and networks and state diploma of teacher in classical dance, she joined, in 2005, the company the L’Éclat des Muses, directed by Christine Bayle and together with P.-F. Dollé went on to found the company Fantaisies Baroques. In 2020, she found the company Danses au (Pas)sé. She performs with companies such as Les Corps Eloquents, Divertimenty, Le Baroque Nomade, La Tempesta, Doulce Mémoire and has been awarded several research grants from the Centre national de la Danse. Her current research interests focus on French 19th century ballroom and theatre dance (Jean-Henri Gourdoux-Daux, Michel Saint-Léon, Jean-Etienne Despréaux).