Local Traditions, National Controversies: Dance on Trial in a Time of Transition
(Emily Winerock)

Changes in religious doctrine and observance in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England led to an abrupt and contested reconsideration of the acceptability of dancing in various contexts, from church sponsorship of morris dancers to dancing on Sunday to any form of ‘mixt dancing’ of men and women together. The lack of consensus about what constituted a ‘use’ versus an ‘abuse’ led to widespread disagreement over whether long-established dance traditions needed to be altered or eliminated. This presentation examines conflicting views of dance in two court cases: a 1599 fornication case from Great Coxwell, Berkshire and a 1613 Star Chamber case against participants in the annual Whitsun Revel in Rangeworthy, Gloucestershire. In Great Coxwell, a defendant causes an uproar in the court by arguing that skipping church services to go dancing was more reprehensible than having a child out of wedlock. In Rangeworthy, disagreement about the acceptability of the parish’s dance-filled Whitsuntide traditions led to verbal and physical confrontations between the constable and parishioners. These cases illuminate the tensions between those who saw dancing as both a symbol of, and the means for committing, sin and sacrilege, and those who understood dancing as a performance of, and contributor to, neighbourliness and community cohesion.

Emily Winerock, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Emily Winerock teaches dance history at Point Park University in Pittsburgh, PA. Her research focuses on the practices and politics of dance in 16th- and 17th-century England. She received her B.A. from Princeton University, M.A. from the University of Sussex, and Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. Her publications include essays in Journal of the Northern Renaissance (2025), Shakespeare Jahrbuch (2021), Borrowers and Lenders (2017), and Dance Chronicle (2016), as well as chapters in The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Dance (2019), The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Competition (2018), Playthings in Early Modernity (2017), The Sacralization of Space and Behavior in the Early Modern World (2015), and Worth and Repute: Valuing Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (2011). She also serves as co-chair of the Early Dance Working Group of the Dance Studies Association, co-director of the Shakespeare and Dance Project, and copy editor for the journal Dance Chronicle.

Matradur and Manimasque: two names and three dance traditions in the first third of the 19^th century.
(Dmitry Filimonov)

The turn of the 19th century was the time of tectonic shifts that heavily affected the political and cultural landscape of the European countries. It is particularly fascinating to trace the spread of melodies and specific dances that formed distinct traditions of this period.

The dances Matradur (a longway with improvisational part) and Manimasque (a special quadrille) are frequently mentioned in Russian literature of the first third of the 19th century. At the same time, in Scandinavian countries, Thuringia and Britain, we find longways with names such as Money Musk, Molinasky, and Mollimasse. Although the names are similar to Manimasque, the figures of these dances resemble those of Matradour. The music gives even more puzzles as the tunes of Money Musk and Manimasque coincide. The tunes for Matradour also appear in Sweden, while Austrian music sources contain both Madratur and Manimasque.

In the present work we demonstrate that these two names refer to three closely intertwined dance traditions that were spread in the countries of the Baltic Sea and met at Viena Congress.

Dmitry Filomonov, Moscow, Russia

Dmitry Filimonov started his dancing career in 1993 as a dancesport dancer and came to early dances in 2002. Since 2007 he teaches historical dance in “Golden Forests” early dance school (a co-leader of the school). He is the head of the historical dance research seminar in Moscow. Dmitry gave lectures at many international conferences and has seven published articles on early dance topics from 16^th to 19^th.

Dmitry graduated from Moscow State University and holds a Ph.D. in mathematics.

Mit Tanzschritten auf dem Seil zu europaweitem Ruhm: Pierre Forioso und Mme Saqui
(Gerrit Berenike Heiter)

Tanz und Seiltanz stehen während des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts in einer sehr engen Beziehung. Die Mitglieder der Akrobatik- und Seiltanztruppen treten vor allem anlässlich der verschiedenen Messen in Europa auf. Insbesondere in Paris erfreuen sie sich größter Beliebtheit, u. a. das „Théâtre des Grands danseurs du Roi“. Die Begeisterung für diese Art von Unterhaltung lässt auch nicht durch den revolutionären Regimewechsel nach. Im Gegenteil: Seiltänzer und Akrobaten bleiben ein unverzichtbarer Bestandteil der Pariser Theaterszene. Zu Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts erreicht das Genre einen, in dieser Form später nie mehr erreichten, Ruhm: die Auftritte der Familie Forioso mit Pierre Forioso (1772–1846) sowie von Madame Saqui (1786–1866), Marguerite-Antoinette Lalanne – die „Tochter des berühmten Navarin, des ersten ‚Sauteurs‘ Ludwigs XVI.“– stehen im Zentrum der Fallstudie. Dabei wird ein besonderer Augenmerk auf die Virtuosität ihres Repertoires an Schritten und Tänzen wie Kontratanz, Allemande und Walzer gelegt.

Gerrit Berenike Heiter, Köln, Deutschland

Gerrit Berenike Heiter arbeitet aktuell an ihrem kumulativen Dissertationsprojekt der Theaterwissenschaft an der Universität Wien. Ihre Forschungsarbeit beschäftigt sich mit europäischen Druckerzeugnissen zu Tanz von 1573 bis 1717. Sie unterrichtet Tanzgeschichte an der Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst Mannheim. In ihrer künstlerischen Tätigkeit als Schauspielerin, Tänzerin und Pädagogin hat sie sich auf Körper- und Maskentheater, Commedia dell’arte, Barocktheater und historischen Tanz spezialisiert. Neben der Mitwirkung in barocken Musiktheaterprojekten ist sie im Rahmen zeitgenössischer Stücke zu sehen, die an der Schnittstelle zwischen Tanz, Musik, Performance und Theater stehen.
(Fotografie: Sarah Robine)

La Spagna - the story of the bassadanza and basse danse
(Adam Bregman)

Captivated by the enigmatic bassadanza and basse danse, scholars and performers have taken great pains to interpret, imagine, theorize, and recreate the performance practices of this lofty form of fifteenth-century court dance for over a century. But missing pieces of the puzzle have led to holes in our understanding of this genre, including the correlation of the choreographies to the accompanying music and regional peculiarities. This owes in part to the fact that, while two related, contemporary, Franco-Burgundian sources survive with music and choreographies, every other dance manual or collection contains choreographies or music at best. And a comparison of these sources presents a variety of musical or choreographic styles for which it hardly seems plausible to label with a single denomination—“basse danse” or “bassadanza”—especially looking further into the sixteenth century. There is one dance, La bassa di castiglia, or La Spagna, however, that has left a trail of music and choreographies throughout Renaissance sources—the only dance to survive in both Italian and Franco-Burgundian dance manuals, and with several contrasting choreographies and nearly 250 different musical settings—that marvelously come together to depict the evolutionary arc of this genre. Using this uniquely important dance, my paper tells the story of the extraordinary life of the basse danse and bassadanza in music and movement across time periods and geographic regions.

Adam Bregman, Basel, Schweiz

Adam Bregman is a trombonist, musicologist, and pedagogue whose performance, research, and teaching focuses on the late Middle Ages, Renaissance, and early Baroque eras. Adam strives to share his love for music of the past and his avid interest in historical performance practices playing historical trombones from every era, presenting his research, and working with musicians of all ages and abilities who share the same passion. His experience has led him to develop an approach to all areas of his musical work that inextricably combines practice and theory—engaging with music on its own terms—and adds insights from other disciplines. This working method pervades his teaching and his research, which focuses on the performance practices of wind musicians in the Renaissance and court dances of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. All while maintaining the highest level of artistry on stage, as co-director of Basel-based historical wind ensemble Capella Helvetica or performing with such European and North American ensembles as Oltremontano
(Belgium) and Ciaramella (Los Angeles), Adam endeavors to instill his fascination with early music in modern audiences. Whether in the form of musical strains or words, he strives to contextualize the music of the past by telling a story so that, through music, we may better understand our cultural history, ourselves, and the ever-changing world around us.
(Photography: Cécile Mansuy)

Ballet in Transition: 1789-1840
(Edmund Fairfax)

While broad dance-history surveys not uncommonly state that the art of ballet underwent significant changes during the years 1789-1840, there has been, however, little attempt to discern what specific changes affected the technique and style of dance in French theaters, changes which, in turn, were widely imitated in other theaters. This illustrated presentation will attempt to fill the void in part, discussing the dissolution of the old system of distinct dance styles, which informed stage-dancing in the eighteenth century before the French Revolution; the emergence of a new blended style under the influence of the superstar dancer Auguste Vestris during the Revolution; and finally the advent of a reactionary style associated with the age of Romantic ballet and specifically with Marie and Philippe Taglioni. The presentation will look at some specifics in technique and choreography, notably height of leg-extensions, port de bras, pointe-work, step innovation, and the formation of enchaînements.

Edmund Fairfax, Toronto, Canada

Edmund Fairfax is an independent dance historian specializing in eighteenth‑century ballet. His groundbreaking study The Styles of Eighteenth‑Century Ballet (Scarecrow Press) appeared in 2003. He is currently working on completing a major study to be called The Technique of Eighteenth‑Century Ballet, as well as a reconstructive study, with a critical edition of the score, of Maximilien Gardel's 1777 pantomime ballet La chercheuse d'esprit (with Mojca Gal), one of the “classics” of the period. His comprehensive research overturns a number of antiquated notions concerning early ballet. From 2003 to 2008 he was an assistant and adviser to the dance company Ballet Espressivo in Toronto. His choreography in the eighteenth‑century style has appeared on stages in Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands and Greece, most recently at the Potsdam Early Music Festival (2024) and the Athens World Congress of Dance Conference (2025). He studied classical ballet in Toronto, where he lives, and has an academic background in English literature and music history (University of Regina) and theoretical linguistics (University of Toronto), with special interest in the history of the early Germanic languages, particularly Gothic and Old English.