The Minuet in TranZition: steps and cadence for the Z figure
(Guillaume Jablonka)

The second half of the eighteenth century was a period of change for the relation of dance steps to music. A good example from 1779 is Brives’ explanations of the French and Congo minuets in his Nouvelle Méthode pour apprendre l'art de la danse sans maître. Like Delpech and Martinet, he was starting the basic minuet step in triple meter with a bend on 1, exposing a practice that appeared contrary to the regular cadence known from Feuillet at the beginning of the 18th century and still used later on by Malpied.

Brives called the typical and well known Z figure the carré de menuet and suggested different complementary steps to perform it. The aim of this workshop is partly to explore the steps’ relation to the musical beat: should we bend or step on the first beat of the measure?

Another evolution away from the tradition was known as the Congo minuet, in which the regular sequence of minuet figures remained but was contaminated by contredanse steps and that dance’s duple-meter tunes. Brives’ explanations were the earliest known for this dance. He described chassé, assemblé, rigaudon and changement de jambe steps that should all be performed in a row, fully completing two bars of music. The second part of this workshop will focus on how this group of steps can fit into that amount of music and which connections can be made to Magri's treatise. Magri also mentioned, in speaking generally about the cadence, a clear difference between the moderns and the ancients, letting us imagine a practice distancing itself from that of Feuillet or Rameau, but by how much?

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.

Enlightened Dance: The Practice of Country Dances in 18th-Century Scotland
(Alena Shmakova)

The wider accessibility of dance tuition in late 19th-century Scotland led to the ‘folklorisation’ of country dances, culminating in the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society’s founding in 1923. This institution oversaw the standardisation of Scottish country dance, shaping the globally recognised RSCDS style. However, this process erased regional and stylistic variations, previously influenced by locality, fashion, and societal norms.

This workshop aims to recreate 18th-century Scottish dance practice, using handwritten dance collections, assembly rules, diaries and dress-code considerations to achieve a historically informed style of performance.

The focus is on the manuscripts created by David Young, a writing master and musician active in Edinburgh and Aberdeen. His two exquisitely crafted books, documenting around 100 dances, contain music, descriptions, and cues aligning figures with musical phrasing. Comparing these sequences with other Scottish aide-mémoires of the period revealed both conservative sequences and inventive variations set to the same tunes as well as highlighting popular figures, phrasing, and execution styles.

The research was partially supported by Tasgadh, funded by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland.

Alena Shmakova, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Dr Alena Shmakova is a dance historian based in Edinburgh, Scotland. She teaches and performs historical dance as part of Les Danses Antiques since 2013 focusing on social dances from the XVII – XIX centuries. Her research interests include Russian influences in the British dance repertoire of 18th and 19th centuries and Scottish dance scene during the Enlightment period. The later project she is doing as a research volunteer at the National Trust for Scotland. Alena is a board member of the Early Dance Circle.

Eine kurze Geschichte der Galliarde
(Markus Lehner)

Um 1500 entstanden, entwickelte sich die Galliarde zu dem mit Abstand populärsten Tanz im späten 16. Jahrhundert. Ob als eigenständiger Tanz, Teil eines Balletto oder als Nachtanz bot die Galliarde viel Gelegenheit, Sprungkraft und tänzerischen Erfindungsreichtum unter Beweis zu stellen. Eine ganze Reihe von Manualen aus dieser Zeit boten interessierten Tänzern eine Fülle an ausgefeilten Variationen dafür an.

Im 17. Jahrhundert änderte sich allerdings, ausgehend von Frankreich, der Geschmack, man bevorzugte nun statt wilden Sprüngen elegante Zierlichkeit, so dass die Gaillarde langsam von den Tanzböden verschwand. Einige Tänze aus dem späten 17. und frühen 18. Jahrhundert, die uns in Beauchamps-Feuillet-Notation erhalten sind, geben uns schließlich einen Einblick in die letzten Lebensjahre der Galliarde.

Im vorgeschlagenen Workshop wird der Galliarde-Grundschritt, die berühmten „Cinque Passi“ oder „Cinque-pas“, vorgestellt, sowie ein kurzer choreographischer Ablauf skizziert. Einige leichte bis mittelschwere Variationen geben einen Einblick in die Breite der Variationsmöglichkeiten und stilistische Charakteristika der Tanzmeister. Der stilistische Wandel im Frankreich des frühen 17. Jahrhunderts wird demonstriert, ehe die Teilnehmer anhand von Ausschnitten aus späten Gaillardes die allmähliche Auflösung der Tanzform nachvollziehen können.

Markus Lehner, Herrsching, Deutschland

Markus Lehner unterrichtet seit 1984 historischen Tanz mit dem Schwerpunkt Renaissance. Seine Tätigkeit im Bereich der Tanzforschung führte 1997 zur Veröffentlichung des „Manual of Sixteenth-century Dance Steps in Italy“. 2022 organisierte er zum fünften Mal das internationale Symposium für Historischen Tanz auf Burg Rothenfels unter dem Titel "Der Ball - Geselligkeit, Macht, Politik, 1600 - 1900“. Er ist Gründungsmitglied und Vorsitzender des Vereins Dance & History e.V., der Forschung und Wissensvermittlung im Bereich des Historischen Tanzes fördert.

 “From Folías to Folies d’Espagne”

Workshop on Spanish Golden Age Dance and its relation with the French Baroque Dance
(Ana Yepes and Anna Romani)

We propose a practical session exploring the technique and style of Spanish Golden Age dance and its relationship with French Baroque dance — through steps, arm movements, and notated choreographies.

Our work on Spanish Golden Age dance will draw on 17th-century sources such as Esquivel’s El Arte del danzado (detailing step vocabulary), the dance descriptions by Jaque and González, and the Chorégraphie by Novelli, a manuscript that assigns “figures” to steps and illustrates arm movements. For French Baroque dance, we will work with Feuillet’s Chorégraphie and with several notated Spanish Entrées preserved in French sources.

Participants will have the opportunity to practice excerpts from González’s Mariona and compare them with sections from Pécour’s Folies d’Espagne. We will also study passages from Jaque’s Folías alongside Pécour’s Loure pour une femme. A similar comparative approach will guide our exploration of arm movements, observing the differences and discovering personal choices in their use.

Those who wish to practice with castanets are warmly invited to bring their own.

Anna Yepes, La Genevraye, France

She studied music in Madrid, The Hague and with Nadia Boulanger. She obtained an Early Dance Teacher diploma from the GSMD and a dance certificate from the Sorbonne, Paris. Among other opera productions she has choreographed for Rinaldo, Orlando, Alceste, Giulio Cesare, Ginastera’s Beatrix Cenci, King Arthur, Indes Galantes, Hippolyte et Aricie, Carmen, Massenet’s Manon and Lully’s Bourgeois Gentilhomme. She has collaborated as a dancer and choreographer with Les Arts Florissants, Ris et Danceries, Les Paladins, Elyma Ensemble and the Yepes Trio among others. She works with directors including Francisco Negrin, Alfredo Arias, Jean-Marie Villégier and Mireille Laroche. She has her own company, Donaires Ensemble, which presents baroque dance programs and contemporary dance pieces. She teaches regularly in Europe, South and North America and Japan. She is currently collaborating with with Anna Romaní on the edition of their first book on dance of the Spanish Golden Age: “Introduction to Dance in the Spanish Golden Age, its sources, and its links with French and Italian Dance”.

Anna Romani, Barcelona, Spain

Anna Romaní, born in Barcelona, graduated in Contemporary Dance and Choreography at the Institut del Teatre. She specialises in Renaissance and Baroque dance, having trained with leading international teachers. Since 2005 she has performed with French companies such as Ensemble Donaïres, L’Eventail and Outre Mesure, and collaborated with ensembles including Le Poème Harmonique, Forma Antiqva and Vespres d’Arnadí. She frequently works with the Palau de la Música in projects involving both professional and amateur choirs, as well as family programmes. Alongside her performing career, she has consistently combined artistic practice with research. She co-directs Xuriach, a company dedicated to the study and performance of historical Catalan music and dance. As an educator, she integrates body and music through the Orff approach, and has taught at various conservatories and cultural institutions.

The Art of Port de Bras in Tomlinson’s “Art of Dancing”
(Caroline Copeland)

This workshop will explore some of the unique elements relating to port de bra in Kellom Tomlinson's treatise "The Art of Dancing" (1735). Tomlinson’s description of the movement of the arms is vague but he offers tantalizing details, evocative images, and specific action initiation points for the practitioner to consider and explore. The treatise’s engraved plates are even more intriguing depicting dancing figures with gathered fingers, lifted elbows, along with leaning and spiraling torsos. Do Tomlinson’s explanations and illustrations signal a new approach, a different style, or just additional possibilities for the performer?

Taking both his written description and the engravings into consideration, we will explore the following lines of enquiry and embodiment:

• The concept of épaulement, or shading of the shoulders, expressed on different planes of action: vertical, horizontal, and sagittal.
• Initiating points of the circular action of the wrists and elbow
• Moving from the distal ends of the arms (fingers/wrists) versus moving from the spinal column.
• The different shape and weight of the arms when the elbow is hanging versus lifted.
• Dropping the whole arm in making a circle vs. keeping the elbow lifted.

And finally, we will put this port de bras into action using basic dance phrases.

Caroline Copeland, Great Neck, NY, USA

Caroline Copeland is the Associate Director of the New York Baroque Dance Company, appearing with the troupe at the Drottningholm Theater, the International Händel-Festspiele Göttingen, Guggenheim Museum, and Potsdam Sanssouci Music Festival. She is a dancer and choreographer at the Boston Early Music Festival where choreographic credits include Campra's Le Carnaval de Venise, Händel’s Almira, Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria, and Steffani’s Niobe. As a soloist, Caroline has collaborated with many groups around the US and Europe including Nordic Baroque Dancers, The New Dutch Academy, Juilliard415, Cantata Profana, and Mertz Trio. Her choreography has been presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, The Public Theater, and the Philipszaal in The Hague. She is on the dance faculties of Hofstra University and SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance and a guest lecturer for Juilliard’s Historical Performance program. She holds a BA in Dance/Goucher College and MFA in Dance/Sarah Lawrence College.