Symposium Special
12 - 15 June 2022

As we have already done at recent conferences, we will once again be offering in the days before the Symposium itself a top-level dance course with internationally renowned teachers:

Attention: Unfortunately, Caroline Copeland cannot come!
Here is our new tutor and programme:

La Forlana

Ballroom Scenes of the late 18th Century

A seminar for advanced dancers
with Alan Jones, Paris

 

By the second half of the 18th century, the forlana had long been out of fashion in Parisian ballrooms. Astonishingly, toward 1780, the dancing master Malpied chose to publish an updated version of Pécour’s danse à deux La Forlana, to music from Campra’s opéra-ballet L’Europe galante of 1697. It would have been performed by young dancers in pauses between contredanses in public ballrooms and private dancing assemblies.

Malpied dedicated his dance to Maximilien Gardel, ballet master of the Paris Opera, and Gardel seems to have been fond of it, as he incorporated the melody and perhaps even the choreography into the ballroom scene of his ballet Mirza et Lindor in 1781. As late as 1815, the theoretician Jean-Etienne Despréaux, a former soloist of the Opera, further adapted this dance, using it as an example of his newly invented dance notation system, Terpsichorégraphie.

This workshop will focus on the Malpied choreography, comparing it with Pécour’s original and other forlana choreographies. To highlight changes introduced by Despréaux, the participants will receive a rare introduction to Terpsichorégraphie making use of his Danse Cosaque and a couplet of Folies d’Espagne. In a second focus we will take a fresh look at contredanse technique of the late 18th century, relying on Malpied’s notated steps, and put them to use in the contredanse La Perle, which distantly evokes forlanas.

 

Alan Jones, formerly of New York, studied Baroque dance with Wendy Hilton, but soon evolved a personal approach, acquiring a special interest for the 1780s and 1790s. His choreography in the United States includes El Sarao de Venus and Charpentier’s Les Arts florissants (New York Baroque Dance Company), El Bayle de los reyes and Stradella’s Cantata per il santissimo Natale (Artek, New York), and the Peruvian opera Venid, venid, deidades (Ex Machina, Minneapolis). Presently based in Paris, he is working on a history of American ballets and pantomimes and their European sources in the period 1782-1812. (Photo: S. Witherspoon)

Prerequisites:

The course is intended for dancers with a good knowledge of Baroque dance. The teaching language is English.

Seminar number: 2219

Start: Sunday, 12 June, 2022 at 18:30 with the evening meal. Accommodation check-in from 17:00.
End: Wednesday, 15 June 2022, at 12:15 with lunch.

	regular	reductions for pupils/students aged up to 27
Seminar fee:	€ 130.-	€ 80.-
Accommodation and meals per person:
Single room:	€ 220.-
Double room:	€ 193.-
Triple/quadruple room:	€ 172.-	€ 138.- (dormitory)

 

 

 

 

 

Early booking discount until 12 April 2022

 → Download of the invitation flyer

Registration:

→ Registration via this Homepage of Historical Dance Symposium (English)

→ Registration via the Homepage of Burg Rothenfels (German)

or send your registration to:

Verwaltung Burg Rothenfels
97851 Burg Rothenfels
Germany
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If registering by post or e-mail please give:
- Name / address / e-mail / date of birth
- Course number and short title
- Type of room desired
- Wishes for vegetarian/vegan/gluten-free/lactose-free/pork-free diet

 

Terms and conditions for our conferences:

For your information here is an English excerpt. Only the German version of the text, to be seen on the Burg website (www.burg-rothenfels.de/bestimmungen), is legally binding.

Registration: Please register in writing by post or Internet.

Prices: The prices can be found in the PDF for the conference in question. They consist of (a) the conference fee and (b) the costs for food and accommodation – prices differ for single room (EZ), double or two-bed room (DZ), triple/quadruple room (MZ).

Reductions: For persons in training or study and aged 27 or less, reductions are available for accommodation (dormitory) and the conference fee.

Early booking rebate: Those registering two months or more before the beginning of the conference receive a 10 Euro rebate on the conference fee. The deadline is specified in the general information for the conference.
Cancellation charge: For cancellations between 7 days and 1 day before beginning of the conference/course, the following cancellation charges apply: For weekend event 50.00 €, for a half-week event 75.00 €, or a one-week event 100.00 € (under-age children 50% in each case).
If the participant cancels on the first day of the event or leaves early, there will be no refund or reduction.

Other conditions: During your participation in our events, we do not provide you with insurance cover for accidents or third-party liability. An event may be cancelled for overriding reasons (course leader unable to come, too few participants etc.). We will then inform you immediately. Participants commit to attending the entire conference/course.

Child protection concept: Burg Rothenfels has a child protection concept for protecting children and young persons from violence and abuse.

The body legally responsible for the Heimvolkshochschule [“Residential Adult Education Centre”] and the youth hostel Burg Rothenfels is the Vereinigung der Freunde von Burg Rothenfels e. V. [“Association of Friends of Burg Rothenfels”]

Details

Published: 16 October 2015

5^th Historical Dance Symposium
Burg Rothenfels am Main
15 - 19 June 2022

Contributors 

Scientific committee:

Irene Brandenburg, Salzburg, Austria:

Musik- und Tanzwissenschaftlerin, wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin (Senior Scientist) an der Abteilung Musik- und Tanzwissenschaft und Kuratorin der Derra de Moroda Dance Archives an der Paris Lodron-Universität Salzburg. Forschungsschwerpunkte: Bühnentanz des 17. bis 19. Jahrhunderts, Ballett und Opera seria, Ballettreform des 18. Jahrhunderts (Angiolini), Musiktheater im 18. Jahrhundert, insbesondere Opern- und Sängerforschung in Zusammenhang mit Gluck, Mozart und Händel, Editionswesen/Musikphilologie sowie Archivforschung.

 

Anne Daye, Bedford, Great Britain:

Dr. Anne Daye is an experienced teacher and dance leader. Her core research both practical and theoretical concerns the Renaissance dance culture of the Elizabethan and Stuart courts, leading to a doctoral thesis on the Jacobean masque. Her interest in dancing in England then continues with the country dance in the 18th and 19th centuries, with a special focus on the dancing scene of Jane Austen’s world. Anne is Director of Education and Research for the Historical Dance Society.

 

Marie-Thérèse Mourey, Paris, France:

Emeritierte Professorin für deutsche Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte an der Universität Sorbonne- Lettres, Germanistische Fakultät. Forschungsgebiete : Deutsche Literatur- und Ideengeschichte, Poesie und Poetik, Ästhetik, Kulturtransfers zwischen Frankreich und Deutschland. Kulturgeschichte des Tanzes und des Balletts im europäischen Zusammenhang. Letzte Publikation: Tauberts « Rechtschaffener Tantzmeister (1717): Kontexte- Lektüren- Praktiken, hg. Hanna Walsdorf, M.Th. Mourey & Tilden Russell, Frank & Timme, Berlin 2019 (Reihe « Cadences », Bd. 2).

 

Carol G. Marsh, Washington DC, USA:

Carol G. Marsh is Professor Emerita at the UNCG School of Music, where she taught music history and viola da gamba and was director of the Collegium Musicum. She has been on the faculty at a number of early music workshops in North America and Europe, teaching both viol, historical dance and Renaissance notation. An internationally recognized authority on Baroque dance and dance notation, she has published extensively in this field and has lectured and given dance workshops at numerous universities in the US and abroad.

 

Markus Lehner, Herrsching, Germany:

Markus Lehner unterrichtet seit 1984 historischen Tanz mit dem Schwerpunkt Renaissance und englischer Country dance. Seine Tätigkeit im Bereich der Tanzforschung führte 1997 zur Veröffentlichung des „Manual of Sixteenth-century Dance Steps in Italy". Seit 2004 organisiert er mit großem Erfolg das Internationale Symposium für Historischen Tanz auf Burg Rothenfels, zuletzt 2016 mit dem Thema „Italien und der Tanz - für Barbara Sparti".

 

 

Organisation:

Markus Lehner, Herrsching, Germany:  see above.

Uwe Schlottermüller, Freiburg, Germany:

Uwe Schlottermüller studierte nach der Ausbildung zum Holzblasinstrumentenmacher Musikwissenschaft und Volkskunde. Seit 1979 besuchte er Tanzkurse für historischen Tanz, danach forschte er intensiv im Bereich Musik und Tanz. Durch seine Forschungen wurden u.a. drei wichtige Traktate aufgefunden und später herausgegeben: Lutio Compassos Ballo della Gagliarda, Paschs Anleitung, sich bei hohen Herrn und Höfen beliebt zu machen und die anonyme Instruction pour dancer. 1994 rief er ein eigenes Ensemble für Musik und Historischen Tanz, piedi ne(g)ri, in Freiburg ins Leben.

 

Referenten:

Lieven Baert, Ghent, Belgium:

Lieven Baert is a professional choreographer, dance teacher, performer and theatre director. He studied with Barbara Sparti and Angene Feves, Francine Lancelot, Beatrice Massin, Anne-Marie Gardette, Elizabeth Aldrich, Sandra Hammond. Since 1987 he assisted Barbara Sparti in Italy as dancer, co-teacher and continues her/his work in this field at the FIMA Summer School and Festival in Urbino since 2002.
He has been dancing, teaching, choreographing, and directing productions all over the world. As director of the Historical dance institute in Ghent, Belgium he organized two important symposia in 1985 and 2000 and developed special programs to introduce “Early Dance in relation to music” to music students all over Europe. As a producer at historical festivals, he specializes in reconstructions of repertoire from the medieval to the early modern period.
Since 1997 he is appointed choreographer for the Landshuter Hochzeit (D), a worldwide acclaimed reconstruction of a mediaeval royal wedding in 1475. He is stage director and choreographer since 2000 for the Brussels Operetta theater and staged 22 operetta’s taking charge of stage direction and choreography (mostly 19th century dancing). He is choreographer in residence for the Baroque Orchestra “La Cetra d’Orfeo “ in Belgium and realized projects as “ The English Dancing Master (2019) . Ay Amor (2015), Dances at the court of Albrecht and Isabella (2016) Chi passa per la Strada (2018).

 

Giles Bennett, München, Germany:

Giles Bennett, Historiker, wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Zentrum für Holocaust-Studien am Institut für Zeitgeschichte München, Tänzer im Ensemble La Danza München (Leitung: Jadwiga Nowaczek), Mitherausgeber des Bandes „Barocktanz im Zeichen französisch-deutschen Kulturtransfers. Quellen zur Tanzkultur um 1700“ Hildesheim 2008, diverse Aufsätze zum Tanz im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert.

 

Tanzkompanie Chorea Basileae, Basel, Switzerland:

Die Schweizer Tanzkompanie wurde im Jahr 2016 von Mojca Gal in Basel gegründet. Unter wichtigsten Produktionen gehören: «Das Dornröschen, ein historisches Ballett» (2016), «Von Königen, Göttern und Dämonen» (Co-Produktion mit FAMB Basel, 2018), Händels «Terpsicore» und eine Ballett-Pantomime «Die neunte Muse», (Co-Produktion mit dem Zürcher Barockorchester/Ensemble Ad Fontes sowie Postdamer Festspiele Sanssouci), 2019). Die Kompanie arbeitet regelmässig mit Philipp Grässle (Bühnenbild) und Gerrit Berenike Heiter (Regie und Pantomime) zusammen.

 

Anne Daye, Bedford, Great Britain: see above.

 

Maria Derkach, Moskau, Russia:

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.

 

Eugenia Eremina-Solenikova, St. Petersburg, Russia:

PhD student in the Vaganova Ballet Academy, member of the scientific committee of the annual dance reconstruction conference at the Vaganova Ballet Academy, scientific editor of the proceedings of the conference.

 

Matilda Ertz, Louisville, Kentucky, USA:

Dr. Matilda Ann Butkas Ertz is a musicologist who specializes in music and dance studies, particularly ballet music from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and Italian ballets of the nineteenth century. She has a PhD in Musicology from the University of Oregon preceded by degrees in piano performance, pedagogy, and education. She is a piano instructor at the Youth Performing Arts School and lecturer in music history at the University of Louisville School of Music where she also teaches piano and harpsichord.

 

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).

 

Dmitry Filimonov, Moskau, Russia:

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.

 

Carola Finkel, Frankfurt am Main, Germany:

Dr. Carola Finkel ist Dozentin für Musikwissenschaft und seit Januar 2017 Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin im DFG-Projekt „Verzeichnis der Werke Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrinas“ an der Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main. In August/September 2017 Stipendiatin der Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel (Thema: Jaymes Recüeil de Contre Dances). Forschungsschwerpunkte: Tanz und Hofkultur im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert sowie Nordische Musik des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts.

 

Mojca Gal, Basel, Switzerland:

Mojca Gal fing in den jungen Jahren mit der tänzerischen Bildung an. In Slowenien lernte sie vorerst Vaganova klassisches Ballett Methode und Aegyptischen traditionellen Tanz. Später spezialisierte sie sich aus dem Tanz des 18. Jahrhundert (CAS an der Schola Cantorum Basiliensis sowie diverse Meisterkurse), und bildete sich bei ISTD aus der Cecchetti Klassiches Ballett Methode. Sie wurde von diversen Ensembles engagiert (Freitagsakademie, Festival Radovljica, Ensemble Odyssée) und von der Tanzkompanie Corpo Barocco. Mit der eigenen Tanzkompanie Chorea Basileae stellte sie einige eigene Kreationen auf die Bühne (Dornröschen (2016), Von Königen, Göttern und Dämonen (2018, Kooperation mit FAMB Basel), Terpsicore (2019, Kooperation mit ZBO Zürich) und Die neunte Muse (2019, Potsdamer Festspiele Sanssouci). Seit 2020 arbeitet sie mit dem kanadischen Choreographen und Tanzhistoriker Edmund Fairfax auf der Rekonstruktion des Bühnentanzes des 18. Jahrhunderts.

 

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).

 

Rebecca Harris-Warrick, Ithaca, NY, USA:

Rebecca Harris-Warrick served as professor of music history at Cornell University (USA) until her retirement in 2021. Having been introduced to early dance as a graduate student at Stanford University, she gradually began including dance topics within her musicological research. Her book with Carol Marsh about Le Mariage de la grosse Cathos, the only complete theatrical work from the 17th or 18th century to survive with its music and choreography intact (Musical Theatre at the Court of Louis XIV, CUP, 1994) led her to investigate the way dance functions inside of French operas (Dance and Drama in French Baroque Opera, CUP, 2016). This book includes an online appendix providing contextual information about all 47 of the choreographies by Pécour said in their titles to have been danced at the Paris Opéra. She has also prepared critical editions of ballets by Jean-Baptiste Lully and of an opera by Gaetano Donizetti.

 

Hubert Hazebroucq, Paris, France:

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.

 

Birte Hoffmann-Cabenda, Hamburg, Germany:

Birte Hoffmann-Cabenda studierte Mathematik, Betriebswirtschaftslehre und Informatik an der Universität Hamburg. 1975 kam sie erstmalig mit historischem Tanz in Berührung und besuchte seither zahllose Kurse und Konferenzen in dem Bereich. 1980 erhielt sie ein „teaching certificate“ der DHDS und begann 1981, selbst zu unterrichten. Daneben erforscht sie das Leben und Werk verschiedener Tanzlehrer aus Norddeutschland im 19. Jahrhundert. Inzwischen blickt sie auf eine langjährige Rekonstruktions-, Vortrags- und Lehrtätigkeit im Bereich Historischer Tanz zurück.

 

Guillaume Jablonka, Asnieres sur Seine, France:

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.

 

Alan Jones, Paris, France:

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.

 

LA DANZA MÜNCHEN, München, Germany:

Das Ensemble LA DANZA MÜNCHEN wurde 1999 von Jadwiga Nowaczek gegründet und bringt historische Tänze des 15. bis 19. Jahrhunderts zur Aufführung. Der Schwerpunkt der Arbeit liegt auf dem Barocktanz. Ziel ist, mit höchstmöglicher Genauigkeit und Authentizität die historischen Choreographien darzustellen. Viele Auftritte im In- und Ausland, u. a. bei den Tanztagen in Bad Ischl (2007-2015) mit jährlich wechselnden abendfüllenden Programmen, beim Taubert-Festival in Leipzig 2017 sowie Mitwirkung in Barockopern, zuletzt in Diana amante von Giuseppe Bernabei Kaufbeuren und Ingolstadt 2018.

 

Barbara Menard-Pugliese, Medford, Massachusetts, 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.

 

Michaela Mettel, Saarbrücken, Germany:

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.

 

Nona Monahin, Amherst MA, USA:

Nona Monahin teaches Renaissance and Baroque dance in the Five College Early Music Program at Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, USA. She studied early dance with Ingrid Brainard, Julia Sutton, and Barbara Sparti, and holds a PhD in Musicology (with a focus on the dance manuals of Caroso and Negri) from Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Nona has presented lectures and workshops at conferences in Australia, Europe, and North America, and has published with Medieval Institute Publications, University of Georgia, and Oxford University Press. She has directed dance ensembles and created choreographies for many Shakespeare plays and other theater productions. In addition to historical dance, Nona’s background includes ballet, modern, Duncan, English country, folk, and character dance. Her current research explores relationships between music and dance in 20th and 21st-century choreography, and she also enjoys choreographing dances in a free (non-historical) style. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/node/72594

 

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.

 

Jadwiga Nowaczek, Ismaning, Germany:

Klassische Tanzausbildung, Studium der Schulmusik, Rhythmik und Musikwissenschaft. Seit 1980 Rekonstruktion von historischen Tänzen des 15.-19. Jahrhunderts nach den Primärquellen. Choreographie mehrerer Ballette, u. a. von Dido und Aeneas (Purcell), Orfeo y Euridice (Leopold I) und Pygmalion (Mouret). Operninszenierungen: Purcell, Dido und Aeneas (2007) und Lapier, Felix in Fide Costanzia (2018). Lehrauftrag für Historischen Tanz an der Musikhochschule München. Leiterin von La Danza München.

 

Antonin Pinget, Ollon, Schweiz:

Antonin Pinget (zeitgenössischer und historischer Tanz) ließ sich bereits in jungen Jahren für Gesellschafts-, Volks- und Stepptanz begeistern. Seine Ausbildung schloss er in Dance Area Jeune Ballet in Genf ab, und zwar aus dem klassischen Ballett, Afro und Modern. Er arbeitet mit diversen Kompanien des historischenTanzes (Renaissance, Barock und 19. Jahrhundert). Unter bisherigen Engagements sind Outre-mesure und Corpo Barocco besonderszu erwähnen. Er unterrichtet Pilates und historischen Tanz an Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève. Seit 2020 ist er Mitglied der Tanzkompanie Hallet Eghayan in Lyon. In seiner eigenen choreographischen und tänzerischen Aktivitäten sucht er diverse Tanzstile miteinander zu verbinden.

 

Antonia Pugliese, Woburn, Massachusetts, 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.

 

Angela Rannow, Dresden, Deutschland:

Seit 2003 wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin der Palucca Hochschule für Tanz Dresden, tanzwissenschaftliche Lehre in allen Studiengängen (BA Tanz/BA Dance, BA/MA Tanzpädagogik, Master Dance Teaching, MA Choreografie, Elevenprogramm), Mentorenschaften für theoretische und tanzpraktische Projekte, Veröffentlichungen und Herausgeberschaft im Bereich Tanz, u.a. zum Modernen Tanz (Mary Wigman, Palucca), zu Improvisation und Älterer Tanzgeschichte.

 

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.

 

Daria Sundukova, Moskau, Russia:

Graduated at the Moscow State University (Department of History), currently doing her research in the history of urban dancing culture in Russia in the late 18th – early 19th century, studies early dance since 2005 (Golden Forests club, Moscow).

 

Bill Tuck, London, Great Britain:

Bill Tuck is the current Chairman of the Early Dance Circle. He performs in theatre with the Chalemie company where his interests are in commedia dell’arte and its connections with historical dance. He has worked as accompanist on pipe & tabor for many renaissance dance groups and plays sackbut in a number of early music ensembles. He holds a PhD in mathematics from Sydney University and before his retirement was a Senior Research Fellow at University College London.

 

 

Details

Published: 12 September 2015

5^th Historical Dance Symposium
Burg Rothenfels am Main
15 - 19 June 2022

Conference programme 

In what follows, you will initially find an overview of the Symposium programme. Further down, there follow summaries of the various contributions. Information on our speakers is to be found here.

Lectures:

1. Baert, Lieven: Balls in Ghent between 1760 and 1860. A very lively survey.
2. Bennett, Giles: Ost-westlicher Kulturtransfer im Ballsaal – das Repertoire eines österreichischen Tanzlehrers in Lemberg in den frühen 1790er Jahren
3. Eremina-Solenikova, Eugenia (video transmission): Russian ball culture in the first half of 18th century
4. Ertz, Matilda: Nineteenth-century theatrical ballabile and the Italian ball as social and political discourse of the Risorgimento
5. Filimonov, Dmitry: Italian improvisational dance from the late 16th to early 17th centuries
6. Finkel, Carola: Les Plaisirs du Bal du Mannheim – eine Betrachtung zum Tanzrepertoire in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts
7. de Guardiola, Susan: A repertoire for Mademoiselle: Contredanse step-sequences in pre-Revolutionary France.
8. Harris-Warrick, Rebecca: Ballroom scenes on the French operatic stage
9. Hoffmann-Cabenda, Birte: »Das tanzende Hamburg«, der Gesellschaftsabend als Mittel hanseatischer Selbstdarstellung
10. Alan Jones: Pierre Landrin Duport: Elegant Accomplishments of a French Dancing Master in the United States
11. Mettel, Michaela: Der Ball als cultural performance - Kriterien einer methodologischen Analyse
12. Monahin, Nona: Negotiating Text and Movement: Some Challenges in Staging Dance in Shakespeare’s Plays
13. Nowaczek, Jadwiga: Die Ballszene aus den "Leiden des jungen Werther" von Johann Wolfgang von Goethe aus tanzhistorischer Sicht.
14. Rannow, Angela: Zwar ist sie hin, die Prinzessin: Tanz bei kur-, fürstlichen und adeligen Hochzeiten am Dresdner Hof im 17. Jahrhundert
15. Sundukova, Daria (video transmission): Balls in the Russian Noble Assembly

Research Posters:

1. Derkach, Maria: Using Russian-German relationship for the reconstruction of a Russian ball at the beginning of the 19th century
2. Derkach, Maria and Filimonov, Dmitry: The Waltz in the late 18th - early 19th century: styles, use and techniques
3. Jones, Alan: The career of Franco-American dancing master Pierre Landrin Duport
4. Mettel, Michaela: Dissertationsprojekt: Performing Gender? Geschlechterrollen in den Tanztraktaten der italienischen Renaissance
5. Nikitin, Dmitry: Balls of the Russian Empire in the 19th century
6. Shmakova, Alena: Dance Assemblies in Georgian Edinburgh
7. Tuck, Bill: The Lunatic Asylum Ball: voyeuristic spectacle or dance therapy?

Workshops:

1. Daye: Anne: Law students’ Ball c.1600
2. Feste, Irène: Variations of the "trait de la contredanse" in the 19th Century
3. de Guardiola, Susan: Waltzes, Newports, and Rackets: Common Movement Units in Late 19th Century American Couple Dance.
4. Hazebroucq, Hubert: Dancing the corantoes (circa 1630) in the light of European sources
5. Jablonka, Guillaume: Setting up the "Allemande" within the space of a ballroom: Hypothesis based on Brives Nouvelle Méthode from 1779
6. Filimonov, Dmitry: French branles for opening the ball in the late 16th–17th centuries

Dance Evenings:

1. Daye, Anne: "New from France": Cotillons in Georgian London
   
2. Jones, Alan: American Ball Dances from the turn of the 19th C.
3. Menard-Pugliese, Barbara and Pugliese, Antonia: European Ballroom Dances of the second quarter of the 19th century
   

Short Performances:

1. I. Feste, H. Hazebroucq, G. Jablonka: Les Passe-Temps du bal - Jean-Etienne Despréaux’s Memoirs of the Ball
2. La Danza München (dir: J. Nowaczek): „Mit ganzem Herzen und mit ganzer Seele“ – Die Ballszene aus den „Leiden des jungen Werther“ von Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
3. Tanzkompanie Chorea Basileae (dir: M. Gal): Dance forms in context: ballroom dance on stage?
   

 

Further Information:

Lectures:

Baert, Lieven: Balls in Ghent between 1760 and 1860. A very lively survey.

Ghent is a city with an international history and a crossroad of different cultures. Spaniards, French and Austrians flooded our territory. Mary of Burgundy, Emperor Charles V, Philip II, Charles of Lorraine or Napoleon Bonaparte: all these big names were born, lived or came along as regents, dukes, emperors or occupiers and left their mark on our cultural life.
In the archives of Ghent and the Ghent University Library there is a wealth of information for the period between 1760 and 1860. In addition to the two dance sources of D'Aubat de Saint-Flour and Monsieur van Damme (both second part of the 18th century), I investigated accounts, regulations, ball books, business cards and publicity and requests from dance masters, diaries etc. Based on this unpublished material, I try to paint a vivid picture of how balls and dance lessons were organized and what the preparations and rules were during these evenings. We also know a lot of the dance titles and the steps which were performed by the local nobility or bourgeoisie. A nice detail is that the city of Ghent still has his original ballrooms of the 18th and 19th century. For the 19th century I consulted the private archive of the "Société des redoutes" of Ghent. This organization was responsible for the Redoutes/balls in the Opera of Ghent until 1960. This archive gives an excellent picture of the costs linked to organizing these events. Paying candles and flowers, cleaning up the ballroom or redecorating the room in the Opera and of course the repertoire which changed during this long period of ballroom/redoute management.

 

Bennett, Giles: Ost-westlicher Kulturtransfer im Ballsaal – das Repertoire eines österreichischen Tanzlehrers in Lemberg in den frühen 1790er Jahren

Der Vortrag beschäftigt sich mit einem bisher fast unbekannten 24-seitigen Pamphlet des Joseph Faenza, eines Tanzlehrers für die neue Elite der deutschsprachigen Österreicher in Lemberg, der multiethnischen Hauptstadt des kurz zuvor annektierten, zuvor polnischen Galizien. Faenza bewirbt in der Broschüre seine Dienste als Lehrer für richtige Haltung und korrektes Verhalten (und steht dabei im aktuellen pädagogischen Diskurs seiner Zeit), aber auch für alle Formen des Gesellschaftstanzes. Er beschreibt die Tanzgattungen kurz aber treffend (und macht auch einige technische Bemerkungen) – seine Liste enthält auch einige bemerkenswerte Überraschungen. Kürzlich veröffentlichte Details zu seiner späteren Karriere in Ljubljana erlauben es, das Pamphlet früher zu datieren als bisher angenommen, nämlich in die frühen 1790er Jahre. Die Einbeziehung des Mazur mag den Transfer dieser Tanzart von der polnischen in die deutsche Tanzkultur illustrieren (ähnlich wie bei der – hier auch diskutierten – Polonaise einige Jahrzehnte früher). Bereits in dieser frühen Phase passte Faenza den Tanz dem Geschmack des deutschen Milieus in Lemberg an, ein direktes Beispiel für Akkulturations- und Assimilationsprozesse im Tanz.

 

Eremina-Solenikova, Eugenia (video transmission): Russian ball culture in the first half of 18th century

By the end of the 17th century, the Russian kingdom was a country that followed its own traditions. It kept apart from Western Europe. We know for sure that there were no balls in Russia at that time. After Peter the Great became the full-fledged ruler of Russia, he founded St. Petersburg and began to introduce dance culture everywhere. And after 50 years, during the reign of Peter’s daughter Elizabeth, they said about Russian balls that in St. Petersburg within a month all the Parisian novelties were danced. Undoubtedly, this was an incredible progress: within half a century a culture of balls was created, new traditions were instilled, a steady interest of Russian society in dancing was created.

Russian culture has always been heavily dependent on the will and interests of emperors. The study of the reign of Peter shows that during the assemblies of that period, numerous new dances were introduced into Russian culture. Under the regency of Anna Ioannovna, balls were held regularly in St. Petersburg. A tradition was formed of regular imperial balls associated with important dates. It was Anna Ioannovna who authorized dance education in Russia, and teachers arrived who also gave private lessons. At her command a dance school was created, now known around the world as the Vaganova Ballet Academy.

Under Elizabeth there was a surge in ballroom culture, in particular, masquerades came into fashion. The dancing skills of the courtiers (who were observed by all of Russia) were developing. Also under Elizabeth, the first dance teachers of Russian origin appeared.

 

Ertz, Matilda: Nineteenth-century theatrical ballabile and the Italian ball as social and political discourse of the Risorgimento

Italian ballets of the nineteenth century began to include more and more group dances as Italians marched toward unification. Large portions of pure dance tended to be avoided in Italian theaters at the outset of the century (such as in Viganò’s coreodramas), where audiences preferred the dramatic action over strings of danced numbers. Nonetheless, the group dances, called “ballabile,” proliferated and began to be presented in a series that encapsulated the sets of then-popular social and character dances. By embodying familiar social and national dance, these portions of the ballet capitalized on the audience’s experiences at balls. This was true especially after 1850 as the sets commonly included waltzes, polkas, mazurkas, and other national dances, and often culminated with the the high-energy galop. The dances were increasingly highlighted and advertised in the libretti for the ballets with greater frequency after the mid-century. Since the theater was one of the few places where Italians gathered in large numbers, it was essential to the spread of ideas, both political and social, as well as social dance trends. This study examines the role of the group dances within the ballets, their musical features, and choreographic features (as much as can be determined). Further, I examine the relationship between the series of the group dances found in ballets and those danced at balls during the nineteenth century. Select ballets, including especially those in which a ball was staged as a part of the dramatic action or in which overt Risorgimento themes are present, serve as case studies. By the century’s end Pallerini’s and Manzotti’s ballets (such as Excelsior) included large numbers of dancers and prolific group dances and can be seen as the culmination of the trend towards a greater number of and complexity within the group dances. This trend can also be read against the backdrop of the Risorgimento as representing staged notions of a collective, unified Italy.

 

Filimonov, Dmitry:The Tordiglione: Italian improvisational dance from the late 16th to early 17th centuries

In the late 16th and early 17th centuries there were dances in Italy with wide opportunities for improvisation, and one of them, Tordiglione, has not yet been practically explored. In most musical dictionaries, Tordiglione is associated with the French dance Tourdion. The names of these dances are most likely related, however, both choreographically and musically Tordiglione and Tourdion are very different.

For this lecture I have compared all currently known versions of Tordiglione: in the books “Il Ballarino” and “Nobiltà di Dame” by Fabritio Caroso, “Gratia d'Amore” by Cesare Negri, “Libro di gagliarda, tordiglione, passo è mezzo canari è passegi” by Livio Lupi and in the Chigi manuscript. The analysis of these sources allows not only to find the main structure of the dance and to reconstruct each of the versions described, but also to trace possible changes in the style of the performance of the Tordiglione. Furthermore, on the basis of all available descriptions,it is possible to make suggestions for the way of improvisation in this dance.

 

Finkel, Carola: Les Plaisirs du Bal du Mannheim – eine Betrachtung zum Tanzrepertoire in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts

Les Plaisirs du Bal du Mannheim, eine anonyme und undatierte Publikation von Contredanses, ist zwar vom Titel her nicht unbekannt, hat aber bislang in der Tanzforschung keine Beachtung gefunden. Dies allerdings zu Unrecht, denn die enthaltenen Choreographien sind ein bedeutendes Zeugnis für die Entwicklung des Tanzrepertoires in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts. Sechs der insgesamt zwanzig Contredanses sind sogenannte cotillons en colonne. Diese Tanzform wurde bislang nur flüchtig thematisiert. Der Vortrag befasst sich mit der Entstehung dieser neuen Form des Gesellschaftstanzes und mit seinen verschiedenen Ausprägungen. Dabei zeigt sich, dass die Choreographien in Les Plaisirs besondere Merkmale haben, die sich von anderen erhaltenen Quellen dieser Tanzform abheben.

Aber nicht nur für den cotillon en colonne, sondern auch für die Frühgeschichte eines anderen Balltanzes sind die Tänze in diesem Druck ein interessanter „missing link“, wie im Vortrag dargestellt wird. Ergänzend wird der entstehungsgeschichtliche Kontext der Publikation thematisiert. So konnte für den Druck das exakte Publikationsjahr ermittelt werden, für das bislang 1777 angenommen wurde. Damit verbunden wird die Frage nach der Autorschaft von Choreographien und Musik diskutiert.

 

de Guardiola, Susan: A repertoire for Mademoiselle: Contredanse step-sequences in pre-Revolutionary France.

In La Contredanse: Un tournant dans l’histoire française de la danse (2003; originally published in 1969 as La Contredanse et les renouvellements de la danse française) the late Jean-Michel Guilcher suggested that in the years immediately preceding the French Revolution, there was a trend toward “exigence accrue en matière de technique” (increasing technical demands) in the performance of the French contredanse, the beginning of an evolutionary process he described as a shift from the repertoire of simple steps and creative figures that characterized the mid-18th century contredanse to the simple figures and elaborate steps of the early nineteenth century quadrille. Evidence of the development of a more elaborate step-repertoire for the social dancer performing contredanses may be found in the enchaînements of steps for specific figures described in a late-18th century instructional manuscript written by a dance master for use in independent practice by his female student. Close examination of this manuscript offers an unusually specific view of the step-combinations available to the social dancer and, additionally, illuminates the use of technical terms to refer to both steps and figures. This paper will briefly examine the basic structural elements given for the contredanse in order to situate this manuscript within the French tradition of the 1760s-1780s and then review in detail some representative enchaînements.

 

Harris-Warrick, Rebecca: Ballroom scenes on the French operatic stage

Once the Paris Opera had begun expanding beyond mythological settings to contemporary ones, the staging of masked balls became a trope of the repertoire. Initially set in Venice, starting with “L’Italie” in Campra’s L’Europe galante (1697), masked balls were later depicted as taking place in French spaces—not just ballrooms, but in fairs set on the banks of the Seine. Ball scenes served several dramatic purposes. First, they enriched plotlines with scenes of deception and unmasking, often in the service of testing marital fidelity. Second, they allowed for an extended sequence of dancing that nonetheless conformed to fundamental French principles of dramatic verisimilitude. Third, they held up a mirror to French audiences, one that reflected an image of their own social practices back at them, although the mirror might be idealizing or distorted or both at the same time.
This talk will use ballroom scenes found in three early18th-century opera-ballets — Mouret’s Les Fêtes de Thalie (1714), Montéclair’s Les Fêtes de l’été (1716), and Campra’s Ballet des âges (1718) — as windows not only onto the dramatic purposes served by such scenes, but onto the music that set the dancers in motion and — to the extent that it can be recaptured — the choreography.

 

Hoffmann-Cabenda, Birte: »Das tanzende Hamburg«, Der Gesellschaftsabend als Mittel hanseatischer Selbstdarstellung

Das politische und gesellschaftliche Leben in Hamburg in der Zeit der Wende vom 19. zum 20. Jahrhundert wurde von den großen Kaufmannsdynastien der Hansestadt dominiert, die den Takt des Kulturlebens der Stadt angaben. Bei der privaten Freizeitgestaltung blieb dieser familiär eng miteinander verknüpfte städtische Bürgeradel kaufmännischen Geblüts gern unter seinesgleichen. Ähnlich verhielt es sich auch bei den in jener Zeit besonders beliebten großen Gesellschaftsabenden zu wohltätigen Zwecken: Diese Veranstaltungen waren ein Gipfelpunkt der Selbstinszenierung hamburgischer Patrizierfamilien. Hier präsentierten sich in zuvor wochenlang einstudierten Choreographien »historischer« Ballszenen Hunderte von mitwirkenden »Damen und Herren der Gesellschaft« der Öffentlichkeit, bevor der Abend in einem rauschenden, Darsteller und Publikum einenden Ball endete. Rudolph Knoll (1862–1916), ein weit über Hamburgs Grenzen hinaus geschätzter Tanzlehrer und Ballettmeister an Hamburger Theatern, lieferte dafür Ballett-Pantomimen wie Das tanzende Hamburg, 1813–1898 (1898) und Ein Gartenfest bei Baron Voght im Flottbeker Park vor 100 Jahren (1899), untermalt von der Musik des Hamburger »Walzerkönigs« und Strauß-Freunds Oscar Fetrás. Mit diesen tänzerisch ausgedeuteten Rückschauen auf die Geschichte Hamburgs demonstrierte das Großbürgertum seine persönliche, zum Teil schon über Jahrhunderte gewachsenen Verbundenheit mit der Stadt.

 

Alan Jones: Pierre Landrin Duport: Elegant Accomplishments of a French Dancing Master in the United States

Born circa 1762, Pierre Landrin Duport studied dance in Paris under Maximilen Gardel, published his first contredanses in Paris (engraved by his father, Pierre-André Landrin), and established himself as a young dancing master in Dublin before emigrating from Revolutionary France to the United States. In Philadelphia, Boston, New York, and finally Washington, DC, he introduced hundreds of young Americans to the refinements of French dance, from the minuet and allemande to such rarities as the monférine and périgourdine. This lecture will focus on his "exhibition balls," featuring demonstrations by children, followed by dancing for their parents and adults.

 

Mettel, Michaela: Der Ball als cultural performance - Kriterien einer methodologischen Analyse

Seit den einigen Jahren wird das Konzept des Performativen, losgelöst vom reinen linguistischen Sprechakt, immer mehr in die geschichts- und kulturwissenschaftliche Methodik aufgenommen. Im Kontext dieser Methode zur Untersuchung menschlichen Verhaltens wird davon ausgegangen, dass jedes menschliche Handeln Perfomanz ist, also eine öffentliche Darstellung seiner selbst. Eng verbunden mit der Performanz ist die anthropologische Kategorie der Inszenierung, das in Erscheinung bringen von gesellschaftlichen oder kulturellen Phänomenen, die auf natürlichem Wege nicht zustande kämen.

Es erscheint im ersten Moment nicht ungewöhnlich, vom Ball als eigenständigen, performativen Akt oder einer Inszenierung zu sprechen. Jedoch geht dieser selbstverständlichen Annahme unweigerlich die Frage voraus: wie wird das Performative im Kontext des Balles konstruiert?

In der Geschichts- wie auch Kulturwissenschaft bietet sich im Phänomen des Balls ein weites Spektrum an Untersuchungsansätzen, die einen festen Kriterienkatalog zum einen aufzeigen und zum anderen die Möglichkeit bieten, aus anderen Bereichen theoretische Akzente in die Analyse einfließen zu lassen: Wie konstituiert sich der Ball selbst als kulturelles Phänomen? Welche politischen, gesellschaftlichen, kulturellen und auch privaten Inszenierungen sind im Vorfeld planbar? Oder definieren sich diese erst durch den performativen Akt des Balles selbst? Welche Rolle können die einzelnen sozialen Akteure im Verlaufe einer Ballnacht spielen?

Diesen und weiteren Fragen nach den kulturwissenschaftlichen, anthropologischen oder auch soziologischen Prämissen soll in dem Vortrag nachgegangen werden. 

 

Monahin, Nona: Negotiating Text and Movement: Some Challenges in Staging Dance in Shakespeare’s Plays

William Shakespeare’s plays contain numerous references to dance, some of which are used as the basis for wordplay, others to illuminate a particular character or dramatic situation. Dancing also occurs as part of the action of many plays, in what today might be called “ballroom scenes,” although in such cases Shakespeare rarely indicates which dances he may have had in mind. One challenge to choreographers and directors who wish to include period dancing is to find, or create, appropriate dances, and to integrate them into the dialogue and action. A second challenge, regardless of whether the staging is in period style or is updated, is to make the dance references intelligible to today’s audiences. Using the dance scenes in two of Shakespeare’s plays, Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado About Nothing, as case studies, I draw on my research in 16th- and early-17th-century dance, as well as my experience as a choreographer, to explore options that integrate historically informed dance practices into contemporary theatrical productions.

 

Nowaczek, Jadwiga: Die Ballszene aus den "Leiden des jungen Werther" von Johann Wolfgang von Goethe aus tanzhistorischer Sicht.

 

Rannow, Angela: Zwar ist sie hin, die Prinzessin: Tanz bei kur-, fürstlichen und adeligen Hochzeiten am Dresdner Hof im 17. Jahrhundert

Von skizzenhaft bis akribischen Akten des kursächsischen Oberhofmarschallamtes ausgehend geht es in diesem Beitrag um den Tanz am Dresdner Hof bei kur-, fürstlichen und adeligen Beilagern des 17. Jahrhunderts. Hochzeiten bieten sich dafür besonders an: geheiratet wurde immer, auch in Notzeiten. Aber wurde auch immer getanzt? Hinsichtlich konkreter Tänze, des Grades ihrer Beherrschung oder gar tänzerischer faux pas schweigt das Quellenmaterial der sächsischen Bürokratie delikat. Peniblen „Quecklisten“, akkuraten Ordnungen, detaillierten Dienstwartungen und ungefehrlichen Entwürfen lassen sich jedoch etliche Geheimnisse hinsichtlich des Tanzens am Dresdner Hof des 17. Jahrhunderts entlocken. Das betrifft den Ablauf, den Schauplatz der Tanzenden, die zum Tanze aufwartenden Musiker, die Tanzenden und ihre Funktionen beim Tanz. Wie so oft erweist sich als besonders aufschlussreich, was nicht geregelt und der dexterität, dem Belieben und impliziten Wissen der Anwesenden überlassen wurde.

 

Sundukova, Daria (video transmission): Balls in the Russian Noble Assembly

The Russian Noble Assembly, founded in 1783, was one of the most fashionable establishments in Moscow. Its regular balls and masquerades during the social season (from November till April) gained an excellent reputation for its refined public and gorgeous dance hall – and highly influenced ball culture all over Russia.

The lecture will follow different aspects of the ball organization in the Russian Noble Assembly (late 18th century – 1840s): site, number of attendants, ticket price, formats of dancing events, musicians, servants, dances, dress-code, refreshments, supper, and security. Who organized the balls, what do we know about income and expenses, what problems did the Assembly face and what ways were chosen to overcome them? Beside these questions, such aspects as social and political environment, the problem of communication between imperial power and noble society during the social entertainments will be revealed. The connections between the Assembly and one of the most famous Moscow dancing masters of the time, Pierre Jogel, will be shown as well.

This research is based mostly on papers from the Russian Noble Assembly collection (Moscow Central State Archive), but also on the Assembly rules, letters, memoires, publications in periodicals, satire works and guidebooks.

 

 

Research Posters:

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

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.

 

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

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.

 

Jones, Alan: The career of Franco-American dancing master Pierre Landrin Duport

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.

 

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

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.

 

Nikitin, Dmitry: 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.

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.

 

Shmakova, Alena: Dance Assemblies in Georgian Edinburgh

The Dance Assembly in Edinburgh could be traced back to 1710 when the semi-private club was organised in the Old Town. Faced with strong criticism from the church and residents it did not last. However, the second attempt to enliven the social dance scene led by the well-established female society leaders was successful. Edinburgh Assembly was formed in 1723 and created the model by which the Assemblies ran for the next 100 years in Edinburgh and major Scottish towns. Dance Assemblies created a further demand for skilled dancing masters, musicians, and collections of dances, some of which formed the foundation of the repertoire of modern Scottish country dances. They also provided further opportunities to express Scottish identity through dance and music, creating such interesting dance forms as Strathspey Minuet and Scotch Reel and culminating in the Scottish themed Balls during the historical visit of George IV to Edinburgh in 1822.

My poster presentation will focus on analysing the roles of Dance Assemblies in Scottish society during the Enlightenment. In addition, I am interested in exploring how the developing ideas of national identity were reflected in the most fashionable ballrooms in Scotland. As such I would pay special attention to the dance practice of Edinburgh Assemblies at the time of the Royal Visit of George IV in 1822 organised by Sir Walter Scott.

 

Tuck, Bill: The Lunatic Asylum Ball: voyeuristic spectacle or dance therapy?

From the middle of the 19th century and the foundation in England of a great network of public ‘asylums for pauper lunatics’ (following the parliamentary Acts of 1808 and 1845) there evolved the practice of holding ‘balls’ regularly throughout the year. At Colney Hatch, a very large asylum on the outskirts of London, there were no fewer than 15 such balls in the year 1868. Participants at these events might include patients as well as members of the public. Regular dance classes for inmates were also frequently arranged as part of their structured leisure activities – along with musical concerts and other entertainments. Similar practices were later initiated in US and Australian asylums, as well as in those of many other countries.

Attitudes to these ‘balls’ appear, however, to have been somewhat ambiguous. Were they intended as therapy for the patients or did they merely serve as voyeuristic entertainment for a curious public (as they had almost certainly been in an earlier age when a visit to Bedlam was an essential part of any social calendar)? Their role as a sophisticated public relations exercise, serving to convince a sceptical public of the value in contributing public funds to these institutions should also not be underestimated. The poster will illustrate some of these complex attitudes toward the Asylum Ball.

 

 

Workshops:

Daye, Anne: Law students’ Ball c.1600

The profession of law and legal training in England has been organised since medieval times through the Inns of Court in London. In Elizabethan and Jacobean times (c.1550 - 1650), students from all over England lodged in one of the inns, while studying with senior members of the legal community. Each Inn had a long tradition of communal celebrations, such as the Grand Days for dancing, music and plays held at Hallowmas (November 1st) and Candlemas (February 2nd). A number of manuscripts have survived to give us information on the dances they enjoyed and the organisation of the balls. Judges presided over the Grand Days, and senior lawyers ensured that the dancing was kept up in style. The norm was for the men to dance together, while women were invited in for special occasions.

In this workshop, participants will learn the English form of almains and courantes, called ‘the measures’. Following this warm-up, dancers will explore a proposed English version of the Spanish Pavan developed from Arbeau and Caroso as a basis for improvisation. The homosocial dancing at the Inns also included a dance for the nine muses, for which we can identify the tune to accompany the choreography. I propose that this was danced by nine men, as a symbol of peace.

The eight known manuscripts dated 1568 - 1672 relating to dancing at the Inns of Court are the only sources for social dancing in England (until the publication of country dances by Playford in 1651), and the Nine Muses dance is a unique choreography for an ensemble.

 

Feste, Irène: Variations of the "trait de la contredanse" in the 19th Century

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.

 

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

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.

 

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

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.

 

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

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.

 

Filimonov, Dmitry: French branles for opening the ball in the late 16th–17th centuries

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.

 

 

Dance Evenings:

Daye, Anne: "New from France": Cotillons in Georgian London

In contrast to the English country dance, the contredanse française or cotillon always had a strong French character even when composed by English masters. The numerous publications from c.1770 to c.1815 in London, Bath, Cambridge and Norwich are testimony to the popularity of this creative and sociable form throughout the Napoleonic Wars. Superseded by the quadrille, the cotillon had established many of the figures of the square set. It was danced by Jane Austen who noted in one of her last letters thanking her niece Fanny for the gift of a music book: ‘Much obliged for the Quadrilles which I am grown to think pretty enough, though they are very inferior to the Cotillions of mine own day’. Cotillon balls were a feature of the assembly room programmes, with inventive figures, delightful steps and charming music.

The cotillons will include: L’Entrée du Bal by Nicholas Lemaire 1773, Les Ombre Chinois by Thomas Budd c. 1780, Lison Dormoit by Francis Werner 1780

 

Jones, Alan: American Ball Dances from the turn of the 19th C.

The evening will begin with longways dances featuring music and figures by Pierre Landrin Duport, from his United States Country Dances ("The New Hampshire Allemande," "The Massachusetts Hop"), continuing with one or two of his cotillions.

 

Menard-Pugliese, Barbara and Pugliese, Antonia: European Ballroom Dances of the second quarter of the 19th century

Between the 1810s and the 1860s ballroom dance changed dramatically. At the beginning of the century triple minor country dances and quadrilles in two-couple sets were very common. After the introduction of the polka and the flat-footed German waltz, ballroom preferences began to favor turning couples dances and four-couple quadrilles. There was still a need for dances that "may be joined in by all the company present," so contra dances developed to meet the need.

A new form of contra dance appeared that involved couple facing couple in a large circle, often described as a circassian circle. Another contra dance style arranged the dancers in lines of side-by-side couples as in La Tempete.

We will teach dances that became popular in English and European ballrooms during the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s. There will be marches, country dances, and contra dances and these will show a change from the triple minor set, where one out of three couples is more active than the others, to circassian circles and other formats, where all dancers are active all of the the time.

 

 

Short Performances:

Irène Feste, e.a.: Les Passe-Temps du bal - Jean-Etienne Despréaux’s Memoirs of the Ball

Based on Jean-Etienne Despréaux’s writings, notably his Passe-Temps, his Terpsichorographie, and his Souvenirs..., we will evoke the emblematic balls he took part in, their repertoire and their preparation periods, showing the span of styles and contexts he experienced.

You will see Despréaux, himself, at a ball given by Marie-Antoinette, performing a dance next to his wife the Guimard, or giving a deportment lesson to the Emperor...

This show is the result of various research works on dances of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, in connection with the workshops proposed during the Symposium.

Dancers: Irène Feste – Danses au (Pas)sé, Hubert Hazebroucq – Les Corps Eloquents, Guillaume Jablonka – Divertimenty

 

LA DANZA München (dir. Jadwiga Nowazek): „Mit ganzem Herzen und mit ganzer Seele“ – Die Ballszene aus den „Leiden des jungen Werther“ von Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

„Tanzen muß man sie sehen! ... sie ist so mit ganzem Herzen und mit ganzer Seele dabei, ihr ganzer Körper eine Harmonie, so sorglos, so unbefangen, ... als wenn sie sonst nichts dächte, nichts empfände; und in dem Augenblicke gewiß schwindet alles andere vor ihr.“ So charakterisiert Johann Wolfgang von Goethe die auf einem Ball tanzende Lotte in einem seiner berühmtesten Werke, den „Leiden des jungen Werther“ (Erstausgabe 1774). Seine treffsicheren Formulierungen verraten den überaus empfindsamen, mitfühlenden Zuschauer, der diese innere Hingabe im Tanzen wahrscheinlich auch bei sich selbst erfahren hat.

Die im Werther enthaltene Ballszene ist aus tanzhistorischer Sicht höchst interessant, u. a. auch, weil sie autobiographische Züge trägt und dadurch einen starken Realitätsbezug hat. Zwei Jahre vor dem Erscheinen des Werther, am 9.6.1772, hatte sich Goethe auf einem Ball unglücklich in Charlotte Buff verliebt, nicht wissend, dass diese schon verlobt war, und seine Erfahrungen im fiktiven Briefwechsel des Werther verarbeitet. Goethe beschreibt dort das Ballgeschehen derart anschaulich und konkret bis in einzelne Tanzfiguren hinein, dass man davon ausgehen kann, dass der reale Ball von 1772 in ähnlicher Weise verlaufen sein könnte. Es werden die gängigen Gesellschaftstänze getanzt: Menuett, Kontratanz, Deutscher Tanz – genau die Tänze, die der geniale Mozart in seiner Oper Don Giovanni (Finale 1. Akt) gleichzeitig erklingen lässt. Die Ballszene des Werther enthält mancherlei aufschlussreiche Formulierungen und Bemerkungen Goethes zur realen Tanzpraxis seiner Zeit, die Thema eines kurzen einleitenden Vortrags sind. Das Ensemble La Danza München präsentiert diese packende, mit Emotionen aufgeladene Ballszene mit Tänzen des ausgehenden 18. Jahrhunderts (Rekonstruktion: Jadwiga Nowaczek) im Wechsel mit den entsprechenden Textstellen von Goethe und erweckt sie so zu neuem Leben. 

 

Tanzkompanie Chorea Basileae (Ltg. Mojca Gal): Dance forms in context: ballroom dance on stage?

By figured menuets, however, are meant those which are made up mainly of the ordinary composite minuet steps /.../ unless one wishes to dance it on stage instead of an entrée, where it of course takes on quite different characteristics and is danced mostly with high steps. (G. Taubert 1717, 616-17)

Dance company Chorea Basileae would like to present contrasting performances of same dance forms. Although they might have the same name and are often categorised under ballroom dance (a gavotte for example), their reconstruction will significantly change depending on the performance context and style. The reconstruction of a gavotte, marked as ‚grave‘ as theatrical ballet entrée in serious style, thus greatly differs from a ballroom gavotte. For example in the height of the steps, character and tempo, or from a lively gavotte in a half-serious style. The same can be observed for a Loure in a theatrical execution as ,entrée grave’, or as a low ballroom dance. The programme is a result of a long-distance collaboration with the Canadian dance historian and choreographer Edmund Fairfax.

Dancers: Mojca Gal - Chorea Basileae, Antonin Pinget - Chorea Basileae, Nicolle Klinkeberg

 

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Published: 02 August 2015

Symposium für Historischen Tanz
Burg Rothenfels am Main

Our music ensemble 2022

A special highlight of the symposium is the conference's own music ensemble, which we have newly assembled for the 2022 symposium. It accompanies workshops, short performances, dance evenings and the festive ball. The ensemble thus enables the presentation of previously unpublished, unrecorded material, advises on musical issues and contributes significantly to the success of the various contributions with its lively interpretation.

Music ensemble "TripleTime

Under this title, four musicians from several nations have come together who have already made a name for themselves in various ensembles in the field of early music and historically informed performance practice. Thanks to their great stylistic flexibility, they are very much at home in the music of three centuries, from the early 17th to the 19th century. All musicians have also been active in the field of historical dance and thus form the ideal line-up to accompany the various workshops and dance evenings of the symposium with verve and sensitivity, whether in branles, courantes, allemands, country dances, cotillions or quadrilles. When they finally play for us to dance at the festive ball on Saturday evening, hardly anyone will remain sitting still...

 

Darina Ablogina, flute and transverse flute

Darina Ablogina is a graduate of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where she studied modern flute and historical performance practice in the class of Olga Ivusheikhova, and the University of Tromsø (Norway), where she studied with Paul Wahlberg. She then continued her studies on the transverse flute with Serge Saitta at the Conservatoire de Musique in Geneva (Switzerland). She has won prizes at numerous international competitions in Bulgaria and the Baltic States. She participated in master classes under such teachers as Benedek Csalog, Hans-Joachim Fuss, Barthold Kuijken, Andras Adorjan and Oleg Khudyakov.
She also joined the Studio of New Music, founded by Prof. V.G. Tarnopolski and conductor I.A. Dronov. Since 2016 she has been studying at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in the class of Marc Hantaï. Darina regularly performs concerts at the Moscow Philharmonic Society and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts.
As a soloist, as well as a chamber and orchestral musician, Darina has played with the Studio of New Music Moscow and the Kymatic Ensemble for Contemporary Music, among others. As a flutist, she is dedicated to music from the 16th to the 21st century.
Darina studied baroque and renaissance dance in Russia and at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis with Veronique Daniels and Barbara Leitherer. Currently she participates as a dancer and musician in the project "Les soirees amusantes" in Basel.

 

Thys Grobelnik, harpsichord and piano

The harpsichordist and organist Thys Grobelnik is internationally active. After studying in Austria and at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel (CH), he specialized in French music from 1650-1750 and also conducts musicological research on this subject. With the Slovenian dancer and violinist Mojca Gal he has been working on various dance and music projects for several years. He is the founder and director of the ensemble Les Esprits Libres. He performs in France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Italy as a soloist or ensemble musician with ensembles such as Ad Fontes, the Zurich Baroque Orchestra, the Freitagsakademie Bern, Ensemble Orlando and others.

 

 

 

Mojca Gal, violin and baroque violin

Mojca Gal (Slovenia) studied violin at the Music Academy Ljubljana, Hochschule der Künste Bern and Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (Amandine Beyer, violin in ALter Mensur). She lives in Basel and works as a freelance musician. Among others she plays regularly with the ensembles Arabesque, Freitagsakademie Bern, Grenzklang and Ad Fontes. With the latter they also organize their own concert series in Basel. Her CD with violin sonatas for violin 'in skordatura' from the 17th century was released by ZKP Slovenia. In 2020 the CD with the ensemble Ad Fontes "Pregon del cantante vagabundo " was released by ARS Production.
Mojca is intensively engaged in the performance practice issues of different musical styles, especially the performance practice of French music. She is also professionally active as a dancer and Pilates trainer.
www.mojcagal.com

 

 

Konstanze Waidosch, viola da gamba and cello

Konstanze Waidosch, born in 1991 in Lower Bavaria, discovered historical performance practice for herself early on, alongside her studies of modern cello. Thus, since 2006, she has regularly attended international courses and master classes for the interpretation of late medieval, renaissance and baroque music and historical dance with Lieven Bart, Bernd Niedecken, Jadwiga Nowaczek and Hubert Hazebroucq.

Konstanze studied baroque cello at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen and at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam with Prof. Viola de Hoog and is currently completing her master's degree in viola da gamba with Prof. Hille Perl and Frauke Hess in Bremen. She has performed with international ensembles and orchestras such as Academia Montis Regalis, Nieuwe Philharmonie Utrecht, Göttinger Barockorchester, Bremer Barockorchester, Concerto Bremen and the VOX Orchestra. Furthermore, she is a scholarship holder of the German Music Competition 2019 and prize winner of the Biagio Marini Competition with her ensemble Marsyas Baroque. https://konstanze-waidosch.de (Photo: Foppe Shut)

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Published: 16 January 2014