4^th Historical Dance Symposium
Burg Rothenfels am Main
25 - 29 May 2016

 

Italy and the Dance

Dance in Italy, Italian Dance in Europe, 1400 -1900
For Barbara Sparti (1932 - 2013)

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. Bennett, Giles: Casanova und der Tanz – ein aktualisierter Blick in die "Histoire de ma vie"
2. Daye, Anne: "After the manner of Italy": tracing the influence of Italian dance culture on Late Renaissance England
3. Ertz, Matilda: Risorgimento themes in Italian ballets of the nineteenth century
4. Fabbricatore, Arianna: "Ces Bouffons venus d'Italie": Italian grotesque practice issues and its reception.
5. Fenger, Josephine: Italiens Tanzikone: Die tarantella als Metapher eines utopischen Arkadiens von der Grand Tour bis zum Posttourismus
6. Heiter, Gerrit Berenike: Italienische Tanzformen am kaiserlichen Hof – Die Rolle von Eleonora I. di Gonzaga (1598-1655) im choreographischen Kulturtransfer
7. Heller, Wendy: Producing Cavalli's Operas: To Dance or Not to Dance?
8. Jones, Alan: Balli e Banchetti
9. Kazárová, Helena: Gasparo Angiolini's Didone abbadonata, video presentation
10. Maurmayr, Bianca: Venetian theatrical dance coming to Paris: Italian influence on French ballet during the seventeenth century
11. Mikhailova-Smolniakova, Ekaterina: On the problem of pictorial dance sources: dance "formulas" in Italian figurative arts in the Age of Basse dance
12. Pappacena, Flavia / Tozzi, Lorenzo: The Italianisation of French Dance: Dauberval at the Teatro Regio at Turin in 1759
13. Rothermel, Jelena: "Hasse's Comic Tunes" als Quelle italienischer Tanzkonventionen in London
14. Sainato, Ilaria: The Siena LV29 manuscript and an unknown Dancing Master
15. Tomasevic, Nika: Ballon's, Fabiani's and Favier's conquest of pre-republican Rome (1790-1797)
16. Koop, Christoph / Walsdorf, Hanna: An der Wiege einer neuen Gattung: Balli und Moresche in der frühen italienischen Oper von Monteverdi bis Kapsberger

Research result poster:

1. Agnel, Romana: The influence of the Italian style on the Polish dance art in the 16th and 17th century
2. Couch, Nena / Tsachor, Rachelle: Curating Italian Renaissance Research Papers: Preserving Secondary Sources for Future Research
3. Dradi, Letizia: An architect at the service of the dance: Cesare Carlo Scaletta and his book
4. Gardiner-Garden, John: All-involving dances of late 16th- and early 17th-century Italy and the persistence of propensities and ideas across lands and centuries.
5. Kazárová, Helena: Revealing the Genius – Re-creating Angiolini's Didone abbadonata
6. Klementova, Katerina: Bohemian Lion Enchanted: Italian Cinquecento and Seicento in the Czech Countries
7. Langston, Lisbeth: Duel and Dance: Moresca stage directions in L'Amor Costante (1536)
8. Mikhailova-Smolniakova, Ekaterina: Mimesis in Jacques Callot’s Etchings
9. Stocker, Kathrin: "Harlequinades" zwischen Commedia dell’arte und belle danse: Harlequin auf der Londoner Bühne des 18. Jahrhunderts
   
10. Tsachor, Rachelle / Shafir, Tal: The Italian Dance Manual as a Source of Action for Theatre
11. Walsdorf, Hanna, Dotlacilová, Petra e.a.: Ritual Design for the Ballet Stage: Constructions of Popular Culture in European Theatrical Dance, 1650–1760

Workshops:

1. Butler, Margret / Jablonka, Guillaume: Reconstructing "Anacreonte": Theatrical Dancing in Parma, 1759
2. Dennison, Hazel: Drawing the Line, Dancing the Line
3. Gardiner-Garden, John: The Gresley manuscript dances and their Italian connection
4. Lehner, Markus: "le solite creanze" - Höflichkeitsgesten im italienischen Tanz um 1600
5. Marsh, Carol: Gennaro Magri's Contraddanze (1779)
6. Nowaczek, Jadwiga: Die Entschlüsselung der „Ammazzone“

Dance Evenings:

1. Dradi, Letizia: Notturno Italiano - un ballo a palazzo. At the court of Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina Asburgo-Lorena
2. Esposito, Maria Cristina: Quadrilles and Contredanses at the time of the unification of Italy
3. Gardiner-Garden, John: All-involving dances of late 16th- and early 17th-century Italy

Short Performances:

1. Abromeit, Klaus: Die Curieuse Methode - Tanzszenen nach Gregorio Lambranzi, "Neue und Curieuse Tantz-Schul", Nürnberg, 1716
2. Cracovia Danza: Cracovia Danza for Barbara Sparti
3. L'Accademia Nazionale di Danza: Occhi ridenti - music, song and dance between Cinquecento and early Seicento

 

Further Information:

Lectures:

Bennett, Giles: Casanova und der Tanz – ein aktualisierter Blick in die "Histoire de ma vie"

Wie kaum eine Persönlichkeit des 18. Jahrhunderts fasziniert der schillernde Giacomo Casanova bis heute. Besondere Bedeutung haben die Memoiren "Histoire de ma vie" des vielgereisten Sprosses aus einer venezianischen Schauspieler- und Tänzerfamilie. In dieser Lebensbeschreibung geht Casanova immer wieder auf den Tanz ein, sei es im Zusammenhang mit Reverenzen im Alltag oder als Tänzer auf Bällen, sei es als Zuschauer oder Librettist im Theater oder in der Oper. Von Konstantinopel bis London, von Russland bis Spanien, in Paris wie in fast allen bedeutenden Städten und Staaten Italiens tanzte er und beobachtete er mit venezianisch-italienischen Augen den Tanz sowie die Tänzerinnen und Tänzer. Auf Grundlage der Erkenntnisse der älteren Literatur (darunter vor allem der Arbeiten des Musikwissenschaftlers und Tanzforschers Paul Nettl bis in die 1950er Jahre) sowie dem erst nach 1960 zugänglichen unentstellten Text der ca. 3600 Seiten des Originalmanuskripts werden durch die Einbeziehung der Erkenntnisse der aktuellen Tanzgeschichtsforschung die Kontexte der Bemerkungen dieses venezianischen Weltbürgers zum Tanz seiner Zeit einer neuen Gesamtschau unterzogen.

 

Daye, Anne: "After the manner of Italy": tracing the influence of Italian dance culture on Late Renaissance England.

While Italian culture and language were highly admired in England, evidence of specific transmission of dance culture is scant. Nevertheless, for the first time, surviving details will be uncovered and analysed.
Records are full enough of the development of the masque to identify traces of Italian input: from the initiative of the young Henry VIII, through its regular occurrence in the festival culture of the Elizabethan court, to the sophisticated reinvention of the genre under the Stuart monarchies. Individuals, whether princes, noblemen, diplomats, dancers, designers or musicians, will emerge as key to the transmission of Italian practice to the Tudor and Stuart courts. The paper will also investigate the use of Italian texts known to have circulated at the time. The paucity of dance records in England limits what can be deduced with regard to dance style, but from the brief records of the masque revels, the social element of the show, we can also identify which aspects of Italian dance practice failed to develop in England.
Another intriguing dimension of Stuart dance theatre, in both Scotland and England, is the performance of characters and situations from the moresche and commedia dell'arte genres. While we have little evidence of visits by commedia troupes to the British Isles at the time, there was nevertheless widespread appreciation and imitation of this popular Italian theatre, as is clear from contemporary drama. This paper will present evidence from masque and antimasque of dance performances in the commedia style.

 

Ertz, Matilda: Risorgimento themes in Italian ballets of the nineteenth century

During the nineteenth century, ballet productions at the top Italian theaters such as La Scala in Milan, La Fenice in Venice, San Carlo in Naples, stood in an intimate partnership with opera. Though autonomous as entertainments, ballets and operas shared audiences, plots, music (earlier in the century), and musical topics. Some ballets (though certainly not all) subtly reflected Risorgimento themes. In my research of nineteenth-century Italian ballet music, I have begun to uncover these relationships, often hidden. In this paper I will discuss my initial findings of Risorgimento themes in nineteenth-century ballet including ballets ranging from Viganò's reign in Milan to the mid-century ballets that traveled the peninsula. I will discuss these in relation to ballet's more well-studied counterpart—the Italian opera. Musicologists are far from agreement about the extent of the role Risorgimento played in opera, especially Verdi's operas (for example, see Roger Parker's and Philip Gossett's discussions of the chorus from Nabucco). Scholars do seem to agree that the Risorgimento influenced the operatic stage. Though not studied yet in any systematic way, ballet must also have felt that influence. But scholars should be careful to assess ballet's Risorgimento ties with operatic reception in mind, since these productions were all part of the same theatrical system. Perhaps the ballet, as a "mute" entertainment, was an ideal vehicle for covert transmission of political ideas, more easily hidden and protected from censorship. For example, Viganò's La Vestale (La Scala, 1818) and Giovanna d'Arco (La Scala, 1821) were received on political terms during Milan's turbulence early in the century. At the mid-century, Giuseppe Rota's Bianchi e negri (La Scala, 1853) adapted Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin for the stage. This ballet's celebration of the breaking of the bonds of slavery tapped into Risorgimento fervor, and was aided on at least one occasion by an insertion of revolutionary music. For certain, from a musicological standpoint, the lack of serious study of Italian ballets and their music during the nineteenth century creates a gap in our understanding of the period. For dance scholars, the understanding of these ballets and their music will deepen the narrative of Italy's dance history during national unification.

 

Fabbricatore, Arianna: "Ces Bouffons venus d'Italie": Italian grotesque practice issues and its reception.

Throughout the eighteenth century, Europe saw a progressive identification among the words "grotesque", "virtuosity", "comic", "Italian", which directly associates, downgrading, the grotesque style and Italy. In his Letters on Dancing (1760), Jean-Georges Noverre is careful to distance his own practice of pantomime from that of the Italians; simultaneously, it links the Italian practice with a reference model: the Italian actor Antonio Rinaldi Fossano. The dancer and choreographer Gasparo Angiolini and the librettist Ranieri Calzabigi, both active at the court of Vienna, claim the belonging of the grotesque dance to Italy in order to keep them aside, while Louis Cahusac urges the French to transfer to the noble register, what it is "beyond the mountains, to the bottom." [Louis de Cahusac, La Danse ancienne et moderne ou Traité historique de la danse, (La Haye, chez Jean Neaulme, 1754), éd. Nathalie Lecomte, Laura Naudeix, Jean-Noël Laurenti, Paris, Desjonquères CND, 2004, p. 230].
The association of the "grotesque" style and Italy and its negative connotation seem to be the result of a series of concomitant factors related also to the actors all'improvviso and of the Commedia dell'arte. My work has the objective to look into the reality of the Italian comic dance: in particular it should define what a "grotesque" dancer in opposition to the serious style illustrated by the French, and to emphasize the factors and challenges of this negative connotation for the Italians.
From the study of the Letters to Mr. Noverre de Gasparo Angiolini (1773) and Trattato teorico Prattico del ballo de Gennaro Magri (1779), it will show how the Italian comic practice evolves throughout the eighteenth century, in a social and cultural space whose issues are related to the confrontation between nations and the definition of their identity.
This work is based on the research conducted as part of my doctoral thesis in Italian Studies (supported at Paris-Sorbonne) on "Quarrel of Pantomimes" and its multiple challenges (social, cultural, aesthetic and poetic). it is also based on a research project applied to Gennaro Magri, presented to the CND which aims to reading, commentary and interpretation of the steps described in his treaty.

 

Fenger, Josephine: "Italiens Tanzikone: Die tarantella als Metapher eines utopischen Arkadiens von der Grand Tour bis zum Posttourismus."

Wie kein anderes kulturelles Phänomen verkörperte die tarantella „napoletana"die Utopie Arkadien. Für viele Grand Touristen war Neapel der südlichste Punkt ihrer Reise; in dem ekstatischen Volkstanz mit der Faszination des „Archaischen" schien sich für sie die Grenze ihrer Zivilisation zu manifestieren. Seit dem späten 18. Jahrhundert erreichte die Tarantella zunächst durch Reiseberichte europaweite Bekanntheit und künstlerischen Einfluss: als musikalischer oder choreographischer Bezugspunkt und als Metapher in Literatur und Drama für Krise, Entgrenzung und Erneuerung und die Identifikation mit der mediterranen Kultur. Die komplexe Entwicklungsgeschichte der unter dem Dachterminus Tarantella bezeichneten Tanzvarianten und die rezeptionsästhetische Erwartungshaltung der Reisenden gegenüber dem deshalb stark semantisch „aufgeladenen" Tanz begünstigten seine Mythifizierung. Zugleich als modischer „Nationaltanz" und fremdidealisierter Tanz eines utopischen „Südenorts" propagiert, zum Salon- und inszenierten Schautanz – einem touristischen „must-see" – synthetisiert, verlor die tarantella „napoletana" um die Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts ihre Authentizität. Der zum Klischee erstarrten „tarantella alberghiera" um 1900 steht die aktuelle Popularität regionaler tarantelle als dem kollektiven Embodiment eines „neuen Arkadiens" gegenüber, als das die Tarantella wieder zur touristischen Sehnsuchtsmetapher und zum folkloristischen (Massen)spektakel geworden ist.

 

Heiter, Gerrit Berenike: Italienische Tanzformen am kaiserlichen Hof – Die Rolle von Eleonora I. di Gonzaga (1598-1655) im choreographischen Kulturtransfer

Vom 15. bis ins 17. Jahrhundert war das Mäzenatentum am Mantuaner Hof der Gonzaga eines der blühendsten in Norditalien. Eleonora I. di Gonzaga wuchs folglich in einer von Musik, Tanz und Theateraufführungen geprägten Umwelt auf. Mit ihrer Eheschließung mit Kaiser Ferdinand II. brach eine neue Blütezeit des italienischen Tanzes am kaiserlichen Hof an. Bereits bei den Hochzeitsfeierlichkeiten im Jahre 1622 in Innsbruck begegneten sich zwei verschiedene Tanzkulturen. Der Artikel zeigt die Bedeutung von Eleonora I. di Gonzaga als Kunstmäzenin und Kulturvermittlerin nach. Die persönliche Vorliebe der Kaiserin für den Tanz zeigt sich nicht nur durch ihre Teilnahme, sondern die bewusste Einflussnahme auf die Aufführungen, die sie selbst initiierte und gestaltete. Im Kern dieses Artikels befindet sich eine Analyse ihrer choreographischen Ambitionen und persönlichen Strategie in Zusammenhang mit den Tanzaufführungen am Kaiserhof, wobei sie auch in den Kontext höfischer Tanzkultur der Zeit gestellt werden. Was aber unter einem „balletto", dem „ballo" oder den „balli" zu verstehen sei, muss man entweder aus dem Kontext herauslesen oder auch in Anbetracht der Herkunft des jeweiligen Berichterstatters versuchen zu definieren und lexikographische Probleme der Kategorisierung der Tanzformen lösen.

 

Heller, Wendy: Producing Cavalli's Operas: To Dance or Not to Dance?

In her 2007 article entitled “Hercules Dancing in Thebes, in Pictures and Music,” Barbara observed that “a general assumption persists among musicologists and dance historians that dance in seventeenth-century opera was a French phenomenon, with Italians only occasionally staging a final ballo.” A notable exception to this attitude, as Sparti noted, can be found in the work of Irene Alm, who uncovered nearly a hundred examples of dance music for the balli in Venetian opera. Typically placed at the ends of Act I and II, the balli, as Alm had observed, were not inconsequential intermission features, but rather were of central importance to the pacing and meaning of the opera: they often comment on the action, explore an exotic theme or express some otherwise forbidden notion implicit in the plot, providing visual spectacle and variety, but also created transitions out of the rarefied world of sung drama, articulating the three act structure. Nonetheless,few productions of seventeenth-century Venetian operas today—even those that claim to be historically informed—attempt to grapple with this particular aspect of the performance; instead directors typically omit the dances, add them to places where they don’t belong, and/or use choreographies that are not only anachronistic but disruptive.
My paper explores the treatment of balli in present day performances of Cavalli’s opera. After examining some recent productions in which their omission or misplacement distorts the structure and meanings of the opera, I consider the question from the point of view of the editor of the critical edition, focusing in some detail on the problems raised by the dances in Veremonda, L’Amazzone d’Aragona (1652/3), which I am currently preparing for Bärenreiter. Finally, I hope to establish some guidelines for the inclusion of dance the operas of Cavalli and his contemporaries, and in so doing adhere to the principles exemplified by Sparti’s work.

 

Jones, Alan: Balli e Banchetti

A Renaissance ball was never an isolated event, but was always given together with a banquet or supper and customarily followed by a collazione of light refreshments. This alone is reason enough for dance historians take interest in the developing field of culinary history. In the particular case of sixteenth-century Ferrara, two cooking professionals (scalchi or maîtres d'hôtel) offer rare information on how balls, choreographed interludes and other entertainments functioned in the context of an aristocratic meal. Cristoforo da Messisbugo (Banchetti, 1549 and subsequent editions) and Giovan Battista Rossetti (Dello Scalco,1584) describe many dozens of festive meals at the Este court over the course of several generations. The highpoint of Rossetti's career was at Urbino, in the employ of Lucrezia d'Este, to whom Caroso dedicated the passo e mezzo Ardente sole. After considering the general structure of different meal types in Renaissance Italy (banchetti, cene, pranzi, desinari) the presentation will focus on two that are particularly interesting for their choreographic elements. Among the questions on which Messisbugo and Rossetti shed light: When did a ball begin, and when did it end? What instruments and dance types were favored? How were theatrical dances incorporated into a meal? How were the performers costumed, and how did they make their entrances and exits?

 

Maurmayr, Bianca: Venetian theatrical dance coming to Paris: Italian influence on French ballet during the seventeenth century.

This paper is about the cultural exchange between Venice and Paris during the Seventeenth-Century, particularly in dance culture, by groups of itinerant artists. In this context, the influence of Venetian artists on Parisian aesthetics in opera and theatrical dance will be analyzed, in a frame of seventeen years (1645-1662).
A first encounter with the Venetian theatrical production dates back to 1645, when La finta pazza was performed in Paris. The two main agents of this cultural exchange are the famous set-designer Giacomo Torelli and Giovanni Battista Balbi, one of the most imitated ballet composers of the time in Venice. Which impact did this first choreographic exchange have on French culture? Which characteristics were adopted and which ones were refused? Except from the young dancers who played in La finta pazza, did Balbi encounter other French dancers and/or ballet masters? We will stress on Balbi's significant role in demonstrating dance versatility, expressiveness through pantomime, and fancifulness in France.
As Le Nozze di Teti e di Peleo were performed in 1654, France had seized the eclectic aspects and the expressive strength Italian theatrical dance could represent. Especially, France had integrated the idea that song and dance were essential parts of the drama, and had to look for unity of action.
As far as Venetian opera was commercialized, networks were created between important cities, as Venice, Florence, Rome, and Naples; the French version of Ercole amante (1662) should therefore also be recalled, as an adaptation of Italian theatrical production: Buti's verses were still sung in Italian, but the entrées de ballet were fully French.
Stressing on the variety of subjects and styles of Venetian balli, this paper underlines that ballet was not mainly a French invention. Even, it reveals the central role of Venetian artists in the development of French theatrical dance during the middle of the Seventeenth-Century.

 

Mikhailova-Smolniakova, Ekaterina: On the problem of pictorial dance sources: dance "formulas" in Italian figurative arts in the Age of Basse dance.

The object of current research is the group of Italian iconographic dance sources depicting dance pair (as a single image or as a part of a scene) and dated mainly from 1380 to 1450. The objective is to offer the applicable method of iconographic analysis of dance images as a secondary source. The lecture will contain the description of the main dance formulas for the depicting a dance pair in the period in question in Italy and the presentation the main questions we should ask ourselves analyzing the dance pictures. We are going to replace the idea of descriptive analysis by the alternative one and demonstrate how we can interpret these pictures (both as a visual source and as a work of art) and use the pictorial information. Finally, we will review the main difficulties and get to know spokesperson's solutions for described pictorial dance formulas.

 

Pappacena, Flavia / Tozzi, Lorenzo: The Italianisation of French Dance: Dauberval at the Teatro Regio at Turin in 1759

For the 1759 carnival season, Turin's Teatro Regio invited Jean Dauberval who, albeit just seventeen, was already well-known at the Grand Théâtre of Lyon as a performer and restager of Jean-Georges Noverre's work. For the Turin theatre, Dauberval composed a total of five 'balli' to be performed between the acts of the two operas Eumene (Zeno-Mazzoni) and Adriano in Siria (Metastasio-Borghi). The ballet music, by G.A. Le Messier, was transcribed in an album now kept by the Library of the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome. The ballets were described at the end of the opera libretto, as was customary in Turin since 1756. The second of the three entr'acte 'balli' for Adriano in Siria was La Fontana del Ringiovenimento, still considered as a restaging of Noverre's La Fontaine de Jouvence (Paris, Foire Saint-Laurent, 1754). In actual fact, the subject matter was considerably altered and reconstructed in a style to suit the Turin theatre and observe the limits imposed by Savoy's censors. The deities responsible for the rejuvenation (Hebe, Goddess of Youth, and the God of Love) do not appear in the ballet and the plot slips rapidly into a long coda of grotesque dances in the Italian tradition. These dances comprise three "pas de deux" performed by the Second Grotesque, the First Grotesque and the "Coppia Seria" (Serious Couple), which are actually pantomimed scenes intermixed with dance, performed by the conventional grotesque 'characters' of the period: the Hunter, the Gardener and the Wild Animal Tamer. The pas de deux of the "Coppia Seria" (i.e. French) of a Faun with a Villanelle is also based on a mixture of dance and pantomime, its style being presumably similar to that of the first forms of French narrative ballet which started to appear in the middle of the century in several French and Italian cities and in Central Europe.
This adaptation of a ballet by Noverre for the Turin stage is not unique, since in Italy, in the 'fifties and 'sixties, pantomimes of the grotesque genre were often included in ballets with a mythological theme, and many Italian theatres requested French choreographers (such as Pietro Alovar, Vincent Saunier, etc.) to adapt their ballets and even to compose in Italian style. The first of Dauberval's two 1759 ballets for the opera Eumene, Disposizioni per l'assalto di una città assediata, has clearly Italian features.

 

Rothermel, Jelena: "Hasse's Comic Tunes" als Quelle italienischer Tanzkonventionen in London

Acht Bände der„Hasse's Comic Tunes to the opera and theatre dances" gab der englische Verleger John Walsh zwischen den Jahren 1740 und1760 heraus. Sie enthalten einige der populärsten Tänze dieser Zeit, die im King'sTheatre, in Drury Lane oder Covent Garden aufgeführt wurden.Diese „Comic Tunes" waren kurze Instrumentalstücke, die zwischen Arien oder gesprochenen Dialogen gespielt wurden und Tanz oder Pantomime begleiteten. Die Sammlung bietet so einen seltenen Einblick in die Tanz- und Pantomimenmusik der Londoner Bühnen im 18. Jahrhundert. Darüber hinaus liefert sie Hinweise zu den Tänzern, die dieser Musik zu Popularität verschafften, führen sie doch ihre Namen zu zahlreichen Tunes auf. Von den 42 namentlich Genannten– darunter Berühmtheiten wie Barbara Campanini, Giovanni Gallini oder Giuseppe Salomon – stammt über die Hälfte aus Italien.
Unter Einbezug weiterer historischer Quellen und neuester Forschungsliteratur sollen die Bände der „Hasse's Comic Tunes" eingehend analysiert werden. Lassen sich aus den kurzen Musikstücken Rückschlüsse auf den individuellen Tanzstil der Tänzer ziehen? Finden sich im Vergleich mit den dort genannten französischen und englischen Tänzern Hinweise auf einen »italienischen Tanzstil«? Darüber hinaus soll untersucht werden, ob italienische Tänzer einen bestimmten Figurentyp – z. B. aus der Commedia dell'arte – besonders häufig verkörperten und inwieweit sich dies auf die Musikauswirkte.

 

Sainato, Ilaria: The Siena LV29 manuscript and an unknown Dancing Master

This paper is a study on the ms. L V 29 preserved in Siena at the Biblioteca Comunale degli Intronati (henceforth S). As I was preparing a critical edition of this manuscript, I examined its composition and history and discovered surprising details leading to my hypothesis that there is a master behind the choreography. S is a 15th century parchment codex preserving a choreographic treatise, which is divided in sections about dance theory followed by a choreographic anthology. The theoretical section originates from the work of Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro, with insertions reworkings and summarized material form Domenico da Piacenza's treatise. The practical section collects sixty-six choreographies, which are circa 70% of the preserved 15th century Italian dance repertoire. 32 bassedanze and 34 balli are included. Among them are a significant number of unica: 12 bassedanze and 10 balli.
The manuscript lacks any musical notation. The choreographies are different in style, popularity, mixing famous dances and choreography with few concordances. They also contain stylistic peculiarities such as connections with French repertory. The aim of the compiler seems to be to assemble a complete collection as possible. An interesting detail is that the manuscript reveals a characteristic taste in the variation of the steps and their patterns, even maintaining the structural elements of the choreographies. This feature is connected to "mettere proporzione" the steps, as replacing three contrapassi in place of two doppi, creating a sort of sesquialtera. While the theoretical section of S seems to make a compendium of Guglielmo's and Domenico's works, in the practical section we can perceive the presence of a personal style, either of a particular dance school of a Master who possibly commissioned the manuscript. I identified him through the coat of arms illuminated in the manuscript and research in the Tuscan archives.

 

Tomasevic, Nika: Ballon's , Fabiani's and Favier's conquest of pre-republican Rome (1790-1797)

In the years immediately preceding the Roman Republic and Napoleon's arrival in the Papal States, Rome was experiencing years of great turmoil and cultural vitality. Beyond the peculiar limits of the urban theatrical life (very present censorship, closure of theaters between 1793 and 1795, ban on female performances on stage) Argentina, Apollo and Alibert theatres proposed an interesting and heterogeneous artistic offer.
In this context, three choreographers worked at Teatro Argentina during the period 1790-1797: Michele Fabiani, Domenico Ballon e Charles-August Favier (Jean Favier's son).
The study is based on a comparative analysis of late eighteenth century dance booklets, related to the data obtained from chronologies and repertoires, and reconstructs and examines the activity of Fabiani, Ballon, and Favier, contextualizing it in transalpine dance trend.
In Rome, the three dancing-masters consolidated performance practices and contributed, as part of Italian pantomime dance, to the "standardization" of artistic and literary lines formed in the eighteenth century. An example is the "colonial current" that left a mark in French and Italian opera and ballet (see Jean-Georges Noverre's Belton et Éliza, 1774, and Gasparo Angiolini's Alzira o gli Americani, 1781).
The second part of the study focuses on the transformation of the "American colonial current" in a general exoticism (American, Middle Eastern, Australian). This introduced new dances and an almost invented local color in pantomime ballets, in very similar plots (stories about jealousy and thwarted love), La conquista del Perù o sia Telasco ed Amazili, La morte di Pizarro, Il capitano Cook nell'isola degli Ottaiti can be cited as examples. These pantomime ballets weren't very demanding in terms of content, because the main interest was focused on the spectacular nature of the scenes (religious ceremonies, military marches and battles) and a dynamic use of the scenography in the wake of traditional Italian dance in Rome.

 

Koop, Christoph / Walsdorf, Hanna: An der Wiege einer neuen Gattung: Balli und Moresche in der frühen italienischen Oper von Monteverdi bis Kapsberger

Gattungszuordnungen sind gerade in der Frühzeit dessen, was in herkömmlichen Lehrbüchern heute als Oper bezeichnet wird, oftmals eine definitorische Herausforderung. Bereits in jenen Werken, die dabei als erste dieser Gattung gelten, war Tanz ein integraler Bestandteil. So finden sich balli nicht nur in Cavalieris Oratorium Rappresentatione di anima e di corpo (Rom 1600) und in Monteverdis dramma per musica L'Orfeo (Mantua 1607), sondern auch in Kapsbergers Jesuitenoper Apotheosis, sive consecratio SS. Ignatii et Francisci Xaverii (Rom 1622). Die beiden letztgenannten Beispiele verweisen dabei auf die tänzerischen Praktiken und Diskurse ihrer Zeit, sind doch in die Partituren neben renaissancehaften balli auch moresche eingelassen: Bei Monteverdi fungiert eine moresca als Finaltanz am Ende des fünften Aktes, bei Kapsberger hingegen ist sie inmitten des dritten von fünf Akten platziert, einen Kampf zwischen Frankreich und Japan markierend.
Unter Einbezug historischer Quellen und neuester Forschungsliteratur sollen diese beiden Werke mitsamt ihrer Entstehungs- und Aufführungskontexte eingehend betrachtet werden. Welche oder besser: wessen Tänze kommen an welcher Stelle der Handlung zum Einsatz? Was ist ihre dramaturgische Funktion, und welche Rückschlüsse lassen sich aus den überlieferten Quellenmaterialien im Hinblick auf die choreographische Umsetzung ziehen? In einem Ausblick soll schließlich der Frage nachgegangen werden, welchen Einfluss die beiden hier ausgewählten römischen Opern auf die weitere Entwicklung der Gattung Oper im Allgemeinen und auf Tanz in der Oper im Speziellen ausgeübt haben – in Italien und darüber hinaus.

 

Research result poster:

Agnel, Romana: The influence of the Italian style on the Polish dance art in the 16th and 17th century

The greatest deal of valid information on the Italian influence on the Polish royal court dates back to Queen Bona Sforza's arrival at the Wawel. Greatly educated and art-savvy, this young Bari princess brought a large number of artists specializing in various fields of art to the Polish court. For many years of her reign in Krakow, Bona changed the face of the court by introducing Italian fashion and customs. Recognizing the privileged position of dance in the Italian court society and based on historical records, it can be argued that Queen Bona was also a fine dancer, and one surrounded by dance masters, among other artists in the her retinue. In 1518, on her wedding day, she amazed King Sigismund I the Old by presenting herself as a dancer and performing an Italian dance in a duet with one of her maid servants.
It is since Bona's rule that a great popularity for fancy mask balls, also called masquerades, abounding in elements of ballet performances, could be observed. Considering all-around Italian influences prevalent at the Wawel Court and through the analysis of dance music notations from Jan of Lublin's organ tablature, it can be said that court dances performed in this period were mainly in the Italian style.
The popularity of masquerades spread to dukes' and magnates' courts all around Poland. Dance was also an element of the king's successor's, Sigismund August's, education.

The research poster comprises information on the influence of the Italian style on the Polish dance art and, among others, dance master Sylwester whose name was discovered by the author in the king's expense register.

 

Couch, Nena / Tsachor, Rachelle: Curating Italian Renaissance Research Papers: Preserving Secondary Sources for Future Research

With the passing in this new century of some of our pioneer dance historians such as Ingrid Brainard, Barbara Sparti, Julia Sutton, and Wendy Hilton, researchers are faced with the loss of a generation of knowledge transmitted directly through conferences, teaching, and personal contact. When those dance scholars or their designees have made institutional arrangements for their scholarly legacies, we have the opportunity to make their personal perspectives – beyond publication, presentation, performance, and teaching – available more widely to future researchers through preservation and access to their scholarly working papers. These papers may contain a wide variety of the kinds of materials that have led to the scholar's published works, but which may reveal the dance scholarly process as well as hold unpublished materials and ideas.
Based on the presenters' experience in curating Julia Sutton's research papers, this poster considers research papers as an inroad into scholarly thinking, looks at scholars as role models of deep understanding or as landmarks of research into Renaissance dance, and explores the ways in which we value and curate foundational scholars' thinking, research practices, and decision-making models. The practice of preserving scholarly papers, the curatorial decisions that must be made in evaluating papers for accession, and the role of the special collections library/archive in honoring the achievements of past scholars and at the same time making those papers accessible for new scholarship are placed in the larger context of the importance of scholarly papers in the record of historical dance research.

 

Dradi, Letizia: An architect at the service of the dance: Cesare Carlo Scaletta and his book

Choregraphie ò vero l'arte di descrivere i balli per caratteri figure e segni demostrativi. Per mezzo dei quali si puol facilmente apprendere da se medemo tutte le sorte di Balli. Opera utilissima ai Maestri di Ballo, e a tutte le Persone che vogliono applicarsi al ballare. Opera di M. Feuillet maestro di ballo tradotta dal Francese in Italiano e presentata a Madama la Marchesa Donna Catterina Obizzi Calcagnini. Da Carlo Cesare Scaletta Patrizio Faentino. Faenza 24 ottobre 1717.
This manuscript, held at the Newberry Library in Chicago, is the translation in Italian language of the Chorégraphie ou l'art de décrire la danse by Raoul Auger Feuillet published in Paris in 1700.
The italian translator isn't a dancing master but a man of culture who dedicated this book to the Marchesa Caterina Obizzi Calcagnini, daughter of Tommaso Obizzi Marquis of Orciano and Alessandra Pecori a Florentine Countess. The Marchesa Obizzi was a well cultured woman and a poetess. Cesare Carlo Scaletta, also a nobleman from Faenza, lived between 1666 and 1744. He attended the University in Bologna studying mathematics and architecture. His translation is very precise and corresponds to the French edition. Unfortunately only two choreographies conclude the translation, both copied from the Chorégraphie by R.A. Feuillet. They are an Entrata a due the Entrée à deux for two men and the famous courtly dance La Bourgogne for a couple.
Just one year before the completion of the manuscript Caterina married the Marquis Carlo Cesare Calcagnini from Fusignano and to celebrate the wedding Ippolito Zanelli composes a collection of Canzoni and an opera, the Clizia, a pastoral scene performed as introduction to the Ballo delle Dame e dei Cavalieri, music composed by Antonio Toschi from Ferrara. The dance was practiced by the nobles on festive occasions and the translations by Cesare Carlo Scaletta confirms the presence and the spread of the French style in Italy ten years before the Gian Batista Dufort's Trattato del Ballo Nobile published in Napoli in 1728.

 

Gardiner-Garden, John: All-involving dances of late 16th- and early 17th-century Italy and the persistence of propensities and ideas across lands and centuries.

This poster is intended as a companion to the dance evening by the same name. The poster offers background on the dances and explores their possible connection with the less formal final phase of a ball. It is noted how four of them are the last or second last dance in contemporary dance books, three are said to be dances for which the lady should remove her gloves, two are said to be ones where men tend to rush for partners, and two are said to usefully follow on to one other. It is noted that these dances did not involve hierarchy and etiquette being fully suspended, but that their mechanisms and figures provided for communal playfulness. The poster attempts to identify the main ideas and propensities that ran through these dances' mechanisms and figures, and to show how some of these same ideas and propensities can be found in dances across three centuries and across many lands—where some were again associated with the last phase in a ball and described at the end of dance manuals.

 

Kazárová, Helena: Revealing the Genius – Re-creating Angiolini's Didone abbadonata

In 1766 Gasparo Angiolini created in Russia one of his greatest master pieces: ballo tragico pantomimo La partenza d´Enea, ò sia Didone abbadonata. About seven years later (after its successful Italian premiere at Teatro di S. Benedetto in Venice in 1773 and the same year in Milan) he let his particello score to be printed in Naples. This became the main source for the re-creation of this great work, as under the lines of the Violino primo score one can read Angiolini's own detailed instructions of what is to happen on stage at the precise time (sometimes in a musical phrase, sometimes in one or two bars of music). My poster will show the research and artistic process, which lead to the contemporary world premiere of this piece at the Baroque Theatre of Český Krumlov Castle (Czech Republic) in the historically informed style of performance in the hand painted original decorations from 1766 and thus show the geniality of Angiolini as a composer of both music and the scenic idea of a story-telling ballet (ballet d´action or ballo pantomimo).

 

Klementova, Katerina:  Bohemian Lion Enchanted: Italian Cinquecento and Seicento in the Czech Countries

A portray of the cultural atmosphere in the Czech Countries of the Renaissance period which has been strongly influenced by the Italian dance culture. Already the dance-style of the Italian quattrocento was brought to this area thanks to rich cultural exchanges of Charles IV. and succeding emperors. The turn of the 16th/17th century can be considered as a „lucky period" for the Italian dance forms being enjoyed at courts and in towns as well. They were brought in by the Czech courtiers as a result of their trips and studies in Italy, simoultaneusly with the significant import of other Italian artists, archictects, writers, composers etc. under the patronage of Rudolf II. Particularly for dance, one of the copies of the Negri´s Nuove Inventioni di Balli (1604) was sent to the Imperial Court Counselor F.G. Trolius à Lessoth. The Prague Copy is maintained in the National Library of Prague up to these days. (Negri himself performed in front of the Emperor Maxmilian II., and later before Rudolf II, who seems to have personally invited him to Prague in order to teach dance at the Imperial court.)
The aforementioned period gave rise to lots of different dance oportunities: in 1555, an allegorical intermezzo in the Italian style was held in Pilsen, in 1659 a Prague performance of Jewish dancers and dancing mastres is known, as well as a pastoral „balletto" of 1662. One of the most famous theatre and dance events in the Italian style performed outside Italy, the „Phasma Dionysiacum Pragense" of 1617, will be shortly described. It´s a unique (and singularly well documented) performance held at the Prague Castle which libretto, scene descriptions, pictures and other documents remianed up to these days.

 

Langston, Lisbeth: Duel and Dance: Moresca Stage Directions in L'Amor Costante (1536)

L'Amor Costante (1536, first published 1541) by Alessandro Piccolomini is of interest to dance historians because staged fight sequences and dance performances are crucial to the climax of the play. The comedy was written for the celebration of the entrance of Charles V into Siena in 1536, though most likely it was not performed on that occasion. The plot is similar to other comedies of the time, but with unique aspects. The action takes place in Pisa, yet most characters come from Spain and speak either Italian or Spanish. The plot concerns hidden and mistaken identities, young lovers, and angry fathers. At the end, couples are united and antagonists are reconciled.
At the beginning of Act 5, stage directions specify two sword fights or duels. By the end of Act 5, misunderstandings are sorted out and order is restored. Crucial to reconciliation are the stage directions specifying "La Moresca in piotosa col bacio," La Moresca gagliarda," and "Lo Intrecciato," each separated by a few lines of dialog. This poster introduces the comedy and interprets the role of the dances in L'Amor Costante within a wider cultural context.

 

 

Mikhailova-Smolniakova, Ekaterina: Mimesis in Jacques Callot’s Etchings

Using Callot's images as a visual source for the early dance and Dell'arte Theater is a tradition dating back to the 17th century. Nowadays pictorial analysis of Callot's etchings is still on the agenda in the academic community doing research into the history of dance and theater.
The object of the research is the Hermitage museum's collection of sketches and etchings by Jacques Callot, one of the biggest collections of his works in the world. The main question of the research is: "How can we use Callot's etchings as a visual source of early dance and dell'arte practice in Italy"? The interrelation between actual practice and Callot's images is not obvious and needs investigation, which are going to be presented as well as the descriptive technic we can use in the similar cases.

 

Stocker, Kathrin: "Harlequinades" zwischen Commedia dell'arte und belle danse: Harlequin auf der Londoner Bühne des 18. Jahrhunderts

The neatness with which you perform [the] Character of Harlequin in all [the] different Attitudes which belong to it they which you give with so much Grace & suppleness; obliges me to take [the] liberty to offer you this little work. (Choreograph Le Rousseau um 1728 an den Tänzer Louis Dupré)
Die Figur des Harlekin war von den Londoner Bühnen des späten 17. und frühen 18. Jahrhunderts nicht wegzudenken. Louis Dupré war in London seit 1714 bekannt für seine artistischen und artifiziellen Darbietungen. Er baute seine Rolle als Harlekin zunächst in entr'acte-Tänzen und Afterpieces aus. Später machte er am Theater Lincoln's Inn Fields von John Rich – selbst ein bekannter Harlekin, jedoch kein Tänzer – Stücke wie Amadis, or the Loves of Harlequin and Colombine (Januar 1718) und The Necromancer, or Harlequin Doctor Faustus (Dezember 1723) zu Publikumserfolgen. Die wenigen erhaltenen Hinweise auf sein Bühnenschaffen weisen deutlich darauf hin, dass Duprés Harlekin das Publikum begeisterte und zu einem regelrechten ‚Harlekin-Boom' auf den Londoner Bühnen führten.
Le Rousseaus Choreographie in Feuillet-Notation ist eines der wenigen choreologischen Dokumente für Commedia dell'arte-Figuren auf der Ballettbühne des 18. Jahrhunderts. Es handelt sich zwar nicht um die Niederschrift eines Auftritts von Dupré, enthält nach Le Rousseau aber ausdrücklich Bewegungen, die auch für Duprés Harlekin typisch waren. Der Historizität der Harlekin-Figur selbst wohnt eine Widersprüchlichkeit und starke Ambivalenz inne. Ihr Bewegungsrepertoire ist zum Zeitpunkt von Le Rousseaus Choreographie seit Jahrhunderten herausgebildet, verfeinert, individualisiert worden – Harlekin steht also notwendigerweise in einem gewissen Widerspruch zum kodifizierten belle danse. Die Herausforderung einer solchen Figur an die Feuillet-Notation und ihre Bewegungssprache am Beispiel von Le Rousseaus Choreographie sollen Thema des vorgeschlagenen Posters sein.

 

Tsachor, Rachelle / Shafir, Tal: The Italian Dance Manual as a Source of Action for Theatre

To dance is to take action. Historic dance manuals are outstanding primary sources of detailed instructions for specific actions. Specific action is a foundation in actor training, where physical actions are the path to emotionally truthful behavior (Stanislavski1936). Current emotion science (Thompkins 1962, Laird 1974, Izard 1993, Flack 1999, Neumann 2000, Carney 2010, Shafir 2013, Shafir and Tsachor 2015) demonstrates thatsensory feedback from movement contributes significantly to experiencing emotions, validating theories proposed as far back as Darwin (1872) and James (1884). These studies have important artistic implications for how instructions in historical dance manuals can easily provide a simple clear path to action, and therefore emotional power in theatre. Indeed, language in the dance manuals themselves implies that moving in specific ways leads to emotional and interpersonal results.
This poster briefly reviews the scientific studies indicating how bodily action is key in producing feelings (both in the mover and in those watching movement). It shares findings from our recent study of motor qualities associated with specific emotions, and explores the specific dance and manners instructions in FabritioCaroso'sNobiltá di Dame as a rich sources of action, and therefore emotion, for actors to embody in period drama. Results from a recent Period Theatre Movement class show howdance instructions and concepts such as misure, pavoneggiare, become powerfully expressive physical action for actors, andgive examples how actors use discoveries from Renaissance dance to create truthful expression for period characters.

 

Walsdorf, Hanna, Dotlacilová, Petra e.a.: Ritual Design for the Ballet Stage: Constructions of Popular Culture in European Theatrical Dance, 1650–1760

Emmy Noether Research Group at the University of Leipzig, 2015–2019

The Project: Aims & Claims
The three main components of theatrical dance – choreography, music, and costumes/ décor – have scarcely been investigated as a complex whole. On a broad basis of source materials, the project aims at systematically contextualizing and deciphering attributes and narratives. Therefore, an empirical, philological and iconographical analysis of the historical records is to be done, supported by ongoing academic discourses on transculturality, materiality and performance in order to confirm the European ballet stages as places of political and social negotiations creating images of popular, foreign and imagined cultures.
The ritual connection is self-evident: when the Other was portrayed in dance, be it in the form of peasant festivals, noble savages or ancient ceremonies, patterns of space and motion were generously applied in order to provide the audience with a clear ritual framework for the actions on stage. Working on the basis of a broad range of materials, this finding will be systematically researched and analyzed in case studies from Paris, London, Milan and Stuttgart in four subprojects:
SP 1: Transcultural Encounters (Dr. Hanna Walsdorf)
SP 2: Choreographical Structures (Kathrin Stocker M.A.)
SP 3: Compositional Strategies (Jelena Rothermel, M.A.)
SP 4: Vestmental Designs (Petra Dotlacilova M.A.)

 

Workshops:

Butler, Margret / Jablonka, Guillaume: Reconstructing "Anacreonte": Theatrical Dancing in Parma, 1759

Parma was one of the foremost centers for French opera and ballet outside Paris in the mid- eighteenth century, second only to Vienna. In 1749 Parma's new Bourbon sovereign began to transform it into a modern and sophisticated capital by importing French cultural products of all kinds. Chief among the imports was a large troupe of French singers, dancers, and actors, who performed the era's most up to date ballets and operas for the court and public over a three-year period. Jacques-Simon Mangot, Jean-Philippe Rameau's brother-in-law, directed Parma's court music and influenced its dances and operas in significant ways.
Among the many French entertainments Parma's troupe presented was the balletto titled Anacreonte (1759), a newly-created adaptation of Rameau's Anacréon (an entrée from his opéra-ballet Les Surprises de l'Amour from 1748). In the absence of a score, Butler has reconstructed the balletto based on the scenario in the printed Italian libretto for Parma and Rameau's score, showing the relation of Parma ballet to the original work. This reconstruction reveals, in its music and dramaturgy, a fusion of French and Italian aesthetic principles, ones entirely consistent with the political and social milieu in which it took shape. It also demonstrates the work's importance for contemporary reforms of theatrical dance.
In this workshop participants will learn how Parma might have approached this innovative work: after Butler's presentation on the ballet's reconstruction and aesthetic context, Jablonka will explore some proposals regarding the choreographic and pantomimic solutions Parma might have found to the work's dramaturgical and generic challenges.

 

Dennison, Hazel: Drawing the Line, Dancing the Line.

This workshop focuses on dances and dancing "a la fila"(in a single file) in Ferrara c.1450, initiating from a choreographic perspective.
Working on dances from 15thc.Italian sources I am curious to understand how the dances were created, using as they do the choreographic factors of space, line, time, energy and bodies, common to us all in time and place. So in this workshop I would like to share dancing and ideas with specific reference to Domenico da Piacenza as a maker of dances and master of dancing at the d'Este court.
To begin we will tune in and warm up with piva. Patterns of a la fila will be traced in Belfiore, Giove and Verceppe. At this point we will identify the varied choreographic devices used by Domenico in his balli and bassadanze in conjunction with his rules for dance practice and performance, also common to all then and now.
The main body of work will be on Mignotta Nova a bassadanza "in quanti si vole" for as many as will, building steps, timing and sequences whilst noting challenges and contradictions posed when dancing bassadanza in a single file. Finally consideration will be given to Cornazano's vision of both form and execution of bassadanza a la fila as an especial vehicle for a renaissance elite.

 

Gardiner-Garden, John: The Gresley manuscript dances and their Italian connection

The 26 dances, many with tunes, in the Derbyshire Record Office's Gresley ms. are suggestive of the influence of both French and Italian dance traditions in c.1500 upper-class English dance. It is impossible to be definitive about these influences and the influence of an indigenous English tradition. The dance descriptions are not self-conscious copyings of French bassedanses as were the 1521 dance notes of the English printer Robert Coplande or of Italian balli as were the 1517 dance notes of the Nuremberg merchant Johannes Cochläus, and many terms used in the Gresley descriptions have no obvious continental equivalents.We might, however, see French influence in the names of some steps and dances and in the wayword order and use of 3 singles seems to reflect 1445 Nancy manuscriptusages.We might see Italian influence in the way that conjunctions are used to suggest dance structure, that tune melodies are written out and broken into irregularly repeated short sections and perhaps most significantly in the realm of figures. The figure connection is the one we will explore most in the workshop. By dancing half-a-dozen dances we will see how the Gresley dances share with quattrocento Italian balli many movement expressions, a way of using the bow, and a range of the ideas. The latter include that a figure might be repeated by others in turn, that a pair might move in contrary direction, face then meet, that three dancers might invert then revert a triangle, and that a hey might be interrupted. 

 

Lehner, Markus: "le solite creanze" - Höflichkeitsgesten im italienischen Tanz um 1600

Tanz des italienischen Cinquecento ist inzwischen fester Bestandteil des Repertoires einer Vielzahl historischer Tanzgruppen in ganz Europa. Während in den letzten Jahrzehnten viel Mühe in die adäquate Rekonstruktion von Schrittmaterial und Choreographien floss, wurde ein Aspekt bisher weitgehend vernachlässigt: die "solite creanze", die Höflichkeitsgesten, die im 16. Jahrhundert den Umgang miteinander in der gehobenen Gesellschaft - auch im Tanz - regulierten. Während Della Casa in seinem "Galateo" 1558 die "ceremonie" noch als neumodisch, überflüssig, und eitel kritisierte (und sie dennoch als allgemein gebräuchlich empfahl), gehörten sie 20 Jahre später zum festen Bestandteil eines tanzmeisterlichen Unterrichts. Diese uns heute so fremd erscheinenden Gesten und Bewegungen beeinflussen das Erscheinungsbild des Tanzes so wesentlich, dass sie neben einer adäquaten Rekonstruktion der Choreographie, stilgerechten Kostümen und zeitgenössischer Musik unerlässlich für eine historisch informierte Präsentation des Cinquecento-Stils sind.
Basierend auf den Quellen von Caroso, Negri und Santucci setzt sich der Workshop mit den wesentlichen Höflichkeitsgesten der Zeit, wie dem Hutabnehmen, dem Handkuss, etc., auseinander und zeigt ihren Gebrauch in einer Tanzchoreographie. Neben der praktischen Erprobung der Gesten ist es Ziel des Workshops, ihren Einfluss auf das Erscheinungsbild des Tanzes erfahrbar zu machen. Auch die praktischen Probleme bei ihrer Anwendung und eventuelle Lösungsmöglichkeiten werden mit den Teilnehmern diskutiert.
Bitte mitbringen: Hüte, Handschuhe, Taschentücher, Fächer 

 

Marsh, Carol: Gennaro Magri's Contraddanze (1779)

This workshop will explore the contraddanze (country dances) composed by Gennaro Magri for the court of King Ferdinand IV of Naples and published as an appendix to his 1779 treatise, Trattato teorico-prattico di ballo. The 39 choreographies present an astonishing array of figures and formations, and Magri's seemingly limitless imagination offers us a wonderful smorgasbord of ways to move bodies through space in symmetrical patterns.
Magri bases 36 of his choreographies on the principle of longways progression found in English country dances. But he does not limit himself to the usual two-couple exchange found in the English model: instead he offers eight different starting configurations, including dances in which the progression involves three or four couples; and he includes four dances for uneven numbers of men and women, paired as same-sex couples. The final three choreographies are set dances for eight, 12, and 32 dancers respectively; the first of these is modeled on the contredanse française, the only one of its kind in the collection.
The most challenging problem in reconstructing these dances is determining how the figures fit the musical phrases; Magri offers very little guidance on this point, and there is often more than one possibility for performance. As part of the workshop I will present the methodology that has guided my decisions.
Magri is also frustratingly vague regarding the steps to be used in his contraddanze—other than the ubiquitous (and somewhat mysterious) balletto fermo, which occurs several times in many of the dances. In the workshop we will explore some possible options to be used with the various musical meters of the dance melodies. 

 

Nowaczek, Jadwiga: Die Entschlüsselung der „Ammazzone“

Italien und der Barocktanz – das ist noch ein dünn besiedeltes Territorium. Lediglich fünf originale, in Feuillet-Notation aufgeschriebene Choreographien sind bisher bekannt. Alle fünf Tänze stehen deutlich unter dem Einfluss der dominierenden französischen Tanzkunst. Vier davon – wiewohl durchaus anspruchsvoll – sind dem Gesellschaftstanz zuzurechnen. Nur die fünfte Choreographie eines anonymen Autors mit dem Titel „L’Ammazzone“ trägt Züge eines Bühnentanzes. Damit wäre sie das einzig erhaltene Exemplar dieser Gattung in dem an Bühnenwerken so reichen Italien und für die Tanz- und Theatergeschichte von höchstem Interesse.
Was einer Rekonstruktion der Ammazzone zunächst jedoch im Wege steht, ist die überaus fehlerhafte Notation der Choreographie, sowohl was die Schritte und Takteinteilung des Tanzes anbelangt als auch die Notation der Musik. Im Workshop wird eine Version vorgestellt, in der die Fehler korrigiert sind und die als Grundlage zur weiteren Auseinandersetzung mit diesem bedeutenden Tanz dienen soll. Praktisch soll das erste Blatt der Choreographie erarbeitet werden, das die Teilnehmer im unveränderten Original sowie in der korrigierten Fassung an die Hand bekommen. Zwischendurch wird auf die durchaus vorhandenen stilistischen Eigenarten des italienischen Barocktanzes eingegangen.
In einer gesonderten Publikation ist der gesamte Tanz mit ausführlichen Kommentaren erhältlich (www.fagisis.de).

 

Dance evenings:

Dradi, Letizia: Notturno Italiano - un ballo a palazzo. At the court of Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina Asburgo-Lorena

In Naples at the court of Ferdinand IV Bourbon, known as "il re nasone", the King Big Nose, Giacomo Casanova was passed, resides Horatio Nelson and Emma Hamilton, an actress and dancer who becomes a great friend of Maria Caroline Asburgo, the Austrian queen. A cosmopolitan court, but the king prefers the common people to the nobility and he prefers to hunt rather than going to the theater or to the sumptuous gala. During the balls at the royal palace the guests gamble, eat and drink. The contredanses and minuets are the prerogative of the queen. In charge of the dances composition is the great Gennaro Magri, name-called Gennariello. Left Naples young to go to dance in the great court of Vienna, after having danced all over Italy returns home where he published his precious treatise in 1779. His Contraddanze not resemble anything, like a rich rococo frieze, agile and intricate at the same time. On Saturday evening we will dance together with the fashion of the court of Naples, contredanses in Italian, English and French style, with a hint of Austrian character.

 

Esposito, Cristina: Quadrilles and Contredanses at the time of the Unification of Italy

"L'occhio naturale, la bocca ridente, le mani innocenti, i piedi ambiziosi..."
("Artless eye, mouth smiling, innocent hands, feet ambitious ...")

In Teramo's Provincial Library (Abruzzo, Southern Italy) four booklets of Quadrilles and Contredanses are kept: Nouveau recueil de contredanses françaises composées par Mr Antoine Mennilli, 1855; Noveau recueil de contredanses à l'usage moderne avec des annotations en italien, 1863 (a reissue of the first in substance); Abrégé de nouvelles règles aux amateurs de danse, 1875; Abrégé de contredanses, 1892. Their author, Antoine Mennilli, refers to himself as "maître de danse au Collège National de Teramo". The first two booklets display specific technical instructions, while the other two take for granted the knowledge of the main steps and figures, which are standardized, and present rules of social behavior with notions of dance for dames and gentlemen - we'll dance figures a huit, a douze, a seize, a vingt-quatre. Instructions about the music are not contained; probably these dances were accompanied by the music of the Collège National music teacher, M° Alfonso Cipollone. With the Seize Contre-danses Françaises à Seize pour les Amateurs de Danse du Maître François De Sanctis (Chieti, 1868), these booklets represent an example of documents about the provincial bourgeoisie's social dance in the Southern Italy at the time of the Unification of Italy (1861).

 

Gardiner-Garden, John: All-involving dances of late 16th- and early 17th-century Italy

In several late 16th- and early 17th-century Italian dance manuals there are dances that were described as able to involve as many participants as were willing. Most of these dances appear to have been particularly popular, well-known, much-varied and long-lived. Most appear to have been enjoyed in the later less formal part of a ball (just as less formal country dances were enjoyed after minuets, cotillions and allemandes in the late 18th century, and dance games or a promiscuous 'finishing dance' were enjoyed after the more formal polonaises, quadrilles andcouples dances in the mid-19th century). Some were dances for fixed numbers that were so popular as to warrant being danced by multiple couples or sets at the same time (for example Barriera and Furioso). Some were for as-many-couples-as-will in a single or double circle (e.g. Contrapasso, Villanico and Fedeltà). Some were collections of figures in longways sets for as many-as-will (e.g. Chiaranzana, Catena d'Amore, and Cacciad'Amore). Some were 'relay-mixers' that would draw dancers on and off the floor (e.g. Piantone and Ballo del Fiore). We will enjoy versions of nearly all the dances here named in a quick moving playful evening.

 

Short performances:

Abromeit, Klaus: Die Curieuse Methode - Tanzszenen nach Gregorio Lambranzi, "Neue und Curieuse Tantz-Schul", Nürnberg, 1716

Analysiert man die Figurinen in Lambranzis ‚Tantz-Schul', fällt auf, dass diie Körperschwerpunkte der Gestalten von Bild zu Bild wechseln.
Im französischen Bühnentanz der Zeit ist dies nicht üblich. Andererseits zitiert Lambranzi Seite für Seite französisches Schrittvokabular. Dies ist ein Indiz dafür, dass das französische Schritt-vokabular der Zeit durchaus unterschiedlich interpretiert wurde. Gregorio Lambranzis ‚Curieuse Methode' ist also ein Indiz, das auf eine italienische Schule des Barock verweist.
Um mir Lambranzis Interpretation des französischen Tanzvokabulars vorstellbar zu machen, habe ich alle in der ‚Tantz-Schul' enthaltenen Figurinen analysiert und aus der Summe der Bewegungsansätze ein Körperschema gebaut – Lambranzis Instrument.
Dieses Instrument wird als Soloperformance vorgestellt. Um den Rückbezug der Quelle zu ermöglichen, werden Lambranzis Figurinen als Rückprojektion eingeblendet.

 

Cracovia Danza: Cracovia Danza for Barbara Sparti

Cracovia Danza Court Ballet and Barbara Sparti had known each other for a long time. The great mistress of dance visited Cracow many times. She has worked with ensemble's professional dancers, as well as with amateurs during "Cracovia Danza" Court Dance Festival workshops. She thought Cracovia Danza dancers old choreographies, which could have been revive thank to her work. She had a great contribution to ensemble's development and gaining higher and higher level of art and knowledge.
The performance show choreographies in Italian style from 15th to 17th century prepared and reconstructed by Barbara Sparti. It was shown for the first time during Court Dance Festival in July 2013, shortly after Barbara's inconsolable death.

 

Accademia Nazionale di Danza - Roma; Conservatorio “Luisa D'Annunzio” - Pescara; Accademia di Belle Arti - L’Aquila: Occhi ridenti – music, song and dance between Cinquecento and early Seicento

Students and teachers from Accademia Nazionale di Danza and from the Early Music Ensemble of Conservatorio “Luisa D'Annunzio” at Pescara, side by side on stage, perform with live music some of the choreographic and musical gems from the precious repertory of Cinquecento and early Seicento dance and music, wearing costumes made by the students of Accademia di Belle Arti at L’Aquila. A concourse of different generations reminiscent of the configuration of Gruppo di Danza Rinascimentale di Roma – directed by Barbara Sparti – which was widely appreciated for its quality of drawing audiences to dance history with a smile. Numbers such as Allegrezza d'Amore, Bigarà or the song that gives its title to the program will give the students of the AFAM (Higher Musical and Artistic Education) involved Institutions an opportunity to show what they learned in their respective courses.

 

 

 

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Published: 02 August 2015

One of the leading organisations of historical dance in Britain, the Dolmetsch Historical Dance Society, has joined our circle of co-operation partners. This confirms the international esteem, our conference has achieved during the past years.

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Published: 21 June 2015

Thank you to all!

We have had an amazing response to our call for papers. It is a great pity, that we can only choose a limited number of them.
Special thanks to all the cooperating institutions, which have supported and promoted our conference:
- Accademia Nazionale di Danza
- ACRAS
- Derra de Moroda Dance Archives
- AIRDanza
- The anuual Oxford dance symposium
- EADH
- Early Dance Circle
- SDHS

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Published: 15 June 2015

This month, we have suceeded in installing another cooperation: the Accademia Nazionale di Danza, Rome, has agreed to endorse our Symposium 2016. The Accademia is the only Italian institution at university level, that is dedicated exclusively to the education of dancers, dance pedagogues and choreographers. The cooperation has also lead to an enlargement of our scientific committee by Prof. Claudia Celi, professor of Dance History and Historical Dance at the Accademia.

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Published: 25 May 2015