A History of Country Dancing – The Later Stuarts

Dance history
A History of Country Dancingwith an emphasis on the steps Anne Daye, HDS Director of Education and Research The Country Dance of the Later Stuarts The Civil War and the Commonwealth caused a hiatus in English social life, particularly following the departure of royalty and many aristocratic and gentry families for France and the Continent. A new energy came with the Restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660. Samuel Pepys went to Whitehall on New Year’s Eve 1662, where he saw the King dancing: ‘After seating themselves, the King takes out the Duchess of York; and the Duke, the Duchess of Buckingham; the Duke of Monmouth, my Lady Castlemaine; and so other lords other ladies; and they danced the Bransle. After that, the King led a lady a…
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A History of Country Dancing – Early Stuarts and The Commonwealth

Dance history
A History of Country Dancingwith an emphasis on the steps Anne Daye, HDS Director of Education and Research The Country Dance of the Early Stuarts and The Commonwealth Court records indicate that the country dance did not feature at court after 1603 until the 1620s, while other records show its continuance elsewhere. As James I came from Scotland and his wife from Denmark, it is likely that they had little knowledge of the vernacular dance of England. However, my research into the masque reveals that in 1619, steered by George Villiers the Marquis of Buckingham, the country dance was used as a marker of English culture in diplomacy with the French. After that, it became a regular conclusion to court balls, following the measures and the solo couple dances of…
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A History of Country Dancing – Elizabethan Country Dance

Dance history
A History of Country Dancingwith an emphasis on the steps Anne Daye, HDS Director of Education and Research Elizabethan Country Dance Records of the time show that the country dance was current by the late sixteenth century, when ‘old and new’ country dances were enjoyed at court. We have no specific evidence for what was understood by ‘old and new’ at that time, but the lengthier long and round dances, also danced in open spaces, may have been the ‘old’ form, as Margaret Dean-Smith proposed in the modern edition of The English Dancing Master (1957, 35). Queen Elizabeth enjoyed seeing country dancing on her progresses; a telling account of her visit to Cowdray in August 1591 shows the social range of the vernacular dance: ‘In the evening the countrie people…
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A History of Country Dancing – Origins

Dance history
Anne Daye, HDS Director of Education and Research Origins I propose that the country dance evolved from the communal dances by a line of people. These still exist in local practice all over Europe, such as the carole (sung and danced), cousin to the kolo of Yugoslavia, hora of Rumania, horo of Bulgaria, the khorovod of Russia and la danza grande of Northern Spain. With a repetitive step pattern, the line travels onward guided by a leader, passing through the streets of the town, forming circles, spirals and weaving patterns in open places. Such a line can easily form into pairs to make further interactive patterns down the line. Two good examples of this genre in an elite setting are La Chiaranzana (described by Fabritio Caroso, dancing master of Rome,…
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A History of Country Dancing – Introduction

Dance history
A History of Country Dancingwith an emphasis on the steps Anne Daye, HDS Director of Education and Research Introduction A complete history of the country dance has yet to be written, and would form a major challenge. Here you will find an overview of the country dance from the 16th to 19th centuries, as a framework for discussion of the changing steps with which it was danced. The term ‘country dance’ is first recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary in the play Misogonus Act 2 scene iv, printed in 1577. This implies that the genre was well known at the time; if the play was written in 1560, then we can assume that the country dance was a well-established genre by the middle of the sixteenth century. The English measures…
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A brief history

A brief history

Dance history
Ann Hinchliffe with Anne DayeHave you ever wondered where our wonderful folk dances come from? Why Cotswold morris echoes the structure of Black Nag and Picking up Sticks? How Jane Austen’s characters could talk so much while they were dancing? These are topics that the Historical Dance Society researches, publishes and teaches, in UK and other countries. They’ve been doing that since 1971, and next year will celebrate their fiftieth anniversary. It began with Arnold Dolmetsch (1858-1940), who crystallised current interest in early music just as Cecil Sharp did with English folk dance, music and song. You may remember Dolmetsch recorders from your own school-days. Dolmetsch was trained as a craftsman at his parents’ piano manufactory in France, then studied at the Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles where he encountered musicians playing…
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Baroque period

Baroque period

Dance history, Education, For dancers, For musicians
Following the foundation of the Académie royale de danse in 1661, Louis XIV ordered academicians to invent a notational system to record dances.  In response, at least four systems were in progress in the 1680s, one of which came to disseminate dances of French style across Europe by means of printing/publishing businesses. This prevalent system is called Beauchamp-Feuillet notation today after the names of the inventor/academician, Pierre Beauchamp, and the business man/dancing-master, Raoul-Auger Feuillet.  Over 350 dances are extant in this notation system in print and/or manuscript spanning the late 17th to mid-18th centuries, a period roughly matching the baroque era classified in other disciplines (those in the late 18th-century sources are re-notations of earlier publications, except Auguste F. J. Ferrère’s manuscript of theatre production from 1782).  Whereas the baroque style in other art…
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What is historical dance?

Dance history, Education
Historical Dance, or Early Dance, embraces social dancing of the courts and ballrooms of Europe, and choreographies from theatre and court entertainments. The periods covered range from the fifteenth century to the twentieth. Within this span, periods are often identified by slightly arbitrary titles, such as: Renaissance dance (in England, Elizabethan dance and Tudor dance) Baroque dance Regency dance and Victorian dance Some typical dance forms, in approximate chronological order, are: Basse danse, Bassa danza, Ballo Tourdion, Pavan, Almain, Galliard, Canario, Passomezzo (or Passo e mezo) Country dance, Gigue, Sarabande, Rigaudon, Minuet (or Menuet) Cotillion, Quadrille, Mazurka, Waltz Early Dance is based on careful research into original dance sources.  Dances are taught at many practical courses. Occasions such as revels, balls and assemblies provide opportunities for social dancing. Find out…
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