Who can come? This workshop is of interest to professional dancers and teachers, vintage dancers and enthusiastic dance students as well as musicians, choreographers, stage directors and actors who wish to study early ballet and social dances from the Baroque period through the 20th century.
Class Description: Under the patronage of the French kings from Louis XIII through Louis XVI ballet developed its technique and narrative style which is at the basis of today's ballet, modern and the musical theater styles. Seventeenth and Eighteenth century dances will be drawn from period published notations of Guillaume Louis Pecour (the Balanchine of his day) Balon and Isaac. Teacher: Catherine Turocy
We will also teach country dances popular in England and France and published in the first quarter of the 18th century. Variations of the choreography were used in ballets and we will be exploring the nature of the country dance in its original context and how it was adapted for ballet. Teacher: Catherine Turocy
The 19th century ballet classes will be based on material from dancing masters Blasis, Theleur, Michel and Arthur Saint-Leon and Adice. Teacher: Sandra Noll Hammond
19th and 20th century social dances will be drawn from both European and American sources. Teacher: Richard Powers
Evening activities include a lecture linking early modern dance choreographers and early dance forms which inspired their work. There will also be a local wine tasting evening.
Goals: Historically, dances of the theater shared a basic dance vocabulary with the ballroom and country dances. We hope to draw students from the vintage ballroom enthusiasts as well as professional ballet, modern and musical theater dancers to create an atmosphere of discovery and exchange. By offering social and country dances at the workshop the theatrical dance students will be able to experience the rhythms and geometry of these forms. The vintage dance students will be able to see the popular dance forms abstracted into ballet. The mixing of enthusiastic and dedicated social dancers with dancers whose training is focused in theatrical forms creates a fertile ground of self-discovery. Dances of the past are a touchstone for today's dancers, inspiring them in their performances, creations and teaching. The workshop offers a rare opportunity of synergy between historical periods and popular and theatrical dance styles.
Examples of Dances to be Taught:
- Pavane des Saisons
- Le Menuet of Louis XIV (unfigured minuet which involves improvisation)
- Le Prince George, a Contradance or country dance
- Allemande from Jean Jacques Rousseau's opera-ballet Le Devin du Village
- Pantomime ballet from the same opera
- Pas de Deux and Entrees (1820-1835)
- Introduction to Gilbert Austin's theory on gesture (1806) which is the precursor to Ted Shawn's book, Every Little Movement.
- La Valse
- The Royal Empress Tango of 1922
