Midsummer Early Dance & Music Festival

Discover the diverse world of early dance and experience the connection between movement, music, and beauty through time at this Midsummer Early Dance and Music Virtual Festival!

Midsummer Eve is one of the spirit nights of the year, when the boundaries between the worlds are the thinnest. Let’s use this magic to travel in time! Though science says it is impossible we will use dance & music as our time travel machine. During this virtual Festival we celebrate the longest day of the year with music and dance from 15th to 20th centuries.

We will visit Italian Renaissance courts accompanied by ensemble Gaita and learn the connection between various steps and musical tempos with live music on period instruments. Darren Royston will transport us into the world of the Shakespearean England to connect the dance and theatre. We will travel with Hubert Hazebrouqc through the "long Eighteenth Century" with minuet to see how much its rhythms and even the movements changed. Edmund Fairfax will challenge the most common misconceptions about 18th century ballet and introduce us to dancers performing at magnificent Versailles, in iconic Paris Opera and in street as part of comedie de l'arte. We will visit the ballrooms and fashionable assemblies of Georgian Britain with Sasha Zargowski to learn the refined dance styles of the Enlightenment era. Elana and Egor Anosovy from Trianon dance school in Moscow will transport us in time and space to learn romantic and dashing mazurka à la russe. Charlotte Ewart will bring alive the convoluted history of British monarchy with her fun and accessible for the whole family session of dance. The Festival will be wrapped up with the Early Dance& Music themed Quiz and panel discussion with teachers to learn how they discovered early dance and a chance to ask your own questions.

The Festival will be held online on Zoom platform. The access link will be sent on the 20th of June.

More info and timetable