DHDS Conference

The Problems of Reconstruction and Re-creation in Dance before 1850

This is a personal view - please treat it as such.  I was taking notes at the time, but I may have misquoted people.     
The Dolmetsch Historical Dance Society Conference at Cecil Sharp House (29th March 2003) was never expected to be as popular as the Playford Conference of two years ago.  There were about 70 participants, from England, The United States, Denmark and France.

Anne Daye (Chairman of the Dolmetsch Historical Dance Society) welcomed everybody and explained the references to Reconstruction - understanding the written or diagrammatic instructions because there were no living exponents of the dances, and Re-creation, where there were no instructions and the dance had to be invented using whatever background knowledge we had.  She didn't, however, explain the cut-off date of 1850, which I'm told is not a particularly meaningful choice.  There was a conference on dance reconstruction in Ghent three years ago, and another in Roehampton a few years ago which was mainly on theatre dance.  This arrived at the notion of using as much evidence as possible (which seems obvious, but I know some interpreters of country dance don't do it), combined with dance intelligence and a tightly-controlled imagination.


Patri J. Pugilese: “Dancing and Fencing from the Renaissance to the 19th century”

Patri specialises in the early nineteenth century, and pointed out that many men were taught both dancing and fencing.  But why should scholars of one want to study the other?  The answer is that there are several similarities in the process of reconstruction.  The original wording was supposed to be clear, but is certainly not clear to people of today.  For Cecil Sharp, dance reconstruction (interpretation) was a revival (or invention) of a national dance tradition.  Minuets and pavans were reconstructed in the 1890's for school children, and these were not very accurate.  Later Mabel Dolmetsch and others began to produce more accurate versions.  The reconstruction of fencing began at about the same time as that of dancing.  It was more faithful, but there was little interest in it until about ten years ago - yet by now the number of people involved may rival the number in dance history.  There are two groups - one studies the original manuals, while the other is concerned with creating a modern martial arts movement.

Similar questions may arise in both disciplines.  In fencing a common question is “When was the lunge invented?”, whereas in dance a common question is “When was the waltz invented?”.  And in both cases there are many answers - Patri quoted a web site which alleged that there was evidence for the waltz going back to the year 1200!

I've never thought much about fencing, but what he was saying made a lot of sense.  For most of the period, men would have spent as long learning sword as they would learning dancing.  Men wore swords to dance - they were used to them.  Feuillet in his description of “Le Pistolet” in 1706 described a move as “as in fencing”.  (Mike Barraclough pointed out that this is “Smith's Rant” from Playford.)

As a practical experiment, Patri wore a rapier to work for six weeks.  He found that after a while it became perfectly natural - he didn't bump into doors, and sitting down was no longer a chore.


Diana Cruikshank:  “There's many a slip: the interpretation of 15th century Italian dance”

Diana was talking mainly about renaissance dance.  She showed slides of many examples of original dance notation, both printed and hand-written, and pointed out some of the problems.  There are many opportunities of a slip between the written text and the dance as reconstructed - even if there isn't a 500 year gap between the two.  She showed us some manuscripts written between 1455 and 1465.  One was hand-written and the writer seemed to have a phobia of blank spaces - it was closely written with gap-filling flourishes.  In those days it was assumed that the scribes copying out the text would make mistakes; they allowed for this and had ways of correcting errors.  The most obvious was to cross a word or phrase out.  Another method was to surround the word with dots.  Missing words could be squeezed in, or a whole phrase could be added in the margin.  And of course the correction might be done by someone else a few years later, rather than the original scribe who suddenly realised his error.  She also showed us a case where the same phrase appeared four times, one after another, and a second where a whole 8-line chunk was repeated.  I know how easy it is to do this when you're copying something out and your attention is distracted!

Another stumbling block to the novice reader is abbreviations - particularly as one abbreviation might mean several different things.  In some languages there was also a tendency to glue two or three words together, sometimes without any apparent logic.  And spelling could also vary considerably.

However, Diana finished by pointing out that it is easy to assume that there's an error in the text just because we can't understand it.  The aim is to preserve the spirit of the dance instructions.


David Wilson:  “Problems and possible solutions in French Basse Dance”

The French Basse Dances of the 15th century have relatively straightforward descriptions.  There are two classic sources, believed to be from the last decade of the century.  The first is the earliest known printed dance book, published by Toulouse in 1495.  The second, known as the Brussels Manuscript, was presented to Marguerite of Austria some time between 1497 and 1500, and was hand-written in gold and silver ink on black parchment.  These books are obviously both copies of the same original, though not all dances appear in both books; there are 63 dances in all.  It is explicitly a teach-yourself manual; it describes the four steps, the structure of the dance and the conventions.  What it does not mention is the floor-pattern - and nor does Arbeau in his “Orchesography”.  I was surprised to learn that it was a dance for a single couple - occasionally you might have more than one couple, or one man and two women, but this was quite rare.  In the 19th century it was commonly believed that the dance was a column of couples processing across the floor - and that's certainly what I had thought - but David said this was a misinterpretation of the pictures.  He showed one which had been believed to be a dance, and said that it was a wedding procession.  Indeed you could see the newlyweds at the front of the procession and the same couple sitting on the marital bed in a room at the back of the hall.  On the other hand, someone from the floor said that the text accompanying this illustration used the word “dance”.

The music was printed in equal notes (it looked like plain-song notation to me) but apparently this is now understood - the problem is the floor pattern.  How did the couple turn round?  In Italy they both turned on the spot, but this is not mentioned in French sources.

The four steps are individually described, but only one of them (the Pas double) is clear and not contradictory.  And it was not clear how much of the step sequence was improvised; if the man substituted something other than the standard sequence his partner would not know what was coming, so they would need some kind of signals.  David concluded that the Basse Danse needed a lot more than just dignity and style - important though these may be.


Jennifer Kiek:  “Newcastle: an exercise in early English Country Dance”

Jennifer said that Newcastle still exerts a fascination of interpreters.  The original interpretation was by Cecil Sharp, and there were later versions based on this.  Mike Barraclough presented his version at the Playford Conference two years ago, and my version appeared in CDSS News some time before that - indeed I was planning to go through my version at the Playford Conference until I discovered that Mike was doing his!  Tom Cook has also published an interpretation which he called “Newcastle II”, though this was based on a hand-written original.

Jennifer said that she was not going to look at other people's interpretations; she wanted to elucidate principles and apply them.

“Newcastle” is a round for eight - one of only five in the first edition of Playford.  She didn't explain the difference between this and a square.  The A-music contains the formulaic figures of up a double and back (in this case, in a double and back), siding and arming, and the B-music involved what she called the fancy figures.  Each figure consists of 4 doubles, repeated.

If you do the first fancy figure literally as Playford's instructions say (rather than assuming that they are obviously wrong, as Sharp did), there are two problems.  You end up in your partner's place rather than home, and the dancing round the outside is mighty fast.  The latter is not necessarily a problem with today's dancers, wearing light clothes and using sprung travelling steps, but she's not convinced by the use of such steps in early Playford.  Even with an open double (no close except at the end of the phrase) it produces an unseemly rush.

The problem with the second and third introductions is that they are progressive, which is very unusual - only “Dargason” and “Row well ye mariners” also have progressive siding - and there is not far enough to go in the two doubles.  Sharp adds a step and honour; I used the same in my version in CDSS News though I have now switched to a set as being more in keeping with the first introduction; Mike has a “Hole in the wall” cross to use up the music.  Jennifer feels that making the assumption that Playford left something out should be a last resort.

In the second fancy figure, numbers are used for the first time.  If the siding movement finishes with everyone a quarter of the way round the square (as in all the interpretations mentioned), these people are standing together, but she felt that the small quarter turn did not justify the term “cast off”.

So, all three figures start from different places.  At the end of the third formulaic figure we have “Now every man is with his owne Wo. in the Co. place.”, which we normally read with a sigh of relief - Playford is reassuring us that we have indeed followed him correctly thus far.  But what if this sentence is a warning that it's not obvious?  I will admit that I didn't have a clue what she was getting at by this point!  She was suggesting that in the second and third figures you should pass by one person and dance with the next.  And if the second and third fancy figures take you half-way round and finish with you improper, maybe the first should also do this.  (I don't know whether you're managing to visualise all this, but I certainly wasn't.)  She suggested therefore that in the first formulaic figure the star in the middle and the single file round the outside should be only half-way, and the dancers on the inside track should curve around as they met their partner, to finish improper on the opposite side of the square.  She claimed that her reconstruction fits the music, follows the original wording exactly, and is consistent.

Fortunately she had time to get eight dancers up and we walked through and then danced her version.  I doubt that you can follow it from what I have said above - I certainly couldn't - but if there is sufficient demand I will give the details of Jenny's version.  Did it fit the music?  Yes.  Was I convinced?  No!

Finally, the title.  I had supposed that this simply came from the tune, which was originally a song which started something like “O Come ye not from Newcastle”, but Jenny said that Newcastle was William Cavendish, born 1592, who was created Earl of Newcastle in 1628.  He moved to the continent during the civil war, returned after the restoration of the monarchy, and gave two lavish entertainments for the King written by Ben Johnson.  The second of these was at Balsover.  Jenny suggested that in the final figure of the dance, when the lines cross over, the ends have a smaller distance to travel than the middles so maybe only they should do the turn single.  Is it too fanciful to imagine that this represents a castle turret, and the dance becomes a text to be read?


Susan de Guardiola: “Reconstructing and re-creating a social context for 16th-century Italian court dance”

Susan's paper was very different, and one which social dancers will relate to.  She was concerned not with details of reconstruction, but with applied research in a social rather than theatrical context - she actually wanted to run 16th-century dances close to the way they would have been run.  Most of the dances published by Caroso and Negri were art dances, where one couple performed the dance and everyone else watched.  But there were also some social dances: mixers, 4 couple dances, and longways for as many as will.  Susan wanted to recreate this context.  She therefore needed an audience of knowledgeable and critical dancers - rather than experts performing to the general public.  She had to acquire dancers, select a set of dances, and see how to conduct such an event.  She recruited from Folk (International), ECD (Playford-style dancers in the States), ballet and other groups.  She had various other problems to overcome, which would not have been an issue in those days.  Many people now would be anxious about performing in front of 20 or 30 people who knew what to watch for.  She could not train the dancers in advance - they were too scattered geographically.  She decided on the format of a one-day workshop ending with an evening dance.  This had the further advantage that at the dance people would not be too worried about sitting out and watching for part of the time, since they would be exhausted!  She chose dances which collectively contained no more than a dozen steps, and hoped that the limitations of this approach would be made up by the social pleasure of dancing through an evening after only one day's training.

Caroso and Negri give brief advice on manners - mainly advice on control of clothing rather than how to run a dance.  Caroso hints that men and women would be seated separately.  People would have permanent seats (certainly true in Dance Clubs in England these days) and it was very rude to take the seat of someone who was dancing.  It was accepted for women to ask men to dance as well as vice-versa; Caroso said that they had to overcome their modesty and raise their eyes when asking, otherwise the men didn't know which of them was being addressed and much embarrassment could result.  The rôle of the Dancing Master was not as currently imagined.  The nobles would tell the Master of the Ball what dance they wanted to do, and he would communicate this to the musicians.

So Susan came up with two criteria for her programme of dances: Ease of performance, and Sociability.  She chose one dance for a single couple, two for three couples longways (one of which was in triple time so that she could explain how to modify the steps for this music), some mixers, and the rest longways for as many as will.  The mixers put a lower pressure on the less experienced dancers, and (she didn't say this; it is my assumption) were one in the eye for those who think that all these dances were high-class and refined - I feel a need to do this when calling in the States!  Negri describes a mixer where the men move on to the next woman and the spectators can cut in - imagine trying that at the New York Ball!  There is a trio mixer in Caroso.  And there is at least one dance where the dancers pass a flower around: when the music stops, the person with the flower chooses the next dance and who will dance it.

Susan has run this kind of day three times in the States, with great success.  She hopes that over time people will become more used to them, and she will then be able to add further steps to their established repertoire.


Jørgen Schou-Pedersen:  “Traditional French dances from the baroque period”

Jørgen was introduced as a very distinguished dancer and researcher from Denmark, but I didn't manage to write much in the way of notes from his presentation.  His premise was that books focus on court dances, but surely traditional folk dances were also done at court.  There are links back to earlier dances from the notation.  He mentioned Lorin's “Contredanses Nouvelles” and said that the sequence of two singles and a double was found here and also in the pavan and the books of Caroso and Negri.  Lorin provides important information on style.  Jørgen gave demonstrations of various steps, but (as you can see) it didn't mean much to me!


Ken Pierce, John S. Powell & Jennifer Thorp:  “An echo of the past?  Le Roussau's Harlequin and Le Malade Imaginaire”

Le Roussau was a comedy and character dancer well-known in the serious and comic dance world, and he performed the Harlequin dance at the Haymarket in London in 1724 as part of the play “Le Malade Imaginaire” (I think that's right).  Jennifer gave us information about the dance and showed us the steps in Feuillet notation, and Ken brought the piece brilliantly to life.  Then Jennifer joined in and showed how they had converted it to a dance for two people, with Ken doing exactly the same movements and Jennifer fitting in around them - sometimes with mirror image movements - so that the dance became more dramatic towards the end and finished with him chasing her off.  I think this was an example of dance re-creation - there was talk of a dance for the two characters, but no details, so this was a case of creative imagination applied to existing choreography.  Finally John Powell talked about the music, making very heavy weather of using a laptop attached to a projector and struggling with Internet Explorer, when the slides that the other speakers had used would have been much better.  I thought perhaps the PC was going to play the music being displayed - but it didn't.


Robert Mullally:  “Reconstructing the Carole”

We do not find a description of a carole until the 13th century, though it is first mentioned in the early 12th century.  It went out of fashion about 1400.  It might have been performed in a line, but Robert thought this came from a dubious interpretation of two or three texts.  Mainly it was danced in a circle; there is a lot of evidence for this, including Milton's “Divine Comedy”.  Moralists condemned the dance because it moved to the left: “Those that turn to the left are perverse and bad, and God hates them.” (Proverbs 27).  I found this most surprising - I had always thought that moving first to the left was the way of good people, and moving to the right, or widdershins, was the way witches danced.  The texts do not say that the movement is one foot in front of the other, like walking - they use the French word meaning “strike” which suggests that you moved the left foot sideways to the left and then the right foot up against it.  Robert must have said a lot more in his 25 minutes, but nothing struck me as worth noting down, except his assertion (made twice) that the farandole and branle were not medieval dances, which certainly surprised me though no-one challenged him on it.


Anne Daye & Jeremy Barlow:  “The shock of the new: Ben Jonson's antimasque of witches 1609”

This antimasque was a major innovation in theatre dance.  The scenery and headdresses were by Inigo Jones, and these still exist.  The masque challenged court decorum and therfore had to be carefully justified.  The whole concept of dancing witches was new.  Indeed the concept of a coven of witches was a continental idea - English witches were solitary.  The idea took hold in art and culture by the second half of the 17th century, but at the time it must have been a shock to the audience.  It was also the first time the players worked in masks.

So here was a classic example of re-creation.  The music and the speeches are known, but there is no record of the dancing.  Anne and Jeremy, with helpers, had created the dancing.  Not that they agreed about everything!  The First Witches' Dance is a mixture of what Anne called “unmeasured” notes - long notes which could not be considered part of a dance tune - with bars in galliard rhythm.  It was deliberately flouting the conventions of dance music to give a bizarre effect.  At the end were eight bars of courante rhythm (what I would call a jig), though this had a rest in one bar to throw the next few bars out of synchronisation.  Anne thought that the whole piece was for dancing, and Jeremy thought that the first part was for their entry and the last part was for the dancing - or their opinions might have been the other way round - this was the final session of a long day!  The Second Witches' Dance had abrupt changes of rhythm and timing, again designed to highlight the fact that these witches were unnatural beings whose music broke all the rules of what dance music was supposed to be.

After a description of the problems faced by reconstructors, we watched a video of twelve men (the original directions specified men) in costumes and appropriate masks performing the masque.  Anne kept pointing out that this was only a first attempt, and changes would undoubtedly be made, and the video player didn't produce enough sound for a hall of that size - but the whole audience was riveted and I thought it came over as very successful.  It was certainly a long way from the English Country Dance that most of us are accustomed to, and it made a good finish to the conference.


19th Century Ball

The Ball in the evening was led by Ellis Rogers, well-known in both EFDSS and DHDS circles.  The band was Green Ginger, whom I had not heard before.  Two fiddles and a keyboard: good musicians, rather Scottish in style, and like Scottish bands they changed tunes every time through which I didn't like.

The dancers were mainly in 19th century costume, many very splendid.  We could have done with more people.  The Cecil Sharp House regulars stayed away - either because they didn't realise the Ball was open to people other than the conference participants, or because they were scared of trying something different.

The programme contained country dances, a couple of quadrilles (actually the same quadrille danced twice to different sets of tunes) and two couple dances.  I was told that there should have been a much higher proportion of couple dances, but it certainly suited me the way it was.  It made a great change to dance everything rather than walk most of it, and my feet were aching at times.  I'm no expert at historical dance, but I found that the steps were (or seemed close enough to) either skip or skip-change, with a bounce at the end of the phrase, so I did all right!  Ellis kept encouraging people to change partners, pointing out that is was the gentlemen's job to see that the ladies were having a good time and not sitting out, but some people still stuck with the same partners all evening.

I knew that many of the so-called English traditional dances such as “La Russe” and “Cumberland Square Eight” came from 19th century quadrilles, but I was also struck by the many similarities to traditional American Squares (including Running Set) and to Irish set dancing (which even has the same numbering of couples: ones with their backs to the band, twos facing the band, threes on the right of the ones, fours on their left).  Once again I thought how sad it was that so many people want to erect barriers between different forms of dance, when any unprejudiced study of Playford, English traditional, Scottish, Contra, Irish Set will conclude that though the style may be different the dances themselves are clearly all the same type!



Conference Proceedings

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Colin Hume