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Jennifer Thorp, The Menuet de la cour: ‘a dance to be reckoned with’, Early Music, Volume 36, Issue 2, May 2008, Pages 320–321, https://doi.org/10.1093/em/can020
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Extract
As yet, few detailed studies have been made of the history of a specific dance, and indeed not all dances are sufficiently documented over a long enough lifetime to allow such an account. The dance known as the Menuet de la cour, however, is an exception, and this book—combining the practical skills of dancer and musician with careful scholarship—provides ample evidence not only that such a study can succeed for the right dance, but also that it is an invaluable exercise to undertake.
Tilden Russell and Dominique Bourassa's obvious affection for, and determination to unravel the intricacies of the Menuet de la cour, its music and its performance history has resulted in a very fine study of a dance which was first documented in 1776 and continued in one form or another until the 1920s or later. That a dance of such complexity and sophistication could reappear so often in dance manuals alongside the newest fashions, and also have entire scenes constructed round it in theatrical ballets, suggests that it was a dance worth mastering, either in its original form or in the variants which evolved over the century and a half of its existence. The extraordinary thing is that the links between all the forms and variants can still be traced clearly, partly through the music, partly through the choreographic structures. Russell and Bourassa's masterly guidance through the numerous sources helps the reader to see the strong continuities binding these versions together, despite some subtle (and not so subtle) alterations to the look of the dance over the centuries. Even the versions with exaggerated raised arm positions and awful poses (beautifully captured in illus.8), so beloved of historically unaware dancers and film-makers over half a century ago and derided by early dance practitioners in more recent years, prove to have a slight link with one very short sequence in the Menuet de la cour.
