-
Views
-
Cite
Cite
Jasmine Chiu, Dancing in Oxford, Early Music, Volume 40, Issue 2, May 2012, Pages 349–351, https://doi.org/10.1093/em/cas063
Close - Share Icon Share
Extract
Staged amidst the picturesque setting of New College, Oxford, and celebrating its 14th year, the annual Oxford Dance Symposium took place on 17–18 April 2012 organized by Michael Burden, Dean of New College, and Jennifer Thorp, College Archivist. Originally designed as a forum to explore different aspects of 18th-century dance, with particular reference to its musical, theatrical, literary and social contexts, the theme of this year’s symposium, ‘Dancing in the theatre of Europe in the long 18th century’, remained faithful to this foundational premise. Addressing topics as diverse as dance music in the theatre, the performance of dance in opera, the development of dance costumes, stage design, stylistic nuances of dance and dance iconography, the programme provided a rich array of papers and perspectives for an equally diverse audience of well-established scholars, dance practitioners and graduate students.
Seventeen papers were presented over the course of two days and were divided into five sessions based on the general thematic categories of characterization and style in dance, cultivating dance spectacle; literary and iconographic considerations; dance philosophy; the history of pantomime; and costume. The symposium opened with an engaging paper by Anne Daye on the expression of character and action in dance on the English stage. By examining dance instances across the 17th century, Daye established a link between early characterization of action in the Stuart anti-masque tradition and later grotesque styles on the 18th-century London stage. Domenico Pietropaolo’s paper further explored ideas of the development of style by discussing the theories of the Italian playwright Pier Jacopo Martello and his differentiation of distinct national styles of dance.
