The Styles of Eighteenth-Century Ballet

The Styles of Eighteenth-Century Ballet Edmund Fairfax

The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Lanham, Maryland, and Oxford 2003

SCARECROW PRESS, INC. Published in the United States of America by Scarecrow Press, Inc. A Member of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200 Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.scarecrowpress.com PO Box 317 Oxford OX2 9RU, UK Copyright 02003 by Edmund Fairfax All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

British Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fairfax, Edmund 1961The styles of eighteenth-centuryballet / Edmund Fairfax. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-8108-4698-5 (alk. paper) 1. Ballet-History-18th century. 2. Ballet-France-History-18th century. I. Title: Styles of 18th-century ballet. 11. Title. GV1787 .F35 2003 792.8'09'033-dc21 2002154137

WMThe paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements

of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO 239.48-1992. Manufactured in the United States of America.

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Contents

V

Acknowledgments

vii

Introduction The Rise of "the French Art of Dance"

1

Ballroom Dancing versus Ballet

15

The Four Traditional Styles of Ballet

81

One Man's Style, Another Man's Poison

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The "Fair Sex" and Its Style

219

Caprice: To Each His Own Style

243

The Meltdown of the Four Traditional Styles

257

Voluptuousness: The Heartbeat of Ballet

293

Chorkgraphie: Choreographic Representation and Misrepresentation

311

Appendix: Remarks on Costume

339

Bibliography

349

Index

363

About the Author

367

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Donna Greenberg, Sandra No11 Hammond, and Elizabeth Aldrich for their support and encouragement.

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Introduction

For its part, the public takes delight in deluding itself that the taste and talents of its century are far superior to those of foregoing centuries. (Noverre 1760,49)

Dance has been perhaps the most fleeting ephemeron of all the arts, the mere "perfume and suppliance of a minute," as it were, a feast for the eye enjoyed in the moment but feebly and poorly held by the memory. This fleeting insubstantiality is all the more apparent when one attempts to outline the features of a dance style and technique from a bygone age, such as that of the eighteenth century. The historian of dance, doubly removed from his object of study, beholds but a shadow of the original preserved in scant and often wanting descriptions. The scholar is hampered both by the longstanding absence of any truly thorough way of recording dance in all its three-dimensional complexity and by the tenacious view, not unique to our own utilitarian age, that dance is somehow a lesser art, a rather effeminate pursuit unworthy of serious study or recording. Such a view has ensured that far less information comes down to us about the dance of the past than about its sister arts. While the historian of eighteenth-century literature or music, for example, has at his disposal for study a wealth of material in the form of either theoretical writings or creative output from the period, the scholar of eighteenth-century dance is doubly at a disadvantage, for considerably less material survives here in comparison, either theoretical writings and descriptions of performances and technique, on the one hand, or actual dances and ballets, on the other. Much of vii

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what does in fact come down to us has been largely inaccessible to many individuals interested in this period because the material itself is scattered or unknown and has not been systematically brought together, translated into English, and interpreted. The problems of relatively limited available information and the difficulty of finding or accessing a good deal of it have unfortunately resulted in numerous gross misconceptions about the nature of eighteenth-century dance, its styles, its choreography, the character of its ballets, and above all its techmque. These deeply entrenched misconceptions, some of which go back as far as the early nineteenth century, have been uncritically accepted and uncritically repeated in a number of secondary sources touching upon the subject of eighteenth-century ballet. While interest in early dance has certainly increased in the last few decades, doubtless in response to the ”early music” movement, a more historically informed understanding of the nature of early ballet has not accompanied it. Thus a significant segment in the history of one of the West‘s major art forms has remained shrouded in speculation and misinformation. Even though scattered and fragmentary, enough primary material on the dance of this period survives, however, to allow the scholar to come to a far more accurate picture of this dance form than has hitherto been the case. The present work, gven over specifically to the styles of eighteenth-century dance, is the first of three projected volumes devoted to a systematic and thoroughgoing study of eighteenthcentury ballet. The second volume will deal with dance technique, that is, the manner of executing the sundry steps, ports de bras, attitudes, and other movements. The third will take up the development of the genre of pantomime ballet, specifically the manner in which dance movement, pantomimic gesture, plot, and music were combined to form an artistic whole. These three volumes are intended to lay to rest the tenacious specter of misinformation in this field. This first volume in particular is intended in part to counter the currently received but utterly erroneous view that the theatrical dance of the eighteenth century was earthbound and limited in both number of steps and range of movement, that the eighteenth-centuryballet dancer scarcely left the floor in the few jumps he did and utterly eschewed any exaggerated movements of the h b s in order to conform to a Victorian-like sense of decorum, such that the dance of the ballroom and theater were scarcely to be told apart. In order to account for the expansive style of classical ballet, historians of this school of thought are obliged to resort to a kind of “big bang” theory, wherein a relatively short ”transitional”

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period is posited, typically somewhere in the second half of the eighteenth century, to allow the contained dance form of the ancien rkgime, as the received view has it, to undergo an ”expansion of technique” and be transformed into an airborne style with exaggerated movements of the limbs. Just such a view is put forth by Cohen (1974,39),for example, who writes that in the first part of the eighteenth century ”there was still comparatively little distinction between the steps of the ballroom and those of the stage, both aiming for the qualities admired in the most typical of eighteenth-century dances, the minuet. Nobility, precision, grace, and lightness were the attributes of the accomplished dancer.” Because of the supposed technical simplicity of this early dance form and the imagined absence of difficult tours de force, Cohen (1960,27)claims that “ballet technique did not then demand the long years of arduous training required today.” In a similar vein, Wynne (1970,25) fails to see any distinct differences between social and theatrical dance of the early eighteenth century and claims that the period’s sense of “decorum” prevented the dance of that age from being in essence expressive, that the performer of this art was obliged to be “cool,” as she euphemistically puts it, or, rather, repressed in movement and expression: Conventions of the ballet in 1700 were closely interwoven with everyday life at Versailles and the royal and great houses in and around Paris. The courtier was formally tutored in the practice of manners correct for the King’s domain. Concealment of feelings was the overriding rule of demeanor: practice moderation and forbearance, smile when in distress, remain articulate and calm through all occasions, even the most tense and stormy. . . . Movement impulses within this code were to be veiled, as well as emotional responses. To move impulsively, explosively, or exuberantly was a breach of etiquette. . . . Ball dances and ballets, the lines of separation between them being still very indistinct in the earlier period, conformed entirely to these social codes.

In a less scholarly format, De Mille (1963, 98) makes unsubstantiated claims about the imagined simplicity of eighteenth-century ballet, which supposedly was a stranger to virtuosity and more demanding technical feats such as jumps, lifts, and turns.As De Mille writes, the ballet dancing of the 18th century was undoubtedly elegant and lovely but it would seem to us simple, not nearly so acrobatic or astonishing as what we demand today. Women were not yet up on their

X

Introducfion points. Jumps were just being devised. Lifts had not yet been attempted, nor multiple pirouettes. Tours B la seconde they had, but not the repeated turnings on a single spot called fouettes. The wild, quick whirlings about the stage, the precision of leap and turns accomplished by dozens of dancers simultaneously-all this was yet to come.

Following suit, Winter (1974,3) in like manner speaks of a ”decisive change in dance technique and style [which] came toward 1790” thanks to a change in dance costume, followed by a ”transitional period” leading to a more expansive style and technique. Perhaps the most glaring example of a secondary source producing a skewed view of eighteenth-century ballet is Hilton’s Dance of Court and Theater. This unscholarly work, often taken to be a “textbook” on the dance technique of this period, has been particularly effective in promulgating the erroneous view of ballet as a dance form scarcely discernible from ballroom dancing. Despite its title, Hilton’s book deals only with the ballroom dance of the early eighteenth century, or, rather, it confuses theatrical with ballroom dance, not surprisingly since the author relies on too few sources and even at times misunderstands those that she does use. Hilton herself confesses in her preface (1981, vi) that she ”restricted the inclusion of comparative material from other writers on the principle that minutia of comparison will not facilitate the establishment of basic theory” and relies in fact on only four sources. Two of these, Rameau’s Le maitre h danser and Tomlinson’s A r t of Damzing, deal only with ballroom dancing even though Hilton purports to discuss the dance of court and theater. The other two sources, Feuillet‘s Ckorkgraphie and Rameau’s Abbrkgk, give merely notational characters of steps, which are often misleading about the manner of execution, as we shall see in chapter 9. Even when attempting to outline the performance of the steps, Hilton omits to include relevant information found in her few sources, more often than not providing less information than Rameau and Tomlinson give. In her description of the temps de courante, for example, she does not mention the bend of the supporting leg during the gZissk, which Rameau does (1725a, 116), presumably because the character for this step in Feuillet notation is misleading, here as elsewhere. In other places, such as in connection with the pas de sissoizize (1981, 223), she makes unsubstantiated claims, alluding to a “principle” about the degree of bend at the ankle for the free foot that is never substantiated and then violating the same “principle” because it ”seems preferable” to do something

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other when the foot is behind: "When held in a closed position in front, the principle that the knees and ankles are flexed at the same time seems to hold good, but when in a closed position behind, it seems preferable to point the free foot to some extent." In other places, she instructs the reader to do the very opposite of what is given in the original sources. In her discussion of the pas de rigaudon (1981,226), for example, she instructs the reader in her breakdown of movements to musical counts to land from the final jump with the knees bent, thus directly contradicting Rameau (1725a, 160),who explicitly indicates that the dancer lands on the toes with the knees straight. Much of her book in fact is given over simply to a rehash of the Feuillet notational system. In vain does the reader seek in Hilton's book for a discussion of such theatrical steps as the cabriole, entrechat, gargouillade, temps de cuisse, pas de basque, ailes de pigeon, tricote', fouette', trousse', brisk, spazzacampagna, and many others that clearly figured so prominently in the dance of the eighteenthcentury theater, as contemporary sources indicate, not to mention a discussion of the attitude or the sundry styles of theatrical dance and how these styles changed. The uncritical acceptance, repetition, and even embellishment of unsubstantiated claims about the imagined techrucal simplicity of eighteenth-century ballet becomes most apparent when references to pirouettes, for example, are examined. The misinformation here goes back as far as the early nineteenth century. One of the most frequently cited early sources to give a skewed view of eighteenthcentury ballet is Blasis (1820,79-81). Writing in the early nineteenth century, he assumed that "the artists from the past century were inferior to those of the last years of the same age and to all of those at the beginning of the present age" and believed that no more than three rotations in multiple pirouettes were possible before Auguste Vestris (1760-1842). As Blasis writes, we owe pirouettes to the astounding progress of modem dancing. Our dancers of yesterday, and even Noverre, did not know them and thought that it was impossible to exceed three tums sur le cou-de-pied. The best dancers of today have proved the contrary, and present-day execution of divers pirouettes is truly extraordinary on account of the success in wonderfully sustaining aplombs and keeping the body perfectly balanced. Messrs. Gardel and Vestris should perhaps be regarded as the inventors of pirouettes; the latter, by perfecting and increasing [the number of] them, brought them into greater vogue.

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Blasis’s distorted view, uncritically accepted, becomes the received opinion of following writers and is reiterated with embellishment in succeeding sources. Albertieri (1923, 87), for example, claims that not only were pirouettes of more than three rotations thought to be impossible in the eighteenth century but even those with three turns were held to be ”amazing.” He contends that the dancers of the eighteenth century were inferior to those of the nineteenth and twentieth. Those dancers of the older times and first teachers of the art possessed a taste that was quite simple. The vigorous and brilliant execution of entrechats, the intricate combination of varied steps, and the period of perfection came only after long years of study and preparation. In the earlier days no one imagined that the three rotations on the ankle, then considered so amazing, could be surpassed, but the best dancers of the last century proved that they could. The pirouettes performed by several distinguished artists of our own days have been truly phenomenal. Who can ever forget the interminable pirouettes executed in all positions by the famous Spadalino?and those so uncommon, so difficult and with such perfect balance that the celebrated EMco Cecchetti performed? The rapid progress of the art of dancing at the beginning of the nineteenth century with its novelties and complications caused a thorough change in the method of study of the allegro part; and in order to obtain the execution of steps required by modem art, the system used by dancers of earlier times was abandoned.

Sorell (1986,236) in like manner takes Blasis at his word and further embellishes upon it, claiming that the eighteenth-century pirouette was something ”crude” in comparison to that ”invented” by Vestris and Gardel: “Multiple pirouettes in a cruder form may already have been executed in the eighteenth century, but from an academic point of view he [Blasis] was justified in assuming that his famous contemporary dancers, Vestris and Pierre Gardel, invented and perfected the pirouette in the early 1820s.” Sorell adds misinformation to misinformation here by stating that Vestris invented the pirouette in the early 1820s; the famed dancer had already retired from the stage in 1816 at the exceptional age of fifty-six. Yet the primary sources from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries clearly indicate not only that multiple pirouettes exceeding four rotations were an established part of formal dance by the end of the sixteenth century but also that plentiful use was made of such feats in theatrical dance well before the beginning of the nineteenth century (see chapter 2). Indeed, by the 1770s, when Auguste Vestris was only in his teens and

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still endeavoring to master his art, multiple pirouettes of six rotations were standard fare on the Paris Opera stage. In no way should Vestris be seen as the ”inventor” of the pirouette, as Blasis suggests. Many more examples of such misinformation could be given that show generally the bad press that pre-nineteenth-century ballet has received from ill-informed writers simplistically subscribing to notions of progress and teleology. These gross misconceptions, moreover, have been given great currency thanks in large measure to performances on stage or video that purport to reconstruct “Baroque dance” and that are based on the misinformation current in this field. This misinformation stems, again, from an uncritical acceptance of unsubstantiated claims found in sources lacking scholarly rigor, from a misunderstanding of a very few sources taken out of context, and most significantly from a want of a thorough investigation of the primary sources. Much of this misinformation stems in fact from historians who confuse the different styles of dance cultivated in our period of study, most notably ballroom dance and ballet. While the dance of the ballroom and the stage in the eighteenth century shared many of the same steps, ports de bras, and other movements, all of these elements were, broadly speaking, performed differently on stage, with far greater elevation in jumps and much higher extensions of the limbs, for example, as we shall see in chapter 2. The confounding of ballroom and theatrical dance arises in part from writers, such as Hilton, taking at face value descriptions of dance movements found in a select few ballroom manuals, such as Rameau’s Le maifre ii danser and Tomlinson’s A r t of Dancing, without recourse to extant discussions outlining the differences between these two styles of social dance and ballet or to descriptions and reviews of dance performances found in letters, memoirs, and journals from the period. The misinformation about the nature of eighteenth-century ballet stems as well from a failure to distinguish between the different styles of theatrical dance cultivated during our period. There were in fact four distinct styles of ballet, as we shall see in chapter 3, each one different from the other in the kinds of characters represented, the choice of steps and other movements, and even the manner in which these steps and movements were typically executed; in other words, these styles differed in subject matter, choreography, and technique. Attempts to outline the nature of ballet for the early part of the eighteenth century in particular go awry when these stylistic

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differences are not taken into consideration. A greatly skewed view of ballet history results if the simpler terve-u-terre style of ballet especially, or the grave genre as it was commonly called in the period, is misconstrued to be representative of mainstream dance for the period as a whole. Mainstream dance in contrast generally made excessive use of high beaten jumps, such as long sequences of repeated entrechats, and other tours de force, such as multiple turns in the air or on the floor. Such a confusion of one single style of ballet with mainstream dance for the period arises in part from a misinterpretation of a handful of theatrical dances extant in Feuillet dance notation from the early part of the century. As we shall see in chapter 9, the compilations of these surviving dances do not appear to be a cross section of mainstream theatrical dance for the period but rather tell us more about the level of proficiency reached by amateurs and dancing masters of the age, the intended clientele for these published dances. The confusion of the serious style with mainstream dance, and thus the skewing of ballet history, also comes from a failure to take into consideration varying preferences for given styles throughout eighteenth-century Europe, not merely from one country to another but even from one city or one theater to another. The serious style was particularly popular in Paris and especially at the Paris OpQa. So prestigious was this institution that writers throughout the period and afterwards would confusingly equate the dominant style of dance at this one theater with French dance as a whole or even mainstream dance of the period, as we shall see in chapters 4 and 7, and thus confuse the radical changes that the French serious style underwent in the course of the century with the development of ballet as a whole. Some of the misinformation about the dance of this period arises from the assumption that the dance technique of this age must have been as highly uniform and homogenized as its modem counterpart is today. Hilton (1977, 162), for example, claims that one source, Rameau‘s Le muftre iz dunser, is ”the most definitive work on ballroom dance of the early 18th century,” and thus it follows that a comprehensive consideration of the sources is unnecessary, that ”minutia of comparison will not facilitate the establishment of basic theory” (Hilton 1981, vi) even within one and the same source. A careful and systematic investigation of the primary sources reveals in fact that no one writer from the period gives the last word on eighteenth-century

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dance practices. More often than not there is more than one version of a given position, step, or port de bras in the sources. Indeed, the flexibility of the old technique stands in marked contrast to its highly homogenized modern counterpart. As we shall see in chapter 6, fancy, or caprice-that is, personal taste-played a sigruficant role in the interpretation of established steps and movements during the period and ultimately played its part in the dissolution of the system of distinct dance styles. Indeed, the need to take into consideration a broad range of material is all the more important since some writers from the period at times give theory that was honored more in the breach than in the observance; thus corroborative material showing actual practice becomes most imperative. The currently received but erroneous view that eighteenth-century dance was “cool,” as Wynne (1970) words it-that is, expressively repressed owing to a sense of decorum not unlike that in the later Victorian era-also finds its origin in a failure to take into consideration a broad range of primary material from the period. Descriptions of performances and of the personal styles of individual dancers from the age, together with the typical subjects dealt with in eighteenthcentury ballets and the zeitgeist of the period, make it clear, as we shall see in chapter 8, that eighteenth-centuryballet, on the contrary, was markedly “loose” in character, that is, voluptuous and sensual, in sharp contrast to the prudery and propriety characteristic of some nineteenth- and early-twentieth-centuryballets. In those later ballets women dancers were not uncommonly reduced to sexless ideal beings in their airy white purity held aloft by a token male dancer, or transformed into unattainable sylphs (La sylphide of 1832), otherworldly swans (Swan Lake of 1895), supernatural beings (Giselle of 1841), dolls (Coppdia of 1870), or ghostly dead nuns (”The Ballet of the Nuns” in Robert Ie diable of 1831). Ultimately, the view of eighteenth-centuryballet that emerges from a comprehensive consideration of a wide variety of sources is diametrically opposed to that currently accepted. The ballet of thisperiod was not a simple, earthbound dance form limited in range of movement or number of steps, or quaintly bound by the dictates of a rigid code of decorum. On the contrary, it was a highly developed art form employing exaggerated movements; one wherein its practitioners achieved a remarkable level of virtuosity, most notably in the plentiful if not excessive use of capers, or high beaten jumps; one that cultivated for much of the period a variety of styles and techniques in contrast to its

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highly homogenized modem counterpart; and one wherein both men and women dancers took up their fair share of the limelight in dances that not uncommonly reflected the sensuality of the age. In short, the theatrical dance of this period was not some primitive predecessor in a grand chain of development leading ineluctably to the fancied more expansive and higher form of classical ballet. Because nearly three hundred different works have been drawn upon in this study, it is impossible to discuss each individual source and provide background information on each writer and his context, biases, and agenda. Broadly, three different kinds of sources underlie this study, namely, extant works dealing specifically with dance; isolated descriptions of performances and performers found in writing of a more personal nature, such as letters or memoirs; and finally the iconography. Among the first sort figure significantly extant handbooks on dance technique and published treatises on dance generally from the period. Noteworthy here is Die neueste Art zur galanten und theatralischen Tantz-Kunst of 1712, written by the Frenchman Louis Bonin, who had been a professional dancer in both France and Germany in the latter part of the seventeenth century and who provides in his book the earliest detailed discussion of the character of eighteenth-century ballet. Gottfried Taubert’s Rechtschafener Tantzrneister of 1717 is a voluminous compendium on dance spanning over a thousand pages. It provides detailed descriptions of steps and ports de bras belonging to French dance as well as fleeting references to the nature of stage dancing. Taubert, a well-educated German dancing master active in Saxony and Poland, quotes or plagiarizes from virtually every work on dance that was available in his day and that dealt with the French art of dance specifically.The great choreographer of the period, Jean-Georges Noverre, produced two important polemical works dealing specifically with eighteenth-century ballet: his Letfres sur la danse, et sur les ballets of 1760 and at the end of his life his Lettres sur les arts iinitateurs en giniral, et sur la danse en particulier of 1807. The latter in particular provides an invaluable retrospective look at the dance of the eighteenth-century both before and after the significant changes that occurred during the time of the French Revolution. Perhaps the most important source from the period dealing specificallywith stage dancing is Gennaro Magri’s Traftato teorico-prattico di ball0 of 1779. Magri, a professional dancer in the so-called grotesque style, was active in a number of theaters throughout Europe in the 1750s and 1760s. He provides in his hand-

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book invaluable descriptions of steps and ports de bras belonging to the stage as well as fleeting references to the differences between the various styles of ballet. Further essential information on the different styles of stage dancing are given notably in A n Essay Tozuards an History of Danciirg of 1712by the English dancing master and professional dancer John Weaver; A Treatise on the Art of Dancing of 1762, written by the Italian-born Giovanni Gallini, principal dancer and ballet master at the Theatre in the Haymarket in London in the latter part of the period; the Dissertation sur les ballets pantoiniines des anciens of 1765 by Gasparo Angiohi, one of the major ballet choreographers from the period; and Johann Sulzer’sAllgeineine Theorie der schonen Kiinste of 1792-1794, among others. A few works published in the first part of the nineteenth century also afford some insight into the nature of eighteenth-century ballet. Notable here are the poem ‘Tart de la danse,” penned in the late 1780s or early 1790sby Jean-Etienne Despreaux, a professional dancer active at the Paris OpQa between roughly 1770 and 1790; and the Systeinatisches Lehrbuch der bildeirden Tanzkunst und korperlichai Ausbildung of 1843, written by Franz Roller, a student of the famed choreographers Muzzarelli and Salvatore Vigano and a principal dancer in the serious style until his retirement from the stage in 1799. Further valuable information on the nature of eighteenth-century ballet can be found in a large number of varied sources not dealing specifically with dance, in the form of eyewitness accounts of dancers and dances or reviews of performances found here and there in memoirs, letters, pamphlets, travelogues, newspapers, and above all in such journals as the voluminous Mercure de France, which regularly provided its subscribers throughout almost the whole of the century with reviews of performances at the more highbrow theaters of Paris. A third important source of information on the theatrical dance of our period is the iconography, that is, extant illustrations of dancers performing on stage or even modeling theatrical garb in costume design plates. The most important of such sources is perhaps the neue und curieuse theatralisclre Tantz-Scltul of 1716, brought out by Gregorio Lambranzi, a professional dancer of Italian background. As indicated in his preface, Lambranzi not only composed most of the music and invented the various sketchy dance scenarios included in the tome but also posed for the accompanying crudely executed engravings by Johann Puschner.

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Despite the differing origins and agendas, the broad array of primary material on dance throughout the period is generally in marked agreement about the dance practices of the age as a whole. Such overall unanimity strongly argues that, from the point of view of both dance technique and dance conventions, the eighteenth century constitutes a unified period, despite the changes that occurred during the age, and should be studied as such. This continuity is most evident in the treatises dealing with dance specifically. The authors of such works commonly plagiarize, collate, and synthesize material originating from different decades of the century and from different geographical locales; indeed, parts of later sources are at times wholly derived from earlier works. In the description of the traditional four styles of ballet found in his Treatise on the A r t of Dancing of 1762, for example, Gallini simply expands upon the brief remarks given in Weaver's Essay Towards a n History of Dancing of 1712 and in fact plagiarizes the latter in places. Compare, for example, the following two passages from these writers, describing the serious and half-serious styles, called the grave and brisk, respectively, in Weaver: There are two Movements in this Kind of Dancing; the Brisk, and the Grave; the Brisk requires Vigour, Lightness, Agility, Quicksprings, with a Steadiness, and Coinirzand of the Body; the Grave, (which is the most difficult) Softness, easie Bendings and Risings, and Address and both must have Air and Firmness, with a graceful and regulated Motion of all Parts. (Weaver 1712,163) I have before observed that the grave or serious stile of dancing, is the great ground-work of the art. It is also the most difficult. Firmness of step, a graceful and regular motion of all the parts, suppleness, easy bendings and risings, the whole accompanied with a good air, and managed with the greatest ease of expertness and dexterity, constitute the merit of this kind of dancing. . . . In the half-serious stile we observe vigor, lightness, agility, brilliant springs, with a steadinessand command of the body. (Gallini1762,75,77)

This tendency to steal from earlier sources and expand upon them is no less evident in works dealing with dance technique specifically. In lus Versuch einer Encyklopadie der Leibesiibungen of 1793-1794, for example, Gerhard Vieth was clearly indebted to Taubert's Rechtschaffener Tantzrneister of 1717, one of his acknowledged sources, as was Valentino Trichter in his Curioses Reit-Jagd-Feclzt-Tanz oder Ritter Ex-

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ercitien Lexikon of 1742. Trichter’s descriptions of steps are simply lifted with abridgment from Taubert, while the latter in turn drew from Bonin’s Neueste Art zur galanten und theatralischen Tantz-Kunst of 1712, Johann Pasch‘s Beschreibung iuahrer Tanz-Kunst of 1707, and even Der von dein Mercurius neu-gebaute Schau-Platz der Dantzenden of 1671by Mercurius, among other sources. Consider, for example, the following instance of material and even phrasing being passed along from one writer to the next: The persons [participatingin the representation]must be instructed, as the need may be, in springing and the pas de ballet, which on stage must be adjusted in accordance with the nature of the artificial lighting, the distance of the spectators, and the meaning of the representations. (Pasch 1707,90) The pas de ballet on stage are to be adjusted in accordance with the nature of the artificial lighting, the distance of the spectators, and the meaning of the representations. (Behr 1713,115) If they are to be danced in an opera or play in a large theater, however, either solo or by several persons at the same time, then the high figured pas de ballet and powerful springs into the air (which must be adjusted here in accordance with the nature of the artificial lighting,the distance of the spectators, and the meaning of the representations)as well as the high port de bras par terre look the best, for not only is the space of the theater in this way well filled, but also the dancers have a far freer run and spring in their feats. (Taubert1717,959)

The Encyclopkdie mkfhodique of 1786 also copies material from earlier sources, namely, the descriptions of steps found in such works as Pierre Rameau’s Le maitre b danser of 1725 and Antoine FuretiPre’s Dicfionaire universe2 of 1690. These derivative descriptions in the Encyclopkdie in turn appear in Charles Compan’s Dictionnaire de dame of 1787. In like manner, Ivan Kuskov’s Tantsoval’noi Uchitel’ of 1794 is largely an abridged translation of Josson’s Trail&abrkgk de la danse of 1763. Chavanne’s Principes du menuet et des rkvkrences of 1767is derived partly from Rameau. BartholomP Ferriol y Boxeraus’s Reglas ufiles para 10s aficionados a danzar of 1745 is also largely a free translation of Rameau with some additions. Since the inaccessibility of many of the sources has constituted one of the major hurdles to a better understanding of eighteenthcentury ballet, a very large number of quotations from a broad range

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of primary sources are gwen here in English translation in order to let the age speak for itself as much as possible. Every effort has been made to provide quotations from a great variety of writers and from all parts of the century in order to ensure a balanced view. It should be noted, however, that material on dance is simply more plentiful in the latter part of the age thanks to a radical increase in literacy and publishing during the period, and in some cases, material on certain aspects is available only from the latter part of the century. Unless otherwise indicated, all the translations of quotations from sources with foreign-language titles are mine. The translations follow as closely as possible the originals without doing violence to modem English or attempting to replicate the all too frequent instances of poor style in the originals. In some cases, original sentences have been either broken down into smaller units to avoid long-windedness or combined to avoid choppiness, or paragraphs have been given different indentation, and needless original chapter headings have been left out without editorial markings of omission. In a few passages from both the primary sources and cited modem scholarship, references to page numbers or illustration numbers found in the originals have also been omitted without markings of omission to avoid confusion. Needless to say, some of the words in the original texts have meanings different from their modern reflexes; generally these go without comment unless the meaning of a given passage depends significantly upon a word that might be translated differently without a knowledge of its earlier meaning. Most of the many phrases in Latin and French, found so plentifully in the German texts, have been translated into English as well. Names of dance steps belonging to the ”French art of dance” are presented in their eighteenth-century French forms following the conventions of modem French orthography; thus in accordance with the terminology of the day, entrechaf u six is used rather than entrechat six, for example, or pirouette en Z’air instead of the contemporary Italian saZto tondo. The many instances of the word cabrioIe or capriola in the eighteenth-century sources are generally rendered by the more generic caper since these terms in the period more often than not mean broadly any kind of high jump in the air, usually with beats. It is assumed throughout that the reader is aware that the spelling of words in earlier English sources does not always follow modern orthographic conventions, and thus I have refrained from marking with sic the many errors in such quotations as well as in some citations from modem scholarship containing similar errors.

Introduction

xxi

A number of illustrations have been included in this work. Because of the high cost of reproducing copyrighted iconographic material held by institutions and the relative ease of finding photographic reproductions of such images in secondary sources, I present here instead simple but accurate line drawings after the original illustrations, with references to secondary sources containing photographic reproductions of the originals and to libraries or other collections holding originals.

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Chapter 1

The Rise of ”the French Art of Dance”

Modem dance originated in France, whence come excellent dancers, as well as fine chefs, beautiful stuffs, and tasteful things. France is o w oracle in matters of clothes, sauces, and dance. (Memorie [1776] 1998, 157)

The formal dance of the eighteenth century was largely the brainchild of the French, the fruits of the experimentation and efforts in the foregoing century to create both a form of social dance devised to show off the refinement and elegant deportment of its practitioner within the confines of a social gathering and a form of theatrical dance specifically intended to be seen on a large stage in a purposebuilt theater before a throng of spectators. Writers on dance throughout the eighteenth century acknowledge the debt to the French for the creation of a new style of dance, commonly called “the French art of dancing,” which came to be widely adopted and cultivated throughout fashionable Europe in the late seventeenth century and was by the beginning of the eighteenth century an international art form despite its common characterization as ”French.” As the German dancing master Hansel remarks (1755, 1-2), “France is indisputably the model of our modem galant manner of dancing. I mean, the French were the first to formulate this art according to the rules of mathematics and to divide it into a prosaic and poetic study. This is so obvious that I believe no one would take exception to it.” Or as the English character of Buck in Samuel Foote’s The Englishmatz Rrturn’d from Paris notes, ”the French are the foremost in the world such that they give or should give to everyone the laws on how to

2

Cllfl~Jt'r1

live, such that he who wishes to eat, drink, dress, dance, fight, sing, or even cough with elegance must go to Paris in order to learn how" (cited in French translation in the Jouriznl t;trangrr, Aug. 1756,12).The Italian Magri (1779) likewise concedes in the preface to his handbook on dance that the "good taste" that characterized the dance of his day was due to the efforts of the French: We are obliged to the French for the refinement which dancing shows today; they have put the finishmg touches to it with the brush of good taste and have brought luster to theaters with this amazing and delightful spectacle and have brought nobilib to ballrooms with this stately, sparkling diversion, which not only occurs at noble and polite assemblies but also constitutes the greatest and main gala at sovereign courts.

This new French style of dance appears to have come into existence specifically during the period when the famed and influential Pierre Beauchamps (1631-1705) was active as teacher and choreographer in France. Borckmann (1707) notes in particular that this novel style differed from that practiced earlier in Beauchamps's youth, although even in Borckmann's day there were some "hacks" who had not mastered the new style. As he writes, I will own here, not without reason, and rather deplore utterly that the true art of dance today be stained with many a blot and blemish due to frightful abuse, namely, whenever the distinction has not been properly observed between the old and new dance, between the good dancing master and the hack, between artful and corrupt, unregulated dance, for with regards to the first point, it is well stated in the words of wise Beauchamps that "formerly one danced by caprice and grimace, but now one dances by rules and reason." With the first sort of dance, he refers to that which was done at the beginning of his youth and not to the true dance of the ancients at its greatest height.

Not only does the creation of this new style date to the time of Beauchamps but the overall character of the style itself appears to have been greatly indebted to Beauchamps. As Astier puts it (1998, 396), Beauchamps "almost singlehandedly shaped and refined the concept of ballet and developed classical technique and style." The primary sources are equally emphatic that Beauchamps played a significant role in the creation of this style. Taubert (1717, 300), for example, claims that the famed French dancer "laid the foundation, as it were, for this exercise of both galalit [i.e., ballroom] and the-

The Rise of “the French Art of Dance”

3

atrical dance, set it in motion, and made it flower with his thousandfold inventions, such that the whole of France declares him to be the father of all dancing masters.” Ferriol (1745, 1:70) similarly observes that Beauchamps was “the first author of this dance,” whle Sulzer (1794, 4:510) notes that “in the previous century, theatrical dance was developed mainly in France. Beauchamps, who was the first director of the Academy of Dance under Louis XIV, is generally given as the first great master of the art.” To the famed dancer himself is attributed the “ordering,” or codification, of some of the fundamental features of this new dance form, such as the five classical positions of the feet, wherein the dancer endeavored to “turn out the feet as much as possible” (Mercurius 1671, 166).As Rameau notes (1725a, 9), ”these positions were brought to light through the efforts of the late Monsieur Beauchamps, who formed the idea of giving needed order to this art.” Rameau (1725a, 195) similarly credits Beauchamps with being one of the first to codify the movements of the arms as well. The development of t h s new style of theatrical dance was greatly abetted by the efforts to create French opera on the part of the famed Italian-born composer Jean-BaptisteLully (1632-1687). Aided by his librettist Plulippe Quinault, Lully established a formula for opera in France wherein dance formed a sigruficant part of the dramatic whole, ”an essential ornament of the drama, . . . used either as a constituent part or as an interlude” (Arteaga [1785] 1998,249).This fostered a taste for dance in its spectators, at the same time raising the standards of proficiency among its practitioners. Rameau (1725a, viii) makes it clear that the regular inclusion of dance in French opera contributed greatly to a flowering of ballet, to the great “headway it made around the end of the last century and still makes every day thanks to the emulation occasioned by the works at the Academie Royale de Musique,” that is, at the Paris Opera. As Rameau writes (1725a, ix-xi), the reign of Louis le Grand [i.e., Louis XW] will always be looked upon rightly as one wherein the most illustrious men thrived. Among all the arts brought to perfection before one’s very eyes thanks to the openhandedness of so powerful a monarch, dance made the quickest headway; everything seemed to contribute thereto. . . . Yet dance did not appear in all its luster until the birth of opera. Lully, an Italian by birth who came to France at the age of nine, learnt music here and having a rare and sublime genius soon raised himself above all the composers

4

Chapter 2 of his time. After having composed the music for sundry ballets, whereof I have just spoken, he undertook to bring before court and city those tragidies lyriques, which are still the source of charm and admiration for the beholder. On the stages of Paris was seen this new kind of work, which under the name of opera had hitherto been known only to the Italians.

The combined efforts of Lully and his choreographers Pierre Beauchamps, Louis-Hilaire d’Olivet, and Desbrosses in uniting music and dance within the framework of a dramatic whole resulted within a relatively short span of time in a new and original theatrical style. Raguenet (1702, 19-21) highlights the originality of this style in particular, writing that there are in Europe no dancers who come close to those [of the French]; even the Italians will own this. The Combatants and the Cyclopes in Persie, the Shakers and Blacksmiths in Isis, the Dire Dreams in Atys and their other ballet entries are original pieces, because of either the tunes written by Lully or the dances composed by Beauchamps to these tunes. Nothing like these had been seen on the stage before these two great men; they were the inventors of such and all at once raised these works to such a pitch of perfection that no one in Italy or anywhere else in the world has been able to come up to them since or perhaps ever will.

So ”original” was this new style of dance, ”which made the quickest headway” (Rameau 1725a, x), that the dance cultivated at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries was now so foreign that it became an object of mirth for the eighteenthcentury public, somethng suitable for a comic or grotesque dance, according to Dufort (1728).In the historical overview of dance given in the preface to his ballroom dance handbook he remarks that the Spanish were the first to learn Italian dance, to which they added some capers and the sound of castanets; thus this dance, which was first said to be Italian, soon acquired two names, by which it was indifferently called, that is, Italian and Spanish dance, as it still is today. The steps in tkus dance, done to the cadence of tunes in the worst taste, were not in the least natural, but rather most tiring and forced. The feet were held parallel; hence the steps were hard and unlithesome, with the arms straight and stretched at the sides, as can be seen from the figures found in the aforesaid books [Rinaldo Rigoni’s I1 bdlarino perfetto of 1468 and Fabritio Caroso’s I1 ballarim of 15811. The figures were of little consideration, utterly devoid of the good taste which holds sway today. Thus,

The Rise of “the French Art of Dance”

5

this Italian or Spanish dance, which I imagine was pleasing in its day, would be truly most ridiculous to behold today, so much so that Monsieur Philibois, a dancing master at the Imperial Court, created from it a buffoon role, which he, clad in the old Italian manner, danced in the great theaters of Italy to the great amazement of everyone.

The dance style developed to express the affects of Lully’s music was broadly one of exaggeration and animation, one clearly suited to the dancing of Beauchamps, who ”although not a dancer with a very fine air, was full of vigor and fire” (Le Cerf de la Vieville de Freneuse 1704, 11). This new dance style was a ”buffoonery” to many in Lully’s day who clung to the old style of theatrical dance, while the old manner seemed slow moving, simple, and dull in comparison to its successor. This contrast between the old and new styles of theatrical dance was most evident to Dubos (1719,1:491-93, 495-96), who indicates that for eighty years, music in France has had a fate similar to that of declamation in Rome at the time of Cicero. Eighty years ago [around 16-40], the tunes that were composed in France were, generally speaking, but a succession of long notes, which musicians sometimes call du gros fa. The pace of the execution was very slow. . . . Taste has changed much since, and the movement in our tunes has become so accelerated that they are sometimes unpleasant and inexpressive. This change occasioned an even greater alteration in dance, and mainly in the dance of the theater. Sixty years ago, all the ballet tunes were slow moving, and their warbling, if I may word it thus, proceeded calmly, even at its merriest. These tunes were performed on lutes, theorbos, and viols that were mixed with some violins; the steps and the figures of the ballets composed to the tunes of which I speak were slow and simple. The dancers could maintain every possible decency in their bearing in executing these ballets, the dance of which was almost not different from that of ordinary balls. Hardly had little Moliere shown with two or three airs that it could be done better when Lully appeared and began to compose those tunes for ballets that are known as airs de uitesse. Since the dancers performing the ballets which were choreographed to these airs were forced to move with greater speed and more action than they had hitherto done, many people said that good taste in dance had been corrupted and that it was being reduced to buffoonery. The dancers themselves had difficulty capturing the spirit of the new music, and it often happened that Lully himself was obliged to create the entries for them. He was obliged himself to create the entrie for the chaconne in Cndmus because

6

Chapter I Beauchamps, who composed then his ballets, could not capture the spirit of this violin tune to Lully’s satisfaction. . . . I will not say that dance has not been sometimes marred in the wish to enrich it and make it more expressive, but this is the inevitable destiny of all the arts that make considerable progress. There will always be artists who go beyond the mark and disfigure their work in their wish to make it more elegant. Those individuals who hold to the old taste usually speak of the excesses to which the artists go, those who overdo what they do, when the former wish to prove that the new taste is depraved, but the public, who can distinguish between the shortcomings of the art and those of the artist, do not hold these new inventions to be ill because misused. Thus, the public has become so used to the new sort of theatrical dance that today they would find dull the kind of dance that held sway sixty years ago.

Cahusac (1754, preface) in like manner intimates that this new style of theatrical dance was marked by greater animation and exaggeration and was ”outrageous excess and bad taste to those who praised the past”: It is clear 1) that the embellishments that Lully had brought to the dance of the theater were first deemed to be buffoonery, for they departed from the old common tablature; 2) that in Dubos’s time and not Lully’s, opinion had wholly changed and one had come to be happy only with what Lully had done; 3) that from then on [i.e., from Lully‘s time forward] everything which was daringly attempted was damned as outrageous excess and bad taste; 1) that at the time of l’Abb6 Dubos’s writing, the French, like Dubos himself, were most convinced that the dance of our opera had reached the highest level of perfection. Thus, for nearly a hundred years, almost the same things have been said in Paris about each step that dance has taken in our theater in order to progress. What was held to be noble dance was replaced by what was called buffoonery. This buffoonery became in turn the only noble dance, which in time was replaced by a more animated dance deemed to be outrageous excess and bad taste by those who praised the past; and this last sort was held to be the perfection of the art at the time of ]’Abbe Dubos.

Lully influenced the dance of the theater not only indirectly by writing more expressive music, which forced theatrical dancers to move with greater animation than before, but also directly by reforming the common pattern for entrees on stage and by even choreographing dances for his operas himself. As Le Cerf de la Vieville de Freneuse notes (1705,228),

The Rise qf ”the French Art of Dance”

7

Lully involved himself in dance almost as much as he did in everything else. “One part of the ballet Les f&s de I’Atnour et de Bacchiis had been composed by him, the other by Desbrosses” (preface to Reciieil des opiras, Ballard edition), and Lully had almost as much a part in the ballets of the operas whch followed as did Beauchamps. He reformed the entries, came up with pas which were expressive and which suited the subject, and when necessary, he himself danced in front of his dancers in order to have them better understand his ideas. He had not studied dance, however, and danced thus only by whim and chance, but the experience of seeing dances and his extraordinary talent for every aspect of entertainments allowed him to dance, if not with any great refinement, then at least with a most delightful liveliness.

Not merely progenitors of a new style of dance in both the ballroom and theater, the French also excelled in the execution of this new style and dominated the field of formal dance such that other Europeans with any pretension to culture were obliged to dance to the tune of the French, as it were. Mercurius (1671,9) notes, for example, that ”no nation is more devoted to dance or more skilled at it than the French (in tlus they hold then to one of [King Bard‘s] ways) such that even other nations endeavor to master the fine French manner of dancing on account of the refinement and courtesy found therein.” Indeed, so prevalent was the view that only the French could excel in dance that Essex (1728, vii, x-xi) felt obliged to request lus reader’s indulgence for spealung favorably of English dancers in the foreword to his English translation of Rameau’s Le maftre u danser, even though Essex felt that his gamboling compatriots were of equal merit to any on the continent: DAXCIXG being the peculiar Genius of the French Nation, they have for many Years taken great Pains to find out its Beauties as well as Advantages to Mankind in all Respects, so as to qualify Persons, of what Condition soever, to dance well, and give them a good Carriage and genteel Behaviour in Conversation. . . . I hope the Reader will not be prejudiced against me for making mention of some of our English Masters and Performers, since they bear an equal Merit with any in Europe, though they cannot extend the Reputation of their Names so far as those of the French Nation, because we are Islanders, and confined to our Language; and the principal Masters living in Paris, have the Advantage of the Universality of their Language; and the Situation of their Metropolis being upon the main Conhnent, and the Place of Reception for Strangers of all Nations, whereby

8

Chapter 1 the Fame of their Performances can spread itself to the remotest Parts of Europe, and even into many of the politest Cities of Asia and Africa.

Throughout the eighteenth century, the French continued to be viewed as the masters in the field of dance, particularly in what was known as the grave style, which will be discussed in detail in chapter 3. As the Italian Algarotti concedes (1763,55), in the serious and heroic dances one must of course own that the French surpass us [Italians] and all other nations, for who in the modern world has devoted as much study as they have to the science of dance, to which they are so naturally disposed and suited, as we are to music? . . . In this school, they are truly the masters, nor should any other nation be ashamed to study under them in this sort of gentility.

So much was the art of dance a French pursuit that the French terminology of the art was usually adopted wholesale into other languages, no matter how cumbersome it might have been in the adoptive tongue. Individuals with any pretension to a knowledge of artful dance were obliged to use the French terms, for French was the "language of the country of dance," to use Pauli's expression (1756, preface): It may seem even strange that I present to Germans this terminology in the French language, that I write in this language in the middle of Germany; willy-nilly, I could not do otherwise, for it is the language of the country of dance. It is the French who have refined the dance of our time, who have cultivated and refined la belle dame, who have invented chorigraphie [i.e., dance notation] and finally have enriched the art of dance with words and terms that are highly meaningful and fitting to the field. These words and terms, born of the mind and imagination of the French, would be most difficult to render into a foreign language with as much precision and power, especially into the German tongue. If I may say so without giving displeasure, the translations that some have attempted are ill or at least are of such slight success that those individuals with any pretension of learning to dance or of cultivating it are obliged to adopt the French terms and pronounce them distinctly and write them correctly.

The Frenchman De la Lande (1769) in like manner proudly remarks that "Italian dancers regard ours as their masters. Almost all the dance steps have the same names in Italian as they do in French; even their endings are not changed. This is because we are seen in a

The Rise of “the French Art of Dance”

9

way as the creators of t h s art: Our ballet masters have created the steps and designs and have wholly perfected taste in this art” (cited in the Journal de rnusique 1773,6:62-63). So intimately connected were the French to the art of dance and so great was their prestige in this field that competent dancing masters outside of France who were not of French birth were often passed over in preference for those from France, even if the latter were less talented. Taubert (1717,1010-11) found this chauvinism most detrimental to the progress of many amateurs and laments that if it is then mainly a question of good training and wise instruction in this art with those nations and persons known for their dancing, of which we have already heard, then they are very mistaken who say, “my children and minors can put off mastering dance until they get to France; it‘s not done right here,” and so forth. Yet everywhere at the present time, both in Germany as well as in other countries, both at the universities in the cities and at the royal, electoral, and princely courts, not only galant French-born masters but also other good masters who owe their skill and experience to the Academy of Dance in Paris are to be found, and parents then need not look so far afield. Or perhaps such parents think that in France dancing can be funneled into their children and administered in a sweet concoction, as a doctor does to a peasant‘s son, or that it will be better because it must be acquired with a heavy outlay and travel costs. 0 no, both are wrong. Indeed, I have heard before German gentlemen speak these splendid words: ”I took lessons in Paris for this many months from Monsieur Dumoulin, from Monsieur Blondy, from Monsieur de Muraille, Monsieur Balon,” and so forth. “Mon Dieu! He was some maitre! He would always pass over the floor at the height of a table, and truly, as I am honest, I had to pay him a Louis d‘or every month for his fidPle lessons.” Yet afterwards, if one ever asks them to dance once (in order to put to the test their incomparable progress) opposite very limited pupils who have never been to France nor have ever been instructed, so to speak, by a French master, they must crawl off, however, for they have learned nothing other than to flit about a little without any foundation, cadence, or style for all their money. In short, ten ill dancers sooner come back from Paris than one good one.

While this new style of dance originally came into existence in France, it was widely adopted throughout Europe in the latter part of the seventeenth century and became in essence international.

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Chapter I

Behr (1709,8-10) alludes to this wholesale adoption of French dance by fashionable Europe: As for elegant dance framed by art, it derives its origin from the French, as is known. This nation, thanks to the deep musing of some skillful individuals, has refined common natural dancing with all manner of artful steps, elegant movements, pleasing manners, and certain sundry regular figures, composed and arranged to music. And this more informed, artful, and elegant dance has flourished for some time in France, and many lavish and splendid ballets making use of this dance have been presented in Italy and France, for even under the present king, Louis XIV, very many ballets have been mounted, among which are to be commended above all others nie Four Seasons, The Arts, The Pleasures, hpatzence, The Muses, and The Triimiph of Lozv. . . . This achievement then later spread out thence to Germany and over the whole of north[em Europe] so that today kings and princes fill the places of dancers not only in France, Italy, England, and Germany but also in other countries.

In his preface, Dufort (1728) also notes that the French art of dance was adopted in many other countries: In brief, these two brilliant masters [Pierre Beauchamps and Louis Pecour] have brought dance to such a perfection and raised it to such a height that in a short space of time they have not only made all the other dances fall into disuse but also obliged a large number of nations, and perhaps the most cultured in the world, to find honor in dancing in no other way than that of the French.

According to Hansel (1755, lo), French dance reached even Asia and the New World: “We have been informed now that this practice of dance, in whch only France alone used to shine before this, has spread throughout the whole of Europe, indeed, as far as Persia and the West and East Indies.” It was not merely the theatrical style that spread out all over Europe but French ballroom dance as well; indeed, in the early part of the eighteenth century, ”the same dance was done in St. Petersburg that had been danced four weeks earlier at Versailles” (Pauli 1756, 56). The eagerness with which other nations emulated the French ensured that a relatively homogeneous dance culture arose throughout fashionable Europe, although the technique of French dance was flexible enough to allow for considerable variation according to the

The Rise of ”the French Art of Dance”

11

taste of the individual dancer, as we shall see in chapter 6. When Prince Charles of Sweden visited Paris in October of 1770, for example, he avoided dinner parties and balls and spent his time taking in “more remarkable t h g s , ” for as Grimm remarks of h s age (1879,l Oct. 1770, 9:122), ”one dines and dances just about the same in all civilized countries.” Not only did French dance spread throughout Europe and beyond, but it even contaminated, as it were, some of the national dances of Europe. Vieth (1794,2:426),for example, indicates that “social dance throughout almost all of Europe is of French origin; even the remaining national dances have sometimes taken on a foreign look through the mixing in of French steps.” The allemande was one such national dance that was often gallicized. As Bonin (1712,243-44)notes, “true German dancing, or better said, the German manner of leading, when it is to be done right, consists of notlung but French steps, and if I know these well, I can use them all in German dancing and can even attempt much of what is found in the minuet and other dances.” The French style of dance was disseminated in two ways. On the one hand, foreigners, either amateurs seelung to shine in social dance or would-be professionals seelung to master the art, would sojourn in France in order to study there, ideally under the most celebrated dancers or dancing masters. Bonin (1712, 72-73), for example, advises that a master, especially if he is German, must not forgo a journey to France and a sojourn there for a while. It is indeed true that in that kingdom dancing flourishes the most; thus it is that even among us it has been called French dance and that the very best masters have flourished there and are still to be found there. He who has been to Paris and visited the Opera will surely be obliged to boast of having seen masters whose nimbleness and unbelievable speed he will not be able to admire enough.

One such German master who did not forgo a journey to France was Johann Pasch (1653-1710), a dancing master of great repute in Saxony and a writer on dance still active in Leipzig at the beginning of the eighteenth century and one of our sources for the period. Th~s venerable master, known as “the German Beauchamps,” had spent some time in France studying his art under the tutelage of Pierre Beauchamps hmself (Borckmann 1707).The celebrated Italian-born dancer Gaetan Vestris (1729-1808), or Gaetano Vestri, to give h m his

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Chapter 1

original name, was another foreigner who had betaken himself to France and studied under a famous dancer, to wit, Louis Dupre, becoming the latter’s protegee and eventual successor as principal dancer in the grave style at the Paris Opera. In like manner, the great Austrian choreographer Franz Hilverding (171&1768), who according to Chevrier (1762) was ”the greatest ballet-master in all Europe” before Noverre (trans. in Winter 1974,87),had journeyed to France in the 1730s and spent almost two years there studying under Michel Blondy, the nephew and pupil of Beauchamps. If, on the other hand, he had neither the will nor the wherewithal to journey to France, the would-be pupil could profitably study at home under a French dancing master who had emigrated to seek his fortune abroad. So numerous were such emigre dancing masters that they were to be found at virtually every court in Europe. As Rameau notes (1725a, ix), “we may say to the glory of our nation [France] that it has true taste in la belle dame. Almost all foreigners, far from disagreeing, have for almost a century come here to admire our dances and to be trained in our spectacles and schools; indeed, there is not a court in Europe whch does not have a dancing master from our nation.” One such French expatriate living and t e a c h g abroad before h s death in 1716 was Louis Bonin, the author of one of the most important extant sources on the theatrical dance of the eighteenth century. A former professional dancer active in France and Germany who had learned h s art from “the best masters” (Meletaon 1712), he became a dancing master at the court of Duke Wilhelm von Sachsen-Eisenach and then at the University of Jena, and elsewhere. His brother similarly took up residence in Germany as a professional dancer and dancing master at the court at Dresden. It is in fact to French expatriates like Louis Bonin, Charles Pauli in Germany, C. Sol evidently in the Netherlands, Joseph Ratier in Spain, and Giambatista (i.e., Jean-Baptiste) Dufort in Italy that we are indebted for important descriptions of dance steps and discussions on dance generally. Indeed, most extant sources dealing with the technique of French dance from this period were written either by Frenchmen living and teaching abroad or by other nationals trained in French dance. Among the latter are Gennaro Magri in Italy, Kellom Tomlinson in England, Ivan Kuskov in Russia, Pablo Minguet e Yrol and Bartholome Ferriol y Boxeraus in Spain, and Samuel Behr, Gottfried Taubert, and Christoph Hansel in Germany.

The Rise of "the French Art of Dance"

13

The pervasive and preeminent role of the French in the field of dance abroad was not limited to pedagogy, many of the choreographers working outside of France were likewise French. As Little and Jenne note (1998, 9), the choreographers active in Germany up to 1753, for example, were largely of French background, judging at least by names that appear in theatrical records. One such French choreographer active in Germany and elsewhere was AntoineBonaventure Pitrot (fl. 1744-1770), who divided his time between Paris, the court of Saxony, and Poland, having spent stints in Moscow, London, Parma, and Milan. In like manner, the most famous of all eighteenth-century choreographers, Jean-Georges Noverre (1727-1810), was remarkably mobile as well, mounting his pantomime ballets in Stuttgart, Vienna, Paris, London, and Milan. At the beginrung of h s career, Noverre had in fact been a member of a ballet troupe in Berlin under the direction of h s compatriot JeanBarthelemy Lany, ballet master to Frederick the Great of Prussia. Not only French choreographers but also French dancers figured prominently in eighteenth-century European theaters, especially in England and Germany. ficcoboni (1741,153)notes that "formerly all the Dancers of the Opera in Germany and other Countries were brought from Paris." Indeed, the practice of importing French dancers continued into the second part of the century. All the dancers apart from twofiguranfes in the employ of the Kmg of Prussia in 1754, for example, were of French origin, as is evident from the names given in Marpurg's list of dancers (1754, 1:79), if the names are an accurate reflection of nationality: The ballet master is Monsieur Denis, the first solo woman dancer his wife Madame Denis, and the second Mademoiselle Cochois. The places of the soloists Monsieur le Voir, who left some time ago, and likewise of Monsieur Dubois the Younger, are expected to be filled by two other sujets. The rest of the men dancers are Messieurs Neveu, le Fevre, Dubois the Elder, d'Hervieux, and Blache. The women dancers are Mesdemoiselles Girauld, Auguste, Neveu, Simiane, and two women from Berlin, Mesdemoiselles Krohnen and Gotzen.

The preference for French dancers was no less strong among Londoners throughout the century. Count de Saussure (1903,277) noted during his visit to London in the 1720s that "the pantomime [in pantomime entertainments] is often intermixed with ballets. The English do not excel in this; even their best dancers are French men and

14

Chapter 1

women brought from Paris.” Price et al. (1995,444031)s d a r l y indicate that still in the 1780s ”most of the principals and second dancers who appeared in London had received their training in France, a few in Italy. . . . So fixed was the prejudice in favour of imported dancers that fewer than half a dozen local residents became second dancers or stars during the decade, and most of those who did were of French extraction.” W l e originally a French creation, the formal dance of the eighteenth century was an international art form. Other nations made it so much their own that some of the most outstanding dancers and choreographers of international standing in t h s period were in fact born and bred outside of France. Such dancers include Marie-Anne de Cupis de Camargo from Belgium; Gaetan Vestris, his sister Therese Vestris, Barbara Campanini, and Giovanna Baccelli from Italy; and Anne Heinel from Germany. Among choreographers one can cite Gasparo Angiolini and Salvatore Vigano from Italy and Franz Hilverding from Austria. Indeed, the establishment of ballet in eighteenth-century Russia was as much the work of Italian dancers like Antonio Rinaldi, better known as Fossano, as it was of Frenchmen. Stahlin (1770,ll-12) observes that it was during this very same reign [of Empress Anna Ivanovna] that ballets were for the first time introduced on the stage, on the occasion of the first performance of Italian opera at the Russian Imperial court in 1736. The ballet master was the Italian grotesque dancer Fossano, who later danced on the stages of Paris and London to great acclaim as well. The most outstanding dancers besides himself were his wife Giuglia, and Tonina, the daughter of the Italian Harlequin Constantini and afterwards the second wife of Signor Fossano, after Signora Giuglia had died here, Signor Tesi, Signor Giuseppe, a genuine Venetian, and a number offigurnnts,who were made up of the best dancers from the cadets of the landed nobility and were licked into shape by their French dancing master Monsieur Lande.

As we will see in chapter 7, dancers such as Fossano who origmated

outside of France were not only instrumental in bringing French ballet to the outposts of Europe but were also successful in altering the very character of dancing in France itself during the course of the eighteenth century, just as Italian composers were to change the character of French music in the same period.

Chapter 2

Ballroom Dancing versus Ballet

It shows as little taste in social dance to imitate dancers from the opera as it is to imitate the grotesque dancers of Italy or the bayadkres of Hindustan. (Martinet 1797,21)

At its most basic level, the French art of dance was broken down into two very different styles, to wit, the dance of the ballroom and the dance of the theater. The names of these two different styles vary from one writer to the next, and the same appellation can sometimes mean s o m e h g quite other in another writer. In the sources, the dance of the ballroom is commonly referred to as la belle dame (”finedancing”), la basse danse (”low dancing”), la danse galante (”galant dancing”), les danses de bal (’lballroom dances” or ”ballroom dancing”), les danses de zdle (”citydances” or ”city dancing”),la danse noble (”nobledancing”), or “common dancing.” The dance of the theater as a whole might be called ”ballet,” ”stage-dancing,”or ”theatrical dance” but more typically was further subdivided into differing styles, which wdl be discussed in detail in the following chapter.This fundamental division of French dance into ballroom and theatrical styles is clearly outlined in Taubert (1717,375-76): It is to be known that the entire elegant practice of dance, when carefully ordered, is divided effectively and principally into two main parts, namely, the galant dance of the ballroom and the representational dance of the theater. The first main part thereof includes external morality [i.e., good manners] and galant bodily dexterity, the other, however, theatrical representations of gestures and actions. But it should be added here, however, that the second part, that is, theatrical representation, is done 15

16

Chapter 2 in two ways, either serious (serieux) or comic (gai). Thus it is that all French dances generally are reduced to three classes or divisions, namely, the doux, the low and elegant basic ballroom dances, or danses de bal; the sirzeux, the high and serious theatrical springing dances; and the comique, or comic and grotesque theatrical trick dances. Of these, the French call the first sort in their language la belle danse, or la basse danse; the second la haute danse, or le ballet serieux; and the third the grotesque, or le ballet comique.

Bonin (1712,53,51)also distinguishes between la belle danse, that is, dance "for those who do not in fact make a profession of this exercise," and the dance of the theater, the latter with its two broad styles of the serious and the comic: "So that we can get a clearer idea of the full extent of t h s art and examine its diverse styles, let us break it down into three parts, la belle danse, or la basse danse, gentle, low, and elegant dance; le ballet se'rieux, or la haute danse, high or serious dance; and le comique et grotesque, comic and grotesque dance." These two basic categories of ballroom and theatrical dance as p e n by Bonin and Taubert stand in contrast in the primary sources throughout the period. Pauli (1756,38,50),for example, breaks down the art of dance into two styles. He notes that "la haute dame encompasses theatrical dance and representation, whch modem philosophes call 'the art of gestures,"' and that "la belle danse, or la dame simple, is that whch persons of fashion learn in order to make use of it for an occasion. It is made up of steps and figures which two or more persons do together in order to make a cadenced walk in harmony with the tune chosen for the dance." Lange (1751,5-7) in like manner contrasts social dance with the h g h expressive dance of the theater: The specific art of dance is broken down into two parts, la basse danse, or la belle danse, and la haute danse, and the latter is divided in turn into two parts, le ballet strieux and le ballet coinique or grotesque. The first kind, la basse danse, or la belle danse, deals with dances that are made up of gentle steps, pleasing movements and turns, and symmetrical figures. It is of use then to the fashionable world at balls, assemblies, weddings, and so forth. Today the most usual of these are minuets and contredanses. The second part, la haute danse, deals, however, with dances that are made up of gentle and high steps at the same time, of all kinds of movements, turns, figures, expressive features, positions, and jumps, such dances as the entree, gigue, chaconne, sarabande, Scapin, Pierrot, Harlequin, Polichinelle, Paysan, Matelot, and so forth. This division belongs in fact on the stage, through which are to be represented in a

Ballroom Dancing versus Ballet

17

most lively manner both true and fictional stories as well as reasonable and shocking irrational acts.

Sacchi (1770,33) indicates that "dance is generally divided into two kinds, the dance of the theater, and noble dance or ballroom dancing as they say." Sulzer (1792,1:289-90) also notes that "common dance is an amusement for people who dance, and it needs to be nothing more than that. Ballet is a dance which is to interest the spectator; it must therefore by necessity be somethmg other than common dance. Either it is a drama or it forms part of one; hence it must have the general character of a drama." In his second volume Sulzer (1794,4:505)adds that dances are generally divided into two main classes, one of which encompasses common, or social, dances (la belle danse) and the other theatrical dances. Common dances were invented as a social amusement; thus they must be so framed that they can be learned by persons who do not make their profession from the art of dance. The high dances may be more artful, of course, since they are performed only by professional dancers, who are specially employed for this.

Some of the terms for ballroom dancing found in different sources, however, are used in a confusing manner to designate different subdivisions of theatrical dance. The expressions la beIZe danse, la danse noble, Ia haute danse, and la danse sirieuse, for example, are often employed as synonyms for the grave or serious style of stage dancing; in a similar vein, "galant dance" could also be used to refer to the so-called brisk or half-serious style, as we shall see in the following chapter. Generally in such cases, the writer's definition or merely the context makes clear whch style of dance is in question. Whatever they may have been called, ballroom dancing and ballet were entirely distinct, despite the misinformation given in some modem scholarship, and this btinctiveness, together with examples of features setting apart the two styles, is alluded to in a number of the sources. In his handbook on dance, which was to be "a complete treatise for the amateur" and not the professional, Magri (1779,l: preface and 1:137),for example, notes quite explicitly about the descriptions of movements p e n in IS work that "generally speaking, all these steps, being theatrical, are perfonned on stage ddferently, not as we have minutely shown." h dlfference between social and stage dancing is perhaps best summed up by Weaver's analogy (1712, 162-63) that

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Chapter 2

”Common-Dancing,” that is ballroom dancing, had the intimacy of a painted portrait, whde ”SERIOUS Danciizg,” or theatrical dance, had the larger-than-life grandeur of narrative ”History Painting”: SEIUOCS Dancing, differs from the Coimrzon-Dancing usually taught in Schools, as History Painting differs from Limning. For as the ConrmonDancing has a peculiar Softness, which would hardly be perceiveable on the Stage; so Stage-Dancing would have a rough and ridiculous Air in a Room, when on the Stage it would appear soft, tender and delightful. And altho’ the Steps of both are generally the same, yet they differ in the Performance: Notwithstanding there are some Steps peculiarly adapted to this Sort of Dancing, viz. Capers, and Cross-Capers of all kinds; Pirou[e]ttes, Batteries, and indeed almost all Steps from the Ground.

Weaver isolates here two important speclfic differences between these two branches of dance, to wit, the execution and the choice of steps. The steps that were shared by both kinds of dance "differed in the performance.”That is, the manner of execution was more exaggerated on stage so that the steps would have appeared “rough and ridiculous” if done in the ballroom, while those in the ballroom dance had such “Softness”and lirmted range of motion that they would have been lost or hardly ”perceiveable” on stage. Indeed, so forced were the movements of the body commonly on stage that it would have been painful for any of the audience to try to move within the expansive scope typical of professional dancers. As The Spectator notes (25 Aug. 1712), the Business of Dancing is to display Beauty, and for that Reason all Distortions and Mimickries, as such, are what raise Aversion instead of Pleasure: But Things that are in themselves excellent, are ever attended with Imposture and false Imitation. Thus, as in Poetry there are laborious Fools who write Anagrams and Acrosticks, there are Pretenders in Dancing, who think meerly to do what others cannot, is to excel. Such Creatures should be rewarded like him who had acquired a Knack of throwing a Grain of Corn through the Eye of a Needle, with a Bushel to keep his Hand in Use. The Dancing on our Stages are very faulty in this Kind; and what they mean by writhing themselves into such Postures, as it would be a Pain for any of the Spectators to stand in, and yet to hope to please those Spectators, is unintelligible.

The heights of leg fleetingly mentioned in the sources or shown in the iconography provide concrete examples of the kind of exaggeration in movement and position that typically set the dance of the theater apart from that of the ballroom. The eighteenth-century ballet

Ballroom Dancing i’ersus Ballet

19

dancer availed lumself of a number of different heights of leg. What appears to have been one of the most commonly used heights, explicitly mentioned in connection with theatrical steps in some of the dance handbooks and shown in a number of extant illustrations of dancers from the period, required the executant to raise h s foot as h g h as the thigh or h p . Bonin (1712,169),for example, notes in h s description of the cabriole of serious dance that the feet were to be raised until “almost level with or opposite the hips” when beating to the fore, but when cutting to the rear, the whole body together with the legs was to be held at least parallel to the floor whle in the air: Cabrioles can also be cut out in front, wherein the feet must come to lie almost level with or opposite the hips. The beating, however, is done not apart [as in the entrechat]but upward on high and downward toward the floor; in doing so, the body must be kept upright. If I wish to do thiscabriole to the back, however, the body and the feet must come to lie in a horizontal line, but I have even seen it done with the heels visible above the horizontal line so that the head and feet formed a transverse line.

Raising the feet until they ”come to lie almost level with the h p s ” when executing the cabriole to the fore is also prescribed by Taubert (1717,728).In the Pcart, or ”opening caper” as he calls it, Ferriol(1745, 1:127)has the dancer spread his legs apart as much as possible whde airborne: ”The opening caper begins in third position. With the right in front, jump and while in the air fully open the legs as much as possible, land in the same position but with the left foot in front, and another can be done landing with the latter foot behind.” Pauli (1756, 20) also mentions the height of the thgh in connection with the roizd de jambe: “The ouzierture de jambe is performed when the leg does a roizd in the air at the height of the thigh.” Magri (1779, 1:124) mentions the height of the lup in connection with the gargodlade, wherein the dancer performs the circular movements with “the legs and thighs in an even line parallel to the floor.” The contrast between the more exaggerated movements of the legs in ballet and the more contained movements found in social dance becomes most apparent when surviving depictions of stage dancers, such as those shown in figures 2.1-6, are contrasted with illustrations of ballroom dancers, whch generally show the foot of the gesture leg raised only to the height of the ankle or sometimes to that of the calf (fig. 2.7). It might be further noted here that the eighteenth-century practice of commonly raising the foot to the height of the thgh or h p in ballet continued into the early nineteenth century, and both these heights are

20

Chapter 2

shown in Blasis (figs. 2.8-9) and singled out as two suitable levels for the grand battement to the fore (1820, 110); indeed, the bulk of attitudes and arabesques illustrated in Blasis’s handbook show in fact the foot raised to the height of the dancer’s tlugh. Dancers in what was known as the grotesque style, wluch will be discussed in the following chapter, employed more lughly exaggerated heights of the leg, such dancers taking the foot to the height of the shoulder, head, or even above the head in their contorted tours de force. In the grotesque feat known as the spazzacampagna, for example, the dancer raised both feet just above the head at the height of the jump: The caper known as the spazacatnpagna begins in fifth position. Bend both knees, and in rising into the air, draw up the legs under the body as much as possible without taking the feet apart from this fifth. Then with them both coupled together in fifth, stretch them forwards to just above the head, which is drawn down a little to hide behind the feet. From here both legs are stretched out to the sides, opening and stretching as much as possible; raise the head and straighten the body at the same time. As you start to descend, begin to bring the feet together until they are in fifth again in coming down, but with the foot in front that was behind at the beginning. (Magri 1779,1:127)

Likewise in the grande rezmltade, the foot of one leg was raised above the head during the jump, with ”its thigh taken up so high that the knee passes close to the face with the leg pointing upwards and the foot going above the head” (Magri 1779,1:126). Even in the regular grand battement, the foot was taken “at least to the height of the shoulder,” according to Magri (1779,1:4031), who had been a grotesque dancer active in the 1750s and 1760s and who boasts that he was able to take his foot above his head: I have proven myself with these batteinents and have gone higher than the head. Indeed, I held up my left hand so that it was raised perpendicularly, and I touched the palm of my left hand with the right foot, or rather the cou-de-pied, a clear indication of having disengaged the leg well. Take care, however, not to practice these batteirients violently; do them after you have made the sinews soft and flexible, and do not be heedless of keeping the foot on the floor well supported. In practicing these in a heat once, my beating foot displaced the other on the floor, and falling flat on my face, I broke my nose. With the same carelessness, Cesarini had the ill-luck to break an arm.

Figure 2.1. A dancer in the role of a Roman, after Johann Georg Puschner (Lambranzi 1716, 1:21).

Figure 2.2. Dancers in the role of Scaramouche, after Johann Georg Puschner (Lambranzi 1716, 1 :27).

Figure 2.3. A dancer in the role of a peasant, after JohannGeorg Puschner (Lambranzi 1716, 2:35).

Figure 2.4. A dwarf dancer in the role of the Chinese Emperor from the Theatralische Zwergen Tantz-Schul (1720?, 2 ) , after an unknown artist, in the New York Public Library.

I f

Figure 2.5. Auguste Vestris, London 1781, after Nathanie Dance, in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, reproduced in Guest (1996,35).

Figure 2.6. Detail of Charles Didelot with his wife Mme Rose (left) and Mlle Parisot (right) in the ballet Alonzo e Cora at the King's Theatre in London, 1796, after James Gillray, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, reproduced in Au (1995, 48).

Figure 2.7. Detail of a ballroom dancer performing a pas de chaconne, after an engraving in Tomlinson (1735, bk. 1, pl. 13).

Figure 2.8. “The dancer’s position in fourth to the fore off the floor, arms in second, profile” (Blasis 1820, 105), after an illustration in Blasis (PI.4, fig. 1).

Figure 2.9. "The same position [as given in 2.81 but on the toe, arms in opposition, frontal view" (Blasis 1820, 105), after an illustration in Blasis (pl. 4, fig. 2).

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Chapter 2

While Magri is the only writer on eighteenth-century dance to make explicit reference to such markedly exaggerated heights of the legs, the iconography indicates that contortion was used in connection with the grotesque style of dance throughout our period of study and continued to be employed in the early nineteenth century. The engraving of Dubreil in the grotesque role of Scaramouche (fig. 2.10), for example, whch dates from before 1711 according to Winter (1974,27),shows the dancer with the foot of his gesture leg raised behind him to the height of the shoulder. This figure betrays the same preoccupation with extreme heights as that evident in the depiction of Charles Mazurier in a comic role from the early nineteenth century, wherein with one foot raised above his head, he is portrayed ”dancing with his mistress” in a scene from Blache’s comic pantomime ballet Les tneuniers, first created in 1787 (fig. 2.11). Contortion is equally evident in an extant depiction of the dancer Carlo Antonio Delpini (1740-1828), shown shooting Spaniards with his leg held to his shoulder as if it were a gun (fig. 2.12). Contortion in fact figured prominently in entertainments of any kind involving comic or grotesque characters on the eighteenthcentury stage or fairground, above all, in the much loved acrobatic acts (fig. 2.13). The famous English grotesque pantomime John Rich (1692-1761), for example, better known by his stage name of Lun, employed feats of contortion and was able to delight the crowds by scratching his ear with his foot (Chesley 1997,532).Nemeitz (1727, 177) alludes to the remarkable flexibility of performers whom he saw at the Parisfoire, such as that of ”an Englishman, likewise around twenty years old, [who] did contortions and extraordinary movements of the body; it was as if his limbs were dislocated and broken.” The Tutler (16 Dec. 1709) gives a fleeting glimpse at such feats of contortion commonly found in ”transformation” acts: While I was in this Suspense, expecting every Moment to see my old friend Mr. Betterton appear [on stage] in all the Majesty of Distress, to my unspeakable Amazement, there came up a Monster with a Face between his Feet; and as I was looking on, he raised himself on one Leg in such a perpendicular Posture, that the other grew in a direct Line above his Head. It afterwards twisted it self into the Motions and Wreathing of several different Animals, and after great Variety of Shapes and Transformations, went off the Stage in the Figure of an human Creature.

Figure 2.1 0. “Monsieur Dubreil dancing Scaramouche at the Opera,” before 1711, after an unknown artist, formerly in the Theatermuseum, Munich, reproduced in Winter (1974, 27).

Figure 2.1 1. A detail of the comic dancer Charles Mazurier “dancing with his mistress” in Blache’s ballet Les meuniers, 1824, after an unknown artist, in the Bibliothgque de I’Opkra, Paris, reproduced in Winter (1974, 236).

Figure 2.1 2. Carlo Antonio Delphi “shooting at the Spaniards,” after an unknown artist, in the HarvardTheatreCollection, reproduced in Highfill et al. (1975,4:316).

-

Figure 2.1 3. An early-eighteenth-century contortionist from Het groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid (1 720, 29), after an unknown artist, in the Collection Theater Instituut Nederland, Amsterdam, reproduced in Lawner (1 998, 67).

Ballrooin Dancing z1ersus Ballet

33

The Connoisseur (29 July 1756) also alludes to the inclusion of contortionist acts in mainstream eighteenth-century theaters: ”Being at Sadler‘s Wells a few nights ago, I could not but admire the surprizing feats of activity [i.e., agility] there exhibited, and at the same time reflected what incredible pains and labour it must have cost the performers, to arrive at the art of writhing their bodies into such various and unnatural contortions.” ”Transformations” into the shapes of creatures through contortion appear to have played a sigruficant part in the grotesque dances performed by John h e r in 1721, among whch figured “hs new and diverting Entertainments in Metamorphosis, in changing his Body into divers Shapes. First, a Pigmy Dance, he appearing to be two Foot and a half h g h . . . and a pleasant Entertainment of an Italian Scaramouch, with two Heads and four Legs” (cited in Langhans 1984,141). Exaggeration was not confined to the height of legs in the eighteenth century; theatrical dancers regularly made use of more exaggerated heights of arms than their counterparts in the ballroom. Bonin (1712, 148), for example, notes that “the high [port de bras] belongs only to ballet but can also be used even in a minuet or passepied, or other dances b e l o n p g to la belle danse. It must not, however, be as h g h as in ballet but must be rather moderately so.” In speaking of the h g h theatrical camage of the arms, Taubert (1717, 545) in hke manner notes that when used in the ballroom ”the arms even here must not at all be as lugh as they are in the serious entrkes and ballets, but rather they must be moved and camed only moderately high.” Vieth (1794,2431) similarly indicates that ”theatrical dance requires a lugher port de bras than ballroom dance. To dance a minuet with the h g h bearing of a loure would be tantamount to declaiming an e n g a p g song as if it were an ode.” In one of the more commonly used positions of arms in the eighteenth-century theater, the arms were held outstretched to the sides of the body level with the shoulders, the forebear of second position of arms in modem ballet. This height, together with others, is mentioned in a number of sources. Ratier (1759?, 33), for example, gives a position with ”the arms raised, opened from the height of the shoulders.” Magri (1779, 1:114) defines h s “hgh” height as that wherein “you take the arms up level with the shoulders,” while Malpied (1789?, 129) gwes a ”second” position of arms ”formed by having both arms opened to the height of the shoulders” (see fig. 2.3). This position of the arms was commonly used in capering, the

34

Chnpter 2

dancer taking his arms down during the plie and then throwing them up while rising into the air in a jump in order to achieve greater elevation, with both arms extended at the height of the shoulders. Behr (1713,47),for example, notes that with capers, however, if one wishes to do one with force (straight up, to the side, to the back, or out to the fore), the arms are taken down during the t m p o [i.e., the preparatory bend], but in springing they are re-extended so that both arms come to lie in a straight line. From this, the following rule may be formulated: With the help of both arms one can achieve height, or elevation into the air off of the floor.

Vieth (1794, 2:431) in like manner indicates that “in springing, such as with cnbriolrs and eiztrrclmts, both arms are raised to a position wherein they are extended horizontally,” and this same rule is also given in Bonin (1712, 170) and Taubert (1717, 559). In complete agreement with these sources, Hogarth’s Tlzr Clznriners of the Age, depicting Barbara Campanini and Philip Desnoyer around 1740 executing what appears to be a coup de p o i p e t , or flexed-footed jump, shows the arms of the dancers extended to the sides at the height of the shoulders (see fig. 5.1). A high carriage of the arms was also usual in forming what was known as fourth position of the arms, according to Malpied’s nomenclature (1789?, 129). While the noncontrasting arm was typically held extended to the side of the body roughly level with the shoulder or lower, the hand of the opposing arm was raised to a height anywhere between the top of the head and the shoulder. According to Taubert (1717,560),this position was formed as follows: Whenever the first [i.e., the right] foot takes a step (both arms being held almost at the same height from the shoulders to the elbows), at the same time the left arm, pleasingly bent at both the wrist and primarily the elbow, is taken up so that the fingers come to stand level with the ear, or at least with the shoulder, and the right arm is gently extended and lowered a little. If the left foot does a p m , or step, then the right arm must go along in the aforesaid manner, and the left arm is extended and lowered.

Extant depictions of theatrical dancers, such as those shown in figures 2.14-15, often show the hand of the opposing arm raised to a height level with the top of the head with the noncontrasting arm roughly at shoulder level (compare the lower arms of the ballroom dancer

Figure 2.14. A mid-eighteenth-century faun, after an unknown artist, in the New York Public library Dance Collection, Cia Fornaroli Collection, reproduced in De Mille (1963, 89).

Figure 2.1 5. A costume design for Folly in Les caracferes de /a fake, 1762, after Boquet, in the Bibliothhque de I’Opera, Paris, reproduced in Kochno (1954, ill. 72).

Ballrooiii Dancing z’ersiis Ballet

37

shown in fig. 2.7).ms same arrangement of the arms continued more or less unaltered in line into the early nineteenth century; Blasis’s illustration of opposition shown in figure 2.9, for example, is virtually identical to those gven in figures 2.14-15 from the eighteenth century. Even hgher positions of the arms could be used, especially at impassioned moments in the dancing or commonly in ”attitudes,” that is, poses; here in les grunds bras, as they were called, the theatrical dancer raised his hands to any height above the head, or as Magri puts it (1779,1:114),”these arms cannot have a set measure or precise height but can be raised as much as you wish beyond the others depending on the character, the expression, the spirit and abdity of the performer.” Visual examples of these forced arms can be found in extant depictions of theatrical dancers throughout the period (see figs. 2.5-6, 2.10,3.10-11,5.2). It should be noted here that the foregoing brief discussion on the heights and positions of the legs and arms used in eighteenth-century ballet is by no means complete, and it would take several pages to give a full description of them, especially with regard to the arms. The forthcoming volume devoted to technique will explore this topic in great detail. Even the positions of the feet were broader and often forced on stage. Magri (1779, 1:46, 127) notes specifically that ”as often as not the positions themselves need to be larger, and steps are done that would be unseemly in the ballroom to get through a figure or to gain ground needed for the dancer’s movement” and that “when greater force is needed for height, an exact position is not to be looked for but rather that which will give greater force to the jump.” Even the height of the heel off the floor in a rise onto the toe varied from the ballroom to the theater. While the heel was typically to be as high off the floor as possible when dancing on the toes in formal dance, in the relaxed atmosphere of the ballroom it was common for the heel barely to clear the floor if at all in a ”rise.” This flat-footed manner of dancing is shown in the illustrations from some of the ballroom dance manuals, such as Rameau’s of 1725 or Tomlinson’s of 1735 (see fig. 2.7), and is alluded to in Taubert (1717, 506), who writes in connection with teachmg ballroom dancers the marche‘ that moving €ughon the toes was held to be affected in social dance: In short, the master has his pupil walk around forwards, backwards, sideways to the left and to the right hand, as well in the round with steps to the fore and side for a while with such posture as was given

38

Chapter 2 above in chapters 10 and 11 (which dealt with thegalant carriage of the body and the net manner of walking), firm and steady but without any force or affectation, with the feet turned out and the heel raised high off the floor or, according to the present nigligent and thoroughly absurd fashion, with the feet flat, for at the present time he who dances on his toes is no longer held to be a fine dancer but rather an affected one, to which conscientious masters give no heed when teaching in order to get their beginners used to going about lightly on their feet.

Other sources describing performances from the period likewise mention the exaggerated movements of the theatrical dancer’s limbs and body. A critic in the Mercure de France (Aug. 1728, 1858), for example, describes a performance in 1728 at the Opera-comique by the English dancer Nivelon, who danced ”a peasant enfre‘e in wooden shoes, with admirable address. He has all the lightness and correctness imaginable, and even in the most burlesque and most contorted attitudes, far from betraying any effort, he seems to instill all with grace.” A critic in the same journal (Feb. 1739,357) notes that a troupe of English dancers performing in Paris in 1739 succeeded in entertaining its spectators with ”amazing feats of strength and suppleness.” A performance of a ballet seen by Lovisa Ulrika at the Swedish Tennis Court Theater in 1744 was evidently marred by an overuse of high flapping arms. Ulrika writes in a letter to Frederick the Great that ”all the dancers had Fru von Kamecke’s figure, ungainly proportions and with gigantic feet, and as regards steps, they had never heard them spoken about: their arms swung round them like the arms of a windmill” (trans. in Skeaping 1967, 47). Noverre (1760, 343) takes to task dancers in the so-called serious or grave style especially, who were keen to ape the high extensions of the leg cultivated by Louis Dupre, the most outstanding and celebrated proponent of the grave style in the first half of the eighteenth century. In Noverre’s eyes such dancers were guilty of indulging in the “fault” of disproportionate movement: ”This fault, Monsieur, is very fashionable among serious dancers, and as this style holds greater sway in Paris than everywhere else, it is very common there to see the dwarfish dance with movements of gigantic and ridiculous proportions.” In like manner, Ange Goudar (1773a, 55-57) takes exception to the portrayal of Henri IV in Angiolini’s pantomime ballet I1 re alla caccia, mounted in Venice in 1773. In-

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stead of moving with the requisite dignity and gravity of a king, Goudar complains, the performer representing this character indulged in the ”contortions” of a professional dancer lost in the delirium of capering: But I will own, my Lord, that I was scandalized like a Frenchman to see Henri IV appear jumping and capering like a clown amid a troupe of figurants in the second ballet. I was surprised, I say, to see this great king after his death divert the pit of Venice with grimaces and contortions in order to do honor to the government of a nation celebrated during his lifetime. I expected to see the Duke de Sully appear as well, who alone could perform a pus de deux with Henri, that grave man, that upright minister, who had never committed a faux pas in government, but evidently the ballet master was unfamiliar with him and let this royal pantomime do without him. Amid the applause for this dance, I heard an Italian also speak highly of this monarch: ”By God, Henry was a great prince. The French must have been happy to have such a fine dancer for a King!” To be sure, Henri IV capered with great force during this hunt, and after a string of entrechats, he did an aploinb that won him many bravos.

Similarly, a critic in theJournal des tlze2tres (1Apr. 1777,27)complains of an abrupt introduction on stage of ”a combatant who comes forth to do feats of suppleness or strength before the eyes of heroes, their attention first taken up by a divertissement prepared by the Graces,” and complains (1 May 1778, 129) of Marie Allard’s ”forced and hardly decent movements of legs, shoulders, and arms.” A critic in the Baierische Beytrage zur schonen und niitzlichen Litterntur (1779,353) takes to task the empty feats of nimbleness and suppleness of some virtuoso dancers rather than the cultivation of meaningful pantomimic gesture, these performers bending their bodies to the point of breakage: If a rope-dancer or performer of tricks stands on the tip of one toe for a quarter of an hour and whirls around, then I know very well what that means; it means just what is given in many a concert (for which the virtuoso must practice a good number of years), nothing, nothing on the whole face of the earth but feats. If, however, men or women dancers, who are to be animated by the spirit of the poet [i.e., the author of the ballet plot], whirl around on the heel of their shoe in the greatest of passions or interweave their legs with great speed or bend their bodies to the point of breakage, then I invoke all nine Muses from afar to tell me just what this might mean.

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Sulzer (1792, 1:290) remarks upon the forced positions of theatrical dancers, writing that ’ballets, as they are now performed on stage, hardly deserve to be reckoned among works of taste, for they represent n o h g clever or thoughtful at all. One sees strangely clad persons dash around on the stage, with gestures and jumps that are even stranger, with forced positions and utterly meaningless movements.” Perhaps the most strilung way in which the steps in ballroom and theatrical dancing differed “in the Performance” was the degree of height acheved when springing. In French ballroom dancing, the dancer was to avoid rising off the floor altogether in jumping and rather strive to create only the appearance of springing. As Dufort notes (1728, 19), all the other springs need to be done so slightly that the sustained and grave bearing of the body is not disturbed; that is, they should have the appearance of springing rather than in truth of rising into the air. This warning is very useful to gentlemen, especially those who are too tall, and is most necessary to ladies, who are in no way allowed to spring in noble dance [i.e.,ballroom dancing].

In contrast, the theatrical dancer was expected to rise off the floor ”with considerable force” in order to reach an impressive height, although terre-u-terre jumps were also used on stage as well, as will be seen in chapter 3. Indeed, dancers were expected to be airborne on stage: We know that everything that is found in la belle danse is also to be used here [in le ballet sCrieux], only that it must be done high, not terre-riterre, whence the rule can be formulated that all dances that are done with considerable force, with all sorts of springs, quick variations, and many capers belong to le ballet se‘rieux and thus take on utterly different characteristics. (Bonin 1712, 159)

Men dancers in particular were expected to reveal the strength of their legs in high beaten jumps. Bonin (1712, 188, 175) again notes that ”if only men dance together, however, then it goes without saying that the higher they dance, the better the entrke appears” and that “a man, however, is not so closely bound to the floor. Here, there must be more rapid interweaving, the feet doing most of their work in the air. Those who cannot do this ought to stay away from the stage, for drowsy people do not belong on it.” Taubert (1717, 559),

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drawing on Bonin, likewise stresses the importance of elevation in theatrical dance: Just as in this other branch of dance, namely serious dance, all the steps, even those which are borrowed from la belle danse, are done high with considerable force (not to mention here the sundry capers, or powerful springs into the air wherein the feet must work away in the air for most of the time), so the arms here as well, which should necessarily accord with the legs, must always be held high, to the sides in a straight line with the shoulders.

To Pasch (1707, 80), the caper, the quintessential element of theatrical dance, was by definition a springing step that was to show both elevation and stamina: “As capers are used in ballets more than in any other dances, it is to be borne in mind that capers are steps done in the air and show how the body can rise ever more and more and how high the body can do this, whether rising into the air off both feet or off one foot.” In agreement with this emphasis, Hogarths Charmers of the Age (see fig. 5.1) shows Phlip Desnoyer rising nearly three feet into the air, according the “Scale of feet” and “Prickt lines shewing the rising Height” marked in the illustration. Such elevation was necessary for the dancer to have enough time in the air to beat h s legs or feet together, successively opening and then briskly closing the lower limbs in order to beat, usually ”two or three times,” according to Taubert (1717,724).Taubert writes in connection with the cabriole droite, for example, that one is to spring straight up with the body steady and straight as a board, after having taken tempo [i.e.,done a preparatory plie] on both legs, and in the air beat both legs together at the same time, either above with the calves, or below with both feet well stretched, two or three times from the sides without the calves meeting, and land again on one leg. The latter, the French call a cabriole en ailes de pigeon because [the feet] go beyond, one against the other [weilen es gegeneinander iiber gehet], as pigeons clap their wings [together].

Behr (1703b, sec. 4) in like manner writes that the performer of cabrioles should cut more than once while in the air, that he should ”freely beat twice below with both feet stretched.” Similarly, Magri (1779,1:131-32) notes in connection with the sissonne battue that the dancer should do “one or more beats (only one would be dull).”

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The preoccupation with elevation off the floor could also manifest itself in lifts wherein the male dancer lifted his female partner up into the air in the course of dancing (pace De Mille 1963,98). A pas de deux performed by Catherine Roland and Michael Poitier at London’s Drury Lane Theatre in 1736, for example, concluded with such a lift, much to the displeasure of one spectator, who in his letter to the Grub Street Journal (8 Jan. 1736) takes to task ”Madamoiselle ROLAND’Sdancing: every one who has seen her dance knows, that at the end of the dance she is lifted by POITIER, that she may cut the higher, and represent to the whole house as immodest a sight as the most abandoned women in Drury-lane can shew.” In his description of Charles Bernardi’s ballet La foire, performed in Vienna‘s Kartnertortheater in May of 1761, the Austrian Zinzendorf similarly alludes to a woman dancer being lifted by her partner: ”The ballets were good; the first showed a fair, blacksmiths beating iron (you could see sparks). Paganini in a coffeecolored costume jumped quite high, being held up by Boccherini.”’ According to Dorat (1771,153), the dance of such sylvan figures as satyrs and nymphs typically involved lifts. He notes that ”to the sound of oboes, the light satyrs as they smile lift the nymphs of our woods.” Lifts appear to have been used even outside of dance on the eighteenth-century stage; among Probst’s 1729 engravings of various staged scenes from the commedia dell’arte is one in which Pantalone carries off his daughter in a lift (fig. 2.16). Lifting the woman into the air in the course of a dance in fact predates the eighteenth century and figured prominently in the late Renaissance dance the z~olta,for example. Lifts were also used in folk or national dance of the eighteenth century, most notably in the allemande, as we shall see below, and evidently in Catalan folk dance as well (fig. 2.17). The bucolic scene of a gentleman lifting his partner a little off the ground in a dance on the green to the accompaniment of an oboe depicted in Cochin’s 1750 engraving Le saut de In d a m e (fig. 2.18) is likely an attempt to capture a lift in folk dance as well. The fundamental difference between the dance of the ballroom and that of the theater, the former marked by its modesty and simplicity and the latter by its exaggeration, vigor, and complexity, was not, however, an innovation of the eighteenth century. Already by the second half of the seventeenth century, the dance of the theater

Figure 2.1 6. Detail of Pantalone carrying off his daughter in one of eleven narrative engravings depicting a scenario from the commedia dell’arte, 1729, after Joh. Balth. Probst (after drawings by Joh. JacobSchubler), in the Biblioth&que Nationale, Paris, reproduced in Duchartre (1955) in the insert entitled “L’enlbement d’lsabella.”

Figure 2.1 7. Catalan folk dancers performing a lift, circa 181 0, after Maurin, reproduced in Vuillier (1 898, 21 4).

Figure 2.1 8. Detail of the engraving Le saut de la dame, 1750, after Cochin (after Cillot), reproduced in Populus (1 930, pl. 36).

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was ”more daring and more vigorous” than ballroom dancing, as de Pure indicates (1668,24849): The pas de ballet [i.e.,ballet dance] does not consist merely of fine movements of the feet or sundry motions of the body; it is made up of both and takes in everything that a very nimble and well-trained body can have in the way of gesture and action in order to express something without speaking. Even though it must be more daring and more vigorous than the common dancing used at balls and in ordinary household dances, which women as well as men take pains to do well, even though, I say, it must have something livelier and gayer, it is not without its rules and laws, which render it perfect or defective in accordance with whether these are followed or dispensed with.

Indeed, again according to de Pure (1668,283-a), the simple dance of the ballroom, and with it the ballroom dancer, was out of place on stage, owing not merely to the different steps used but also to the skill and conditioning needed to perform them in the theater: We can now judge of the dancers and discern those who are fittest to answer to our purpose. No one will be hard set to imagine that there are persons of quality as well as others who dance ordinary serious dance perfectly well, who shine at balls, or anywhere else where it is a question of dignified simple dance, but who are not fit for ballet. The reason for this is not as evident as one would think, and this is due not merely to the difference in the PAS but even to the strength of the [dancer’s] constitution, conditioning [habifude], and ear, and of a thousand other things which are utterly needful in order to dance well in a ballet. Strength and constitution are the first two elements of a dancer, because of the fatigue and vehemence. Doleful, heavy, or stupid action is out of place in ballet; liveliness, lightness, and ingenuity are needed, and even conditioning is to be added here in order to strengthen even more the dancer’s constitution, giving him breath, breaking him in to the different steps and sundry jumps that he must do.

What made performance dance in the seventeenth century “more daring and more vigorous” than social dance was in part the extravagant movements cultivated (fig. 2.19). As Borromee remarks (1664, 95), evidently referring to open-air performances specifically, ”it is true that the most extravagant movements, and those most clearly at odds with Christian virtue, are found in these lunds of dances, whch are usually called ballets and which are performed in the streets and squares” (cited in Kougioumtzoglou-Roucher 1990, 2:25). Not only

Figure 2.1 9. late-seventeenth-century dancer, after an unknown artist, in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes, Paris, reproduced in Kirstein (1984, 64).

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extravagant movement but also h g h gambols figured prominently in this style of dance, so that according to Richelet (1680,1:61),ballet by definition was ”dance that is almost completely in the air, wherein several persons dancing together form sundry h d s of figures.” In contrast to professional dancers with their exaggerated movements and airborne gambols, social dancers of the late seventeenth century cultivated a modest terre-a-terre style, for as Furetiere (1690)notes in his entry under the rubric of dame, ”the high dance is that of professional dancers,’ who do capers and gambols; the low dance is that which is done modestly and terre-h-ferre, like that of fashionable7people.” Among such capers, entrechats evidently figured prominently, for Du Manoir (1664, 72-73) singles out these steps in particular as means whereby professional dancers of the seventeenth century sought to impress their spectators: As soon as only one dancer is off beat, be it ever so little, he is dragged off and cannot be brooked; in vain does he do prodigious entrechats, in vain does he handle himself with extraordinary suppleness; if he does not dance with method and with the measure, he will be a laughingstock to the greater part of the spectators, far from being a source of admiration to them.

Extant descriptions of theatrical performances in the second half of the seventeenth century likewise bear out de Pure’s assertion that theatrical dance needed to be ”more daring and more vigorous.” Pierre Beauchamps, the foremost French dancer of the second half of the seventeenth century, was known for both lus suppleness and elevation in capering. As Loret (1877, Feb. 1657,2:301)remarks in connection with Les plaisirs froublks performed in 1657, ”tlus ballet is a backdrop against which the incomparable Beauchamps, with his wondrous suppleness, elevation, and justness, capered so high that he was proclaimed that day by his noble spectators to be the best dancer of France.” Louis Pecour, or Bathyllus, as La Bruyere discreetly calls h m in his Caracteres of 1688, likewise showed remarkable elevation in his capers. La Bruyere asks, (1998, In),”where will you find, not among the order of chezialiers, whom you disdain, but even among clowns, a young man who can rise as high when dancing and who can cut a caper better?” In connection with a royal ballet performed in 1654,Loret (1857,May 1654,1:490)comments upon the remarkable degree of suppleness in the executants, or as he puts it, “the perfection of the dancers, their steps, and their extreme suppleness.”

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Indeed, there is no evidence to support the tacit assumption underlymg much thinlung about early dance generally that exaggerated movement, both in the height to which the lunbs were raised or the elevation reached in jumping, is only a relatively recent phenomenon. Fleeting references to exaggerated and difficult movement in performance dance can be found for periods stretching back as far as classical antiquity. W e it is beyond the scope of t h s study to delve too deeply into the differences setting apart social and performance dance styles, a few examples will suffice to provide some hstorical context to the issue of range of movement in eighteenth-centurytheatrical dance. In his Essais of 1580, Montaigne (1962, 2:453), for example, alludes to the acrobatic dance of some, who, not from the ranks of the nobility, were evidently not keen upon the aristocratic affectation of dancing in a contained manner but rather sought to distinguish themselves through ”dangerous jumps” and other ”acrobatic movements,” that is, through a display of techrucal prowess: [Certain poets] get up on their high horse because they are not strong enough on their own legs, just as at our balls, these men of low birth, who make a school of it [9ui en tiennent escole], for they are not able to show the bearing and decency of our nobility, seek to recommend themselves through dangerous jumps and other outlandish, acrobatic movements, and the ladies find a better marketplace for their countenances in dances with sundry figures and bustling bodies than in certain other promenading dances wherein one needs only to walk with a natural step and display an unassuming bearing and ordinary grace, just as I have seen outstanding comedians, clad only in their ordinary garb, with their countenances as usual, give us all the pleasure that can be derived from their art, while novices and those not so highly skilled need to whiten their faces, dress up, and deform themselves with wild movements and grimaces in order to get us to laugh.

Perhaps the best documented of such ”acrobatic movements” of late sixteenth-centurydance is the salto delfiocco, or “tassel jump,” an impressive spring wherein the performer attempts to touch with h s foot a tassel or some other object held aloft at some height. Caroso (1581, 12) describes the feat as follows: The Salto del Fiocco. This is done by holding a tassel wherever you wish, as high as a man, more or less as it so pleases, and standing with the back turned toward the tassel, then raising the left foot somewhat and at the same time raising the right foot, turn the whole body to the left, rising as

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Chapter 2 high as you can and crossing the right leg over the left, and raise the toe of the right foot high enough so that it touches the tassel, landing on the floor (on the spot where you began) with the same right foot.

This tassel jump survived almost unchanged into the nineteenth century as a feat unique to the grotesque style. Magri (1779, 1:125) gives a description of this jump from the second half of the eighteenth century and notes that when performed to the fore, “it is possible to raise the hat from the hand of a very tall man up on a chair with his hand stretched up.” Roller (1843,220-21) notes in his description of the same jump that ”this spring was always a tour de force of grotesque dancers, wherein a basket or something like it was hung on a tree much higher than the dancer himself, and he would knock down the object with afiocco, whereby the spectator could assess and marvel at the force and height of the jump.” Negri (1602, 78) also instructs his reader in a number of the capers described in his handbook, such as in the salto fondo, to “rise off the floor as high as you can.” Impressive elevation was evidently achieved in other jumps as well, such as those illustrated in a scene from Le nozze degli dei of 1634, reproduced in Kirstein (1984, 14), whch shows two male dancers jumping so high into the air that their toes are level with the midthigh of a third dancer standing on the floor beside them. References to exaggerated or contorted movement in connection with performance dance are relatively easy to find in early sources as well. Itinerant English entertainers performing in Nuremberg in 1612, for example, used contortion in their dancing, according to an anonymous citation given in Voss (1868,256): From the twentieth to the twenty-third of October, some Englishmen, appointed comedians to the Landgrcf in Kassel and Hesse, performed fine comedies and tragedies that are to some extent unknown in Germany, by privilege of the Burgomaster at the Halsbrunnen court here, and accompanied with good fine music, as well as all sorts of foreign [welsck] dances, with odd contortion, hopping, springing to the fore and rear of oneself, throwing [oneself] over [i.e., somersaulting], and other strange gestures, which were comical to see.

The early-seventeenth-century Spanish dance the zdlano made conspicuous use of a high luckmg movement known as the boleo, described in detail in Esquivel (1642, 19-20). Here the foot of the ges-

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ture leg was to be raised as high as possible, the less skilled sometimes falling backward onto their backs in their attempt to raise the foot to an impressive height: The boleo is done in the idlano. It is a kick that is done in some of its variations by raising the foot as high as you can, stretching the leg well, and in doing so, take great care when raising the foot to the extreme, for I have seen some fall on their backs in raising the foot as much as possible. And for [an example ofl greater exaggeration, in a bole0 done in the aillano, a student from the school of Joseph Rodriguez knocked down with his foot a candlestick hanging like a lamp two hand breadths higher than his head.

Nett1 (1962, 88) cites a description, found in a 1557 travelogue, of women performing a passrpied that involved such high extensions of the leg; according to the source, ”the women dance alone, raise their skirts, and swing their legs up to the ceiling.” A dancing Harlequin seen by a certain Laneham during the Kenilworth festivities of 1575 in England extubited such remarkable flexibility in his acts of contortion that his body did not seem to have any bones in it: Noow within allso, in the mean time, waz thear sheawed before her Highness by an Italian, such feats of agilitie, in goinges, turninges, tumblinges, castinges, hops, jumps, leaps, skips, springs, gambaud, soomersauts, caprettiez and flights; forward, backward, sydewize, a downward, upward, and with sundry windings, gyrings, and circumflexions; allso lightly and with such easiness, as by me in feaw words it iz not expressibl by pen or speech, I tell yo0 plain. I bleast me by my faith to behold him, and began to doout whither a waz a man or a sprite. . . . Az for thiz fellow, I cannot tell what to make of him, save that I may gesse hiz bak be metalld like a lamprey, that haz no bone, but a lyne like a lute-string. (cited in Nichols 1967?, 1:.23041)

References to and depictions of dancers executing exaggerated movements or feats of contortion can also be found in sources from the Middle Ages and even classical antiquity. An Arab-Andalusian poem entitled ”The Dancer” from early-thirteenth-century Spain, written by Ben Jaruf of Cordoba, describes a dancer executing what appears to be the feat known today as the ”bridge,” wherein “he touches his head with his feet like a well-tempered sword which can be bent until the hilt joins the tip” (cited in Gomez 1942,

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138). Depictions of such feats of contortion can be found in illustrations from the period, such as those given in Busch (1982?).The medieval manuscript Heures b Z’usage de The‘rouanne contains an illustration of a tableau from some sort of performance to the accompaniment of music and shows one of the performers with his leg raised to the height of the hip (fig. 2.20). Unambiguous depictions of dancers raising their leg to the height of the hip or even higher can be found in connection with even more ancient sources as well, such as classical Greek vases (Emmanuel 1895)and ancient Egyptian tomb murals and inscriptions (Brunner-Traut 1992). In his Institutio Oratoria, Quintilian gives a cursory description of a pantomimic dance performance from the first century A.D., one clearly involving exaggerated and contorted movement, for the dancer ”leaps on one foot then on both, stands on his right foot, and lifts his left leg up to his breast and shoulder, bends it round his back to his neck, whirls around, bent over backwards, so fast that his head seems to circle on the ground” (cited in translation in Hammond 2000,140). Exaggeration, such as that found in the eighteenth-century dancer’s lofty jumps and high extensions of the limbs, was and of course still is an mherent part of theatrical representation. Indeed, it was the very heart of theater, as a critic in the Journal e‘tranger notes (Jan. 1761,55-56):

Figure 2.20. Detail of a tableau, after a marginal illustration in the medieval manuscript Heures a /’usage de Therouanne, folio 63, ms. lat. 14284, BibliothPque Nationale, Paris, reproduced in Jomaron (1988, 37).

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In order to arrive at some idea of the nature of the pleasure created by this kind of spectacle [i.e., opera], we must be allowed to offer some considerations on the subject of theater generally and first of all to get rid of the almost universal misconception that theatrical representations must be an exact imitation of actions from everyday life. If this were true, it would be enough, in order to perform such a spectacle, to take up a position in the comer of a cafe, gaming room, or a public place so as to see what is done and hear what is said, which no one has hitherto thought of doing. The pleasure that one experiences at a spectacle is not to be found in the faithful painting of human actions but in the exaggeration of what can happen and what sometimes in fact happens. This exaggerated imitation alone can procure pleasure; indeed, if in the locales just mentioned someone remarkable through a more striking character is met, he draws to himself looks and attention and becomes an object of curiosity.

This love of exaggeration in the eighteenth-century theater manifested itself in a predilection for a great deal of melodramatic “sound and fury” generally, for a kind of “bread and circuses” to please a restive and even riotous public, much to the distaste of a critic in the Mercure de France (3 Mar. 1781,29-30), who writes in h s review of Gardel’s ballet Lafite de Mirza that broken down into two classes today, [the theater-going public] is more apt to lead astray than to lead. The first class, made up of people whose taste has been developed through study and experience, see the ill but moan and hold their tongue out of fear of exciting the anger of all those little Salmoneuses, whose thundering voices echo throughout cafes for intellectuals. As to the second class, it is seduced with words, amazed by cries, amused with images, and bribed with tickets. It is they as well who, cold to the performances of works govemed by reason and genius, wildly applaud scenes of robbing, whoring, and killing; it is they who withhold their approbation (which they lavish with a kind of fury on wretched acrobats) from the small number of writers still able to do honor to our literature. This is because this class most certainly makes up the greater part of the audience in every theater, because it is imagined that we are given a would-be pantomime ballet wherein one breakfasts in the first act, or shoots savages dead in the second (a spectacle worthy of cannibals); the third act shows some soldiers maneuvering on a parade ground and the preparations for torturing someone and the anguish of a woman begging that her husband, who is about to die at the stake, be pardoned, and

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the fourth act finally (through a miracle all the more striking because it does not happen through any apparent agency) shows the deaf able to hear and the dumb able to sing, wherein a Natchez dressed like an Inca is entertained by the performance of an Asiatic comedy executed to music on a little stage twenty feet away from the orchestra, which must accompany the singers and assure their pitches and bring them back when they go astray.

Four years later, a critic in the same journal (28 Feb. 1784,183) similarly deplores the inability of theatrical performers to resist “the pleasure of exciting the momentary applause that is too easily obtained through exaggeration of every kind and which, in all our theaters, is perhaps more harmful to the progress of the dramatic art than anything else.” The exaggeration of the dancer’s movements, both in jumping and in simply raising the limbs, was not merely an aesthetic choice but also a visual necessity in the eighteenth-century, as it still is today. As Behr notes (1713,115),”the pas de bullet on stage are to be adjusted in accordance with the nature of the artificial lighting, the distance of the spectators, and the meaning of the representations”; that is, the height of jumps and limbs needed to be greater than within the smaller confines of a ballroom in order for the dancer’s movements to be perceived by an audience sitting at a distance and to fill, as it were, the darker and larger space of the theater. Taubert (1717, 959) discusses this basic principle of theater in greater detail: Likewise, before the elaboration, even before the established skeleton is fleshed out, one must give some thought above all to the space in which the entrie is to be danced and adjust the steps accordingly, for if it is to be done at an assembly, where the space for dancing is commonly very cramped and by far not so roomy as in theaters, then the gentle steps are best suited, when mixed now and then with neat capers and other moderately high steps and accompanied with a camage of arms that is not too high..‘ If they are to be danced in an opera or play in a large theater, however, either solo or by several persons at the same time, then the high figured pas de ballet and powerful springs into the air (which must be adjusted here in accordance with the nature of the artificial lighting, the distance of the spectators, and the meaning of the representations) as well as the high port de bras par terre look the best, for not only is the space of the theater in this way well filled, but also the dancers have a far freer run and spring in their feats.‘ ”It is very unsavory,” says Herr

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Pasch in his Beschreibung zijahrer Tam-Kunst (p. 79), “to see a dull entree in a magnificent theater.”

The Academie Royale de Musique, or the Pans Opera as it was more commonly called, was to be found in just such a “magnificent theater,” wherein the dance steps and movements needed to be “adjusted” so as not to be lost on its large, dimly-lit stage before a throng of spectators at some distance from the dancers. The second Pans opera house, which opened in 1770 and burned down in 1781, was a large edifice. It could accommodate as many as 2,500 spectators (Pitou 1983, 1:26), and according to Donnet’s scaled plan of the building (1821, pl. 13), the stage was roughly six toises in breadth, that is, about forty feet across, but deep enough as well to allow over a hundred bodies to maneuver successfully on the stage at one time. This was the case in Gaetan Vestris’s buZZet d’ucfion entitled Les urnours d‘Ariune et Thesee mounted in 1774, in which as many as forty dancers and eighty supernumeraries appeared on the stage simultaneously (Guest 1996, 70). This large theater, then, with its seventypiece orchestra and corps de ballet of nearly a hundred dancers (Pitou 1983, 1:26-27), was clearly suitable only for the grander movements of dancers and not the smaller gestures of actors, as Grimm notes (1879, 1 July 1770, 9:76): ”Tragedies and comedies should not be played on the stage of the Opera because they are without effect on so large a stage, as experience has shown; these representations ought to have a small theater set aside for them.” If the sheer size of the building itself succeeded in dwarfing the dancers, the darkness on the stage further made the groupings and designs of the dances appear less distinct and the dancers’ costumes look dirty and faded despite their freshness: What darkness reigns in the middle of the stage at the Opera! They must seriously think of lighting it more; it is the first way of making a spectacle magnificent.All the money spent on costumes will be lost if the light never reaches those who wear them and the finest groupings in ballets will be without effect. The reflectors could extend the light; by increasing them and mounting them on moving uprights, the light could be directed as needed, and some parts [of the stage] could sometimes even be without in order to highlight the plan, the which would give more life to the picturesque effects. By making the lighted objects brighter, the designs of the ballets would be more distinct and the groupings would be more pronounced. The costumes of the dancers

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Chapter 2 would look fresh much longer rather than in fact dirty and faded when seen from afar even though they are still very fresh when seen close up. (“Observations sur 1’Opera” 1777, 23)

The need to exaggerate the steps and other movements in theatrical productions in order for the dancers to be perceived by an audience set back at a distance becomes even more apparent in connection with the large open-air performances of ballets mounted every year by the Jesuit College de Louis le Grand in Paris until 1762. Ballets were inserted between acts of a tragedy performed in Latin by the college’s students, and the directors of the prestigous institution, not content to embellish the stage with the finest decorations and to dress the performers in the richest costumes, even have the best performers from the Opera come either to dance on their stage or play in the orchestra. They place a ballet between all the acts, usually directed by Monsieur Blondy. An open-air stage is erected in the Jesuits’ court running from one side of the wall to the other with a sail stretched over the entire space as a cover against the rain. The whole area of this court, which is square and very spacious, is filled with benches for the spectators, the number of which is so great that not only all the seats are taken but even all the windows of the college that overlook the court are filled with people from top to bottom. (Nemeitz 1727,108-9)

The small movements of the ballroom dancer would have been utterly lost on the stage erected in the form of a ”monument” for the college’s performance of a ballet in 1748, for example, which was “102 feet long, 48 feet high, and 30 feet deep,” that is, roughly 108, 51, and 32 imperial feet respectively (Mercure de France Aug. 1748, 163), or in the ballet mounted in 1725 ”before nearly five thousand people” (Mercure de Frame Sept. 1725,2064). The Italians, even more than the French, were very keen on spectacle and clearly outdid the French in theatrical magruficence.As the author of the “Lettre sur les spectacles d’Italie” concedes (1726, 82), ”it must be owned that the Italian theater on the whole is grander and more amazing than ours.” Quatremere de Quincy (1789, 129) similarly remarks upon the pomp of the Italian stage, especially in ballet: “To pantomime ballets, always independent of opera, [the Italians] have relegated all the pomp of the stage, the illusions created by painting, the movements of dance, and all the play of acting. It is a true feast for the eyes.“ In order to make possible huge spectacles, the

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stages in Italian theaters were remarkably deep. De la Lande (1769) notes that the great depth of the stage is one of the advantages that spectacles enjoy in Italy. As will be seen below, that in Parma has a depth of 124 feet [i.e., roughly 131 imperial feet]. In this way, one can represent with as much truth as grandeur battles and triumphs, assemblies of the nation or the senate, sacrifices,hunts, and so forth. One can develop the action there, give greater lifelikeness to the asides, lend more dignity to the spectacle, place the choruses without confusion, design grand ballets, and mount spectacles with sets that are grander and thus even more magnificent. (cited in the journal de musique 1773,6:37-38)

Indeed, as Cochn notes (1758, 85), Italian theaters were so grand that ”the ordinary size of our [French] stages at their longest side would scarcely give a fore-stage equal to those seen in the great theaters of Italy.” At least one of the performance spaces in Turin, for example, was large enough that “up to two hundred horses were manoeuvered on the stage,” as the dancer %bastien Gallet mentions in a letter to La Ferte, the director of the Paris Opera, dated the second of August 1783 (trans. in Guest 1996,203).According to Sara Goudar (1777,1:15),the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples was large enough that it could accommodate “four or five thousands maskers” during the masked balls held there in the 1770s. Similarly, Alessandro Verri (1998,165)notes in a letter dated 14 March 1770 that 160 bodies appeared on stage in an unnamed ballet mounted in Rome in the same year. Indeed, the small movements typical of the ballroom dancer would have been utterly lost in the ancient amphitheater of Verona, which was still used for theatrical performances in the eighteenth century. As de Brosses notes in his Italian travelogue of 1739-1740, ”thanks to God, one is not hard pressed to find seats at the comedy in Verona; it is performed right in the middle of the ancient amphitheater of the Romans, and there is nowhere else for the spectators to sit but right out in the open on the steps of the amphitheater, where there is enough space to seat thrty thousand” (cited in Sand 1862, 1:172). It was noted above that Weaver (1712,162-63) isolated two basic differences between ballroom and theatrical dance, namely, that not only were the same steps executed differently but also that the choice of steps differed, ”all Steps from the Ground,” that is, all jumps, being particularly suitable for the stage. French ballroom

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dancing was largely a “cadenced walk” (Pauli 1756,50), the dancer availing himself of mainly terre-a-terre steps; even when he chose to do a springing step, it was often done s a m sauter, that is, by bending and simply rising without jumping. As Bonin notes (1712, 51-52), the feet were seldom to leave the floor in French social dance: As for the first part [of the art of dance], or In belle danse, it is so done that the feet leave the floor seldom and very little. Here, one must forgo all springing and capering and rather largely endeavor only to see how far one is to bend and rise elegantly, how far one is to move the whole body, the head, and hands gracefully (which of course is also to be observed in ballet). As almost all the dances in this part [of the art of dance] are done with a woman, I would gain little honor if I were to do nothing but jumps and capers before her and race past her with such force that she should become alarmed and affrighted that I might break arms and legs.

In the theater, however, much of the dancing consisted of high beaten jumps, or ”capers,” and was as far away from social dance ”as water is from wine”: The high, or serious, dance is as far from the foregoing [i.e., la belle danse] as water is from wine, for which reason either of the two cannot be [indifferently] used here, for the most difficult steps and springs are found here, which demand not only considerable strength but also such gracefulness that nothing unpleasant can be seen anywhere in the body. In this dance, one must come down onto the floor seldom and very little but rather rise now here, now there, with the greatest of nimbleness and speed and show such quickness in the feet that the interweaving is like lightning, and at times it cannot be made out which is the left and which is the right leg. Neither the body nor the head and hands must be forgotten here, however, but even these, one must still know how to manage in such speed so that a pleasing attitude is presented. (Bonin 1712,56)

Even when dances that quintessentially belonged to the ballroom, such as the minuet, were used on stage, they took on quite different characteristics and were performed mainly with high jumps rather than the gentle terre-a-terre steps of the ballroom: By figured minuets, however, are meant those which are made up mainly of the ordinary composite minuet steps (moderately intermixed here and there with balancis, contretemps,fleurets, and other gen-

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tle steps) and of utterly unfamiliar symmetrical figures and tours . . . for the variation, rather, as was said, is completely and only in the figure, unless one wishes to dance it on stage instead of an entrie, where it of course takes on quite different characteristics and is danced mostly with high steps. (Taubert 1717,616-17)

H;insel(l755,173-74), drawing on Bonin, likewise equates animated h g h jumping with theatrical dance: Even in plays, however, serious ballets can be performed, commonly in conformity with the character of the former. In these dances, one must have swift feet and must be more in the air with them than on the floor, soaring now here, now there, with the greatest of nimbleness and showing such speed with the feet that their interweaving is like lightning, it being impossible to make out the left from the right leg. In doing so, neither the body nor the head or hands must be forgotten, but even these one must likewise know how to manage in such speed so that a good attitude can always be maintained. In itself, jumping is no art, but jumping gracefully and presenting a nimble figure, quickly fitting all the steps to the cadence and coming down on the cadence is a great science, this exercise taking more than a pair of shoes, great strength, and long practice. The steps are made up of quick and embellished springs into the air wherein the dancer soars strongly into the air by bending and rising with both feet and there beats the legs a number of times against or over each other and does some steps before coming down onto the floor again.

Such soaring “strongly into the air“ was most evident in the dancing found in the 1761 performance in Vienna of Angiolini’s pantomime ballet La halte des Calinouckes, wherein “the men and women dancers jumped prodigiously high,” as Zinzendorf notes in his journal entry dated 23 March of the same year (cited in Brown 1991,307).To Algarotti (1755,21), the dancing found in operas as well was nothing more than ”an indecent jumping around” to the point of exhaustion: But what can we say then of this dance of ours which people are so taken by? Aside from the fact that it never forms part of the drama, it is nothing more than a perpetual monotony of a very few steps and a very few figures, a capering about to the point of exhaustion, an indecent jumping around, which should never be applauded by genteel persons.

The eighteenth-century dancer’s talent was largely ”reduced to capering,” and the closer he came to the ceiling of the theater in his

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endless high jumping, the greater was his chance of winning fame. As Goudar puts it (1773a, 83-85), if the great inventors of ballets are removed from nature, those who perform them are no less so; their talent is reduced to capering. It is no longer a question of dancing but of rising. There is a goal that each is to reach Those who come closest to the ceiling of the theater are the most celebrated; everything is reduced to tours de force and endless gambols without drawing breath. As this school is emulated as much as the others, one sees everyday dancers turned out gifted with great talent, that is, with great muscle. We have heard said here of a famous historical pantomime, who, in order to show the public the strength of his legs, offered in a grand heroic ballet to land in an aplomb on his right foot, after having done two hundred entrechats and as many tours de jambe, and remain in equilibrium for eight minutes, in order to give the pit enough time to clap. The King of Prussia, who calls a spade a spade, refers to these great men as rope-dancers. For my part, whenever I see them do their dangerous jumps, I am always afraid that they will break their necks. My fear is all the more grounded since I had the misfortune to be present at a performance of a grand heroic ballet wherein a god in his pantomimic efforts so ill judged his bisque that he hurled himself into the orchestra, where he broke five or six instruments, disordered as many wigs, and knocked a violinist to the ground, whom he almost killed instead of killing himself.

Accidents were very common on the stage, as dancers attempting to be brilliant with all their capering were driven to execute feats beyond their strength or ability, whch led Noverre (1760,325) to recommend that dancers, Monsieur, ought to follow the same regime as athletes and use the same precautions as they do when the latter go to wrestle and fight. This care would spare them the accidents that befall them daily, accidents as new-fangled on the stage as capers, which have increased in proportion with the desire to outrage nature and force it to do that which is most often beyond her strength.

Regardless of the possibility of injury, theatrical dancers, especially the men, entered into a competition with their rivals to surpass each other in the execution of tours de force, such as entrechats and multiple turns in the air:

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For some time now there has been among the dancers a competition in strength and lightness, the abuse of which strikes us as contrary to good taste and the true end of dance. Those turning entrechts and double and triple pirouettes in the air or on the toe of the foot cannot fail to please in their proper place, but if repeated endlessly and used unsparingly everywhere, from the heroic style to dances of rustic shepherds, if performed only with effort, which is incompatible with the fine divelopponents of the body and the harmony of all its parts and even with the correct performance of the steps, such tours de force, which dazzle the crowd, can only shock persons of taste. Through such unsparing use hereof, all the genres are confounded, the sameness of it all becomes wearisome, and that feeling of grace is lost, undone by any show of effort, and cannot be replaced by anything else without loss. (Mercure de France 31 Aug. 1782,227-28)

Just such a ”competition in strength and lightness” was evident during the premiere of the New Ballet mounted on 8 April 1788 in London’s King’s Theatre. As one English viewer remarked, ”last night Monsieur Vestris and Monsieur Gardel exhibited a kind of cock-jighfing. . . . They strained every nerve in order to outvie each other in the various accomplishments of the capering art” (cited in Price et al. 1995, 519). To be sure, such high jumping is exhausting and technically demanding, requiring a degree of strength beyond the abilities of a frail amateur. As Taubert clearly indicates (1717, 1063), “such a pupil, with a weak and frail constitution lacking the requisite strength, can also keep merely to galaizf and decorous dance, developing and strengthening h s limbs with moderate steps, and wholly forgo then theatrical dance, which demands truly energetic strength.” Without strength, little or nothing could be done in the mainstream airborne style of eighteenth-century ballet: From these [descriptions of capers], one can clearly see then what is required in le bnllet skrzeux and can see that it is not child’s play but a point of convergence for all difficulties which will squeeze a good deal of sweat out of many a one and make for very weary legs before it can be seen on the stage, for without strength, nothing can be done, and without patience here, one should forgo thisundertaking for good, for few [amateurs]wdl be found who will wish to imitate such aghty. (Bonin 1712,170)

In fact, one of the reasons given for French dancers’continuing to wear masks was that such coverings h d all the p a c e s as the dancers strained to execute endless capers: ”Several people fancy that masks

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serve two purposes, the first to create uruformity and the second to h d e the twitches and gnmaces produced by the effort expended in a painful exercise,” for “the twitches, contortions, and gnmaces are less the result of habit than of the violent efforts made in order to jump” (Noverre 1760, 217, 221). All this capering and jumping required youthful strength, so much so that de fact0 most dance careers in the eighteenth century were largely over by the dancer’s early W e s , or as Ange Goudar remarks (1773a, 122), ”the career of a great woman dancer is almost always over at the age of thuty.” K s wife, Sara Goudar (1777,1:29-30), similarly notes that ballet was an art form restricted to the young. She writes in connection with the pantomime ballet Alceste mounted in Naples in 1777 that ”the two principle women dancers do not lack talent but lack youth, for thuty-seven and thuty-eight make indeed seventy-five.A pas de deux with seventy-five years in age is a ballet from the past century. To my thinking, a woman in the theater can sing until forty but must stop dancing at tturty.”So exhausting was mainstream eighteenth-century ballet that the dancer could not dance for more than thuty-two bars of music without becoming winded. Magri (1779, 1:105) notes in connection with chacomes, for example, that they need a numerous troupe offigurunts (and it is most necessary to balance the figures) since with these dancers, the corps de balleth of a chuconne begins. After thesefigurants have danced more or less twenty-four bars, the ballerino appears in a solo or duet and dances for as many bars again, at most thirty-two, for a ballerino or ballerina cannot dance more than this, and if one can find some who dance more, they are those who, not specializing in a like kind of dance, do aplombs, attitudes, and that which takes up much music without dancing. In this way, more than twenty-four or thirty-two bars can be freely danced here, but if the aplombs were adapted to the quantity of the music, one would certainly not be able to dance for more bars than that already given.

The fatigue occasioned by this airborne style of dance could not always be hidden from the public. A couple of dances performed by Auguste Vestris and Theodore at the Paris Opera in December of 1780, for example, were evidently so fatiguing that the executants could not h d e their lack of energy during one of their performances; ”these two dances are truly tiring, for in the performance on Sunday the ninth, the two sujets whom we just named did not dance them but merely marked them, whch is certainly much easier for the ex-

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ecutants but much less agreeable for the spectators” (Mercure de France 15 July 1780, 138). So popular was this capering and jumping that it dominated most of the stages of eighteenth-century Europe; indeed, as Ange Goudar (1773a, 121) remarks, “our century is the age of the caper.” The Spectator (24 Mar. 1712) notes at the beginning of the period, for example, that “Capering and Tumbling is now preferred to, and supplies the Place of, just and regular Dancing on our Theatres.” A Satyr Against Dmcing (1702, 5-6) in like manner indicates that airborne steps with “cuts,” or beats, as performed by the likes of the Frenchborn dancer 1’Abbe in entr’actes in Betterton’s Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre, for example, dominated the stage to the point that such capering ”ruined” every scene: The Fair thus wave what Bafterfon will say, And only talk how finely danc’d L‘abbee; Those Cuts in th’air how sudden nice and clean; These Entertainments ruin ev’ry Scene.

Noverre (1760,283-84), writing in the second half of the eighteenth century, took great exception to h s contemporaries’ continued preoccupation with capering, whch resulted in the body being “ceaselessly shaken by violent and reiterated jolts,” and saw it as a serious impediment to meaningful, that is, pantomimic, dance: It is a given that the breathlessness whch results from such painful labor stifles the language of sentiment; that entrechafs and cabrioles alter the character of la belle d a m e [i.e., the grave style]; and that it is morally impossible to put soul, truth, and expression into movements, while the body is ceaselessly shaken by violent and reiterated jolts, and while the mind thinks only of sparing the body from the accidents and falls whch threaten it at every moment.

However much he may have complained about the excessive capering in ballets generally, Noverre himself was a creature of his time. He allowed the principal dancer in h s Apelles et Campaspe of 1776 to caper away to the point where ”Alexander, played by Gardel, would rather give up h s world empire than h s entrechats”; indeed, to Grimm’s tlunking (1879, Oct. 1776,11:357-58), the second act would have been more of a success if “the conqueror of Asia had done fewer pirouettes and fewer dangerous jumps.”

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So obsessed with capering were eighteenth-century dancers that they more often than not resorted to the feats of the high dance, to ”meaningless nimbleness,” where the plot of a pantomime ballet required a simple pantomimic gesture: If the shortcomings found in the composition [of ballet plots] are great, those observed in the execution are no less so. Bereft of any philosophical idea of the true art for want of education or study, dancers are not able to distinguish between what requires artful dance and what requires imitation but mix the one with the other and confound them in such a manner that you are forced to see only the dancer where only pantomime is sought. This one sees either in their practice of choosing to do so often and without any true judgment the dance that is called high, which by all reason ought to be fully barred from the pantomime stage as that which, imitating nothing and reducing every movement of the body to meaningless nimbleness, is useless for creating a good dramatic effect, or in the uniform and similar attitudes with which they present themselves on stage so that in each character you have them done forward with the head always raised in a certain manner, with their arms curved like those of one who wishes to fly, with their heels raised off the floor or lightly pressing the floor, as if Ninias, Ulysses, Idomeneus, Telemacus had just come from a dance hall where they had taken a lesson together from the same master; or in that restlessness to take occasion at every moment to let the legs be brilliant as if the imitation of nature and the expression of affects were to be found in them rather than in the movements of the other limbs, in the eyes and countenance, the latter more often than not almost idle and neglected. (Arteaga [1785] 1998,257-58)

Just such a preoccupation with ”meaningless nimbleness” evidently led Angiolini to forgo the staid gravity needed for his role of Pluto in the pantomime ballet L’enl2z1emerzt de Proserpiize of 1757 and to choose to be incongruously “light”: “Monsieur Angiolini, her husband, could have been better as Pluto, but he preferred his usual lightness to a genre of dance and costume that was more fitting to the subject and the grave character that he took on” (Journal encyclopidiqiie 15 Sept. 1757, 130). This love of ”Capering and Tumbling,” this tremendous penchant for embellishing steps with brilliant beats in the air, was in fact a manifestation of the eighteenth-century’s passion for ornamentation in general. None of the performing and visual arts from music to painting, not to mention such other fields of applied art as fashion and interior design, were left untouched by this desire to divert the

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senses in a plenitude of embellishing detail; as Angiolini ([1773] 1998,61) complains of his age, ”the excessive quantity of ornaments mars all the arts and all their genres.” Descriptions of dance performances from the period provide concrete examples of the ”excessive quantity of ornaments” with which ballet was laden. The most popular of such terpsichorean ornaments was clearly “the entrechat, which is today the highest expression of dance” (Goudar 1773a, 70). Indeed, a string of brilliant entrechats was ”uncommonly h e ” in the eighteenth-century theater, according to Bonin (1712, 167), particularly when performed crossing the stage: Further, there are entrechats which are done one after the other a number of times in advancing over the stage, likewise executed with both feet crossing and are uncommonly fine but are considerably difficult as well, like the entrechat en tournant; it is to be understood here, however, that the advancing must be done de c6te‘, for when done straight out in front, they are not as clean [i.e., brilliant] because they do not take up such space as they do to the side.

When beaten h six or a h i t and repeated twenty to forty times in succession, the entrechat provided eighteenth-century dancers with a piece de resistance that could impress their spectators, as it did de Brosses during h s visit to Italy in 1739-1740. There to his amazement he saw a woman dancer perform twenty entrechats a huit in succession: But what has continually amazed me, even though I have see it daily, is a young woman dancer who rises at least as high and as strongly as Javilliers, who does twenty entrechats in succession without stopping, beaten a huit, and likewise with all those ‘entre-steps‘; of strength that we so marvel at in our masters, such that with regard to lightness, Camargo is a dancer of stone next to her. The women dancers in this country are generally much stronger and higher than ours [in France]. (cited in Sand 1862, 1:172)

In his description of a performance of Angolini’s pantomime ballet 11 re alla caccia, mounted in Venice in 1773, Ange Goudar (1773a, 57) also alludes to repeated entrechats, with the dancer in the role of Henri IV executing ”a string of entrechats,” as noted earlier. Nor were impressive displays of entrechats restricted merely to soloists; members of a corps could equally well avail themselves of

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strings of such brilliant steps, as did those at the Comedie-italienne on 22 May 1755, who ended the coiztredaizse in the fifth entree of the ballet Le inni with a competitive show of entrechats: ”the three corps de ballet join together. The youth still take up the center and often find themselves under the arms of the other two corps de ballet, the which increases the figures such that there seem to be many more dancers than there are. The coiztredaizse ends with a war of entrecliats” (Mercure de Fraizce June 1755, 2:199). A critic in the Jourizal des tlzkhtres (15 Jan. 1778, 196) in like manner remarks upon the use of the much loved entrechat by corps members in a scene of pillage from the opera Enzrliitdr, mounted at the Paris Opera in December of 1777: ”In Erizeliizde, we have indeed seen soldiers from the lands of the Goths, Swedes, and Hungarians do pirouettes among the debris of a city consumed by flames and eiztreclzats among its ruins.” So eager was the eighteenth-century dancer to reach an impressive height in such jumps that purity of technique was often sacrificed. According to the author of the ”Lettre d‘un abonne” (1778,199), the typical dancer ”rises as high as possible when doing an entrechat; hence, the absolute necessity of bending the body in two in order to double his strength,” instead of keeping himself ”straight as a board” (Taubert 1717, 724) during Lne preparatory bend. More robust dancers in the grotesque style could increase the number of leg movements in the air during such jumps to as many as ten or twelve. Magri (1779,1:130),for example, boasts of having been able to do an eiztreclznt A dix with two full turns in the air in his younger days: ”I was known for doing two turns interwoven ii dix in these capers, just as Vigano was singular in doing one turn interwoven u d o m e under the body and in beginning his pirouettes riz I’air [i.e., tours en l’air] in Spanish fifth.” The famed French dancer Antoine Pitrot was notorious for repeating or sustaining difficult feats that at times went beyond the bounds of good taste. The Austrian Count Khevenhiiller notes in his journal on 8 May 1756, for example, that Pitrot performed around forty consecutive cnbrioles li six, presumably cabriolrs croiskes, that is, entrechats a six, during one of his performances on the Viennese stage: ”Others will not easily come close to the figure of Pitrot, his manner of presenting himself and particularly the strength of his legs, how he once performed forty or so cabriolrs ri six one after the other, finally landing aploinb on one foot and holding himself thus” (cited in Brown 1991, 159). Such lengthy displays of beaten jumps

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were matched by h s sustained balances, even on pointe, which could last up to two minutes according to M a p (1779,1:91): As for aplomb, no one can match our much beloved Pitrot. He has succeeded in remaining aplomb for two minutes, and during this he has done every conceivable beat, en dedans, en dehors, high, low, ktendu, sur le cou-de-pied, as many as the skill of an expert ballerino makes possible, with tours de jambe done in sundry ways. This alone, however, is not worthy of amazement, for what is more [remarkable is that] he does not remain in equilibrium on the ball of one foot, as others do, but raises the whole body on the tip of the big toe and straightens all the joints so perfectly that the thigh, the leg, and the foot itself fall into one perpendicular line.

If such prolonged capering or sustained balances were not enough to amaze the spectator, Pitrot could resort to lengthy pirouettes, as he did in a performance of the ballet Le pouvoir des dames, mounted at the Comedie-italienne in 1765, wherein he performed a pirouette, presumably a pirouette sautillke or some kind of composite pirouette, that went on endlessly. As G r i m notes (1878, 15 Dec. 1765, 6:446-47), the ballet ”was so excessively long that the pit, bored to tears and afeared of spending the night at the Comedie, began to groan frightfully, especially when towards the end Pitrot came toward the edge of the stage to do a pirouette that in itself lasted a quarter of an hour.” Pitrot was not alone is his predilection for pirouettes of impressive duration; dancers throughout the eighteenth century cultivated turns as eagerly as they did capers. As one English critic complained around 1788, the art of dancing degenerates apace into downright tumbling: the chief merit of a modem dancer, consisting in various turnings and windings in imitation of the whirligig, which windings must abruptly end in the attitude of Mercury. This posture being evidently painful, becomes rather a tumbler than a dancer, who is ever supposed to move with ease; besides that it is so often repeated, that every dance offers a dull and tedious uniformity. (cited in Price et al. 1995, 519)

The author of the ”Lettre d’un abonne” (1778, 198-99) found the eighteenth-centuryballet dancer’s preoccupation with the number of rotations in multiple pirouettes excessive. He asks, “is it not madness, moreover, to prefer a sextuple pirouette to one with two or three turns

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done gracefully, since the former can be performed only from a preliminary position which has little to do with dance and with a lund of preparation characterized by a self-conscious attitude of the body and arms such that the dancer seems to say to the spectator, ’take note, gentlemen, I am about to pirouette.”’ One of the great strengths of Noverre’s choreography was that it did not consist merely of such feats as ”unending turns.” As the Afiches puts it (16 Oct. 1776), the ballets of this great master are not composed solely of monotonous patterns, unending turns and balancings, and steps that are stunningly difficult but convey no meaning to the spectator’s heart or mind. Here we have magnificent tableaux, ingenious groups and alluring attitudes following one another in rapid succession, and controlled attitudes which, at moments of pathos, can often draw comparison with the masterpieces of the Theitre Francais. (trans. in Guest 1996,96)

The eighteenth-century’s preoccupation with turning and multiple pirouettes is evident from other sources as well. According to Magri (1779, 1:89), a ”forced” pirouette was one by definition wherein the dancer twirled around as many times as possible: ”There are also forced or indeterminate pirouettes, which are done on the toe of only one foot, upon whch you quickly do as many turns as you can. It is said to be indeterminate because the number of turns hinges not upon the will of the dancer but on the greatness of his ability and agility.” A dancer in the grotesque style in the 1750s and 1760s, Magri (1779, 1:90) in fact boasts that in multiple pirouettes ”I have done as many as nine turns, with the good fortune of having found a place on the stage where I could turn without lundrance.“ Such whrling constituted an essential part of some roles in the eighteenth-century theater, such as those of the Bacchants, Winds, and Furies in particular. Le Jay (1725),for example, indicates that the dance of the Winds was typically ”characterized by frequent pirouettes that imitate the whrling of the wind” (trans. in Dorvane 1998,283).The love of twirling is evident as well from a comic dance scenario given in Lambranzi (1716, 1:7) that consists of nothing but turning punctuated by striking wooden plates together: “A man and a woman come onto the stage here and threaten each other with wooden plates, and while they continually turn around to the beat of the music, they strike the plates one against the other, and afterwards once they embrace, they throw away the plates, and the dance ends.”

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Turns of impressive duration were not restricted solely to fine dancers in reputable theaters; even fairground dancers and acrobats availed themselves of these feats, as did one woman seen by Uffenbach (1935,130)during h s visit to London in 1710, where he had occasion to marvel at this dancer’s ability to twirl around “with the greatest celerity” on a barrel for as long as a half hour: We saw one female who, for a small fee, did all kinds of dance figures with a bare sword, as you will have heard. I must confess that I have never seen anyone whose movements were so nimble. She twirled round with the greatest celerity for a good half-hour on a barrel. The most difficult thing of all that she did was to take two sharp swords between her breasts, two on her eyes, and three with the points in her mouth, and to twirl round like this; those in her mouth she held with her teeth, but the other four her hands. This is a wild and dangerous English fashion of diversion.

Despite Uffenbach’s claim that t h s was an “English”diversion, such acts of twirling with swords or daggers placed dangerously against the body were clearly a common feat among early-eighteenthcentury fairground dancers. Het groote Talereel der Dzuaasheid (1720, 41) includes an illustration (reproduced in Lawner 11998, 681) of a woman performing such a feat, while Nemeitz (1727, 176-77) describes more or less the same act in connection with the goings-on at the Paris fair, during which he saw the so-called English turner, around twenty years of age, who remained almost a half-hour on the same spot, ever turning around like a top with great rapidity, while she would often change now to the right, now to the left, and holding six naked swords in her hands with the points turned towards herself, she put one of them to her breast, one to her eye, another to her stomach, and so forth and even changed them often while she turned around incessantly, but at the end of the piece she gathered all six of them under one arm with unbelievable speed, a most dangerous profession.

A critic in the Baierische Bqtrage zur schonen uiid iziitzlichen Litteratur (1779,353)also alludes to acrobats turning for an impressive length of time, mentioning ”a rope-dancer or performer of tricks [who] stands on the tip of one toe for a quarter of an hour and whirls around.” Tlus plentiful use of pirouettes and multiple pirouettes was not an innovation of the eighteenth century but merely a continuation of a

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practice lnherited from the previous century, for already by the middle of the seventeenth century, pirouettes clearly figured s i p f i cantly in theatrical dance. In a royal ballet mounted in 1656, for example, Loret (1877, Jan. 1656, 2:150) saw “twenty exceptional dancers, who did more pirouettes than one can see larks in Beauce.” A dancer of a saraband described in the appendix to Pomey’s dictionary of 1671could ”pirouette so quickly that the eye could not follow” (trans. in Little and Jenne 1998,94). So popular were such turns that some ballroom dancers of the early seventeenth century, eager to emulate their whirling counterparts in the theater, met with censure from de Lauze (1623,36), who disapproved of mixing into social dance ”pirouettes (I mean with several violent and forced turns),’’ which more properly belonged to professional dancers. Multiple pirouettes of four or more rotations were in fact already an established element of dance by the beginning of the seventeenth century. Negri (1602, 91), for example, instructs the would-be student of his dance handbook to practice turning ”until you can turn around at least three or four times, or as many more as you can.” In contrast to the exhausting virtuosity of theatrical dance, obsessed as it was with capering and turning, eighteenth-century ballroom dancing with its simple terre-a-terre steps was ”temperate” and ”much less tiring,” as Dufort (1728)makes clear in his preface: Of these two kinds of dance, that of the theater, with its repetition of beaten, capering, and turning steps, is very exhausting to dance. Only to professional dancers (of whom very few succeed in the theater and consequently come to be highly regarded) is it or should it be of use. The dance of the ballroom or of thefestino, on the other hand, of which we wish to speak and with which I will deal in this book, is much less tiring than that of the theater. It is of use to ladies, gentlemen, and other genteel persons, ar.d even monarchs have not been free from the wish to learn it; for this reason, it has been given the name ’noble dance.’ . . . This noble exercise, which is not violent, but temperate, besides being required, is necessary for persons of distinction and equally serves those as well who need to exercise to keep the body in health.

Even when dances that properly belonged to the stage, such as chaconnes or sarabands, were performed in the ballroom, they were to be done with gentle terre-k-terre steps: “In la belle danse can be included even sarabairdes and chacoirnes; they must, however, be made up of gentle steps, for tlus is required in la belle danse. Thus, one says

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when these or other such dances are danced gently at assemblies that 'the gentleman is properly dancing ferre-u-terre, or par terre"' (Bonin 1712, 137). Indeed, the ballroom dancer was not to imitate stage dancers, for "it shows as little taste in social dance to imitate dancers from the opera as it is to imitate the grotesque dancers of Italy or the bayadkres of Hindustan" (Martinet 1797, 21).8Capers generally were quite out of place on the ballroom floor, however popular they were on stage, and any amateur dancer who paraded h s skill in their execution was apt to be dismissed as a "showoff." Taubert (1717,1060), for example, laments that it is a blinding and indeed a most hoodwinking madness when many a beginner in choosing a good master has an eye only for the high capers and great springs into the air, and I do not wish to repeat here from the chapter 35 that at the present time one dances in a most gentle manner at all the courts, indeed, at the conzJersationsqalmost everywhere, and absolutely no capers are to be seen anymore, unless a Haseleus shows up wishing to show off with his skill.

Even accomplished nonprofessional dancers generally avoided in the ballroom anything that smacked of the theater and endeavored to dance "in a most gentle manner," above all in the minuet, the most popular French ballroom dance of the period: [Tlhe minuet, just like the courante, is danced in two ways, either simple or figured. By the simple minuet is understood the ordinary minuet, which is current and known throughout the whole world, likewise danced in two ways, namely, low and high. By the low minuet is understood the common manner of dancing it with its familiar figure and main terre-li-terre step; by the high, on the other hand, when it is danced by those who already know a good something about dancing and are capable of forming all kinds of pleasing manikres [i.e., ornaments], which are varied with all manner of high and much more artful steps both in the upper and lower straight lines as well as in the giving of hands and dancing back, and so forth. But these days, however, the gentle manner gives the greatest pleasure, indeed, so much so that even the best of all dancers wholly forgo the great variations taken from the high dances (whch could, otherwise, very well be used in the minuet, where everything is normally free) and, on the contrary, endeavor to dance in an entirely gentle manner, both with the hands and feet as well as with the whole body. (Taubert 1717,616)

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Outside the theater, dancing was not an end in itself to be pursued with passion but a means to a social end, namely, developing graceful movement and providing an entertaining forum for people to socialize and interact. llus view of dance as a means rather than an end is particularly evident in Captain Edward Topham’s remark about the Scots, who, as Topham discovered during h s visit to Edinburgh in 1774-1775, unfashionably danced for the sake of dancing: “The young people of England only consider dancing an agreeable means of bringing them together. But the Scotch admire the reel for its own merit alone, and may truly be said to dance for the sake of dancing” (cited in RSCDS 1992, 1.3). The Tufler (2 May 1710) in like manner remarks upon the age’s greater interest in developing graceful movement rather than skill in dancing, noting that ”the Opera’s which are of late introduced, can leave no Trace behind them that can be of Service beyond the present Moment. To sing, and to dance are Accomplishments very few have any Thoughts of practising; but to speak justly, and move gracefully, is what every Man thinks he does perform, or wishes he did.” Too keen an enthusiasm for dancing and for learning too many dances was not genteel, as Kemmerich notes (1711),warning that a gentleman should not play the dancing master. Thus, if he knows how to dance mannerly above all a minuet, a courante, besides the old and new passepied, then I’Aimable Vainqueur and perhaps a few other new dances, that is, to my thinking, enough for a gentleman. He, however, who wishes to show off with too many artful entries and sarabandes places himself in a position where the intelligent will think that he has spent more effort on secondary rather than primary things. (cited in Meletaon 1713,82433)

Ballroom dancers in fact were to avoid dancing ”too exquisitely” and were to cultivate rather an ”Artful Carelessness,” or a fashionably easy negligence and nonchalance. As Weaver remarks (1712,65-66), TO Dance too exquisitely, is, I must own, too laborious a Vanity; and to be totally ignorant of it, and of that Carriage, Behaviour, Fashion and Address, gain‘d by learning it; shews (on the other hand) a Man either Stoical,or but meanly bred, or not us’d to Conversation. The best therefore is a kind of Artful Carelessness, as if it were a natural Motion, without a too curious and painful practising. . . . And in my Opinion it is requisite for a Man so to Dance as not to put his Friends or Acquaintance that behold him out of Countenance; or that he should be asham’d were his Enemy standing by.

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The eighteenth-century practice of cultivating a certain ne‘gligence in ballroom dance was mherited from the second half of the seventeenth cenhry. Indeed, the passage gven just above from Weaver is in fact partly derived from an earlier seventeenth-century source, namely, Owen Felltham’s Resolzws (1661,338),which sirmlarly states that To dance too exquisitely is so laborious a vanity, that a man would be ashamed to let any body see, by his dexterity in it, that he hath spent so much time in learning such a trifle. And to be totally ignorant of it, and of the garbe and comportment that by learning it, is leam’d; shewes a man either Stoical or but meanly bred, and not inur‘d to Conziersation. The best is a kind of careless easiness, as if ‘twere rather natural motion, then curious and artificial practizing. (cited in Ralph 1985, 503-4)

Felltham’s contemporary de Pure (1668, 246) in like manner notes that ”too great an attachment can be vulgar; it is shameful for a gentleman to strive to be a great dancer, a h e singer, or a slullful painter rather than to be brave if he is a soldier, learned if a scholar, or industrious if in business.” Scattered references in the sources describing the goings-on at balls during t h s period show that those dancing “beyond their station,” as it were, or attempting to impress with too many artful movements generally met with ridicule, particularly in the atmosphere of petty jealousy and rivalry prevailing at princely and royal courts. A certain Montbron met with just such a scornful response during a French royal ball in 1697, wherein the aristocrat’s conlidence in dance far outstripped his slull and led h m to commit the faux pas of attempting more than he could do. SaintSimon writes in h s Me‘rnoires (1953,1:42) that Montbron had been asked if he danced well; he had answered with a confidence which made everyone hope that he danced ill, and everyone was satisfied. From the first bow, he became confused; from the first steps, he lost the beat. He thought that he could catch up again and hide his mistake through affected airs and a high port de bras, but this made him only more ridiculous and excited bursts of laughter, which degenerated at length into veritable hoots, despite the respect due to the person of the King, who had difficulty keeping himself from laughing.

The practice of cultivating an “Artful Carelessness” in lateseventeenth-century social dance was evidently as much a necessity as a choice, since most amateurs do not appear to have been accomplished enough or even physically fit enough to perform difficult dance movements. According to the duchesse d’Orl6ans (1984, 7),

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the general level of physical fitness at Louis XIV’s court, for example, was remarkably low. The duchesse claims in a letter dated 5 February 1672 that those at court “are as lame as geese, and except for the Kmg, Madame de Chevreuse, and myself there is not a soul here who can do more than twenty steps without sweating and puffing.” Indeed, social dancing altogether appears to have suffered a serious falling off in popularity in the late seventeenth century. The duchesse (1984, 88) again writes in a letter dated 14 May 1695 that ”dancing must be out fashion everywhere. At every gathering here in France people do nothing but play lansquenef. This game is all the rage now, so the young people no longer want to dance.” Even the would-be ”theatrical” dances in amateur productions staged at court by more accomplished aristocrats, who had the time and means to study dance more intensely than others, needed to be much simpler than those executed by professional dancers, for as de Pure notes (1668,248), no matter how skillful or clever [the dancing masters] may be, they are greatly hampered by the stupidity of most great lords and persons of quality. Normally, the latter are incapable of anything and hence force the most skilled and competent masters to reduce the force of the step, the nimbleness of the movement, and the other graces of dance so as not to mangle an entrie with their different steps and movement.

The desire to cultivate an ”Artful Carelessness” in eighteenthcentury ballroom dance influenced not only the choice of steps and the manner in which they were done on the parquet but also the kinds of dances preferred in the ballroom. To match their relaxed manner of dancing, social dancers throughout the eighteenth century typically eschewed slow or technically demanding dances, which required skill and control, and restricted themselves to freer, more romping dances, above all to English country dances, which were more in harmony with the lighthearted and self-indulgent sensibility of the age. The country dance, which tended towards the rollicking rather than the genteel, had became popular among all classes of people in England during the seventeenth century and was quickly ”transplanted into almost all the Courts of Europe; and is become in the most August Assemblies the favourite Diversion” (Weaver 1712, 170-71). Already by the middle of the seventeenth century, English country dances were being danced on the Conti-

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nent. According to Bulstrode Whitelocke's Jourizal of the Swedish Ambassy, the revels occasioned by a visit of English diplomats to Sweden in 1654, included English country dances, for on one occasion, "several1 others of Wtelocke's gentlemen were taken forth by the Swedish ladyes, to daunce english countrey daunces, wherein the english gentlemen were expert, and taught them some new ones," while on a different occasion in the same year "many of the gentlemen and ladyes fell to dauncing of french daunces and country daunces above two howers togithers" (cited in Skeaping 1967, 26, 29). These jolly dances, enjoyed by high and low, in no time eclipsed and then replaced the grave ballroom dances lnherited from the late seventeenth century. As Bonnet notes (1723,134-35), since the marriage of Monsieur le Duc de Bourgogne [in 16971, one has seen the noble and serious dances year by year disappear, such as the bocanne, the canaries, the passepied, the Duchesse, and many others, which consisted in showing the fine grace and fine air of grave dance as it was practiced at the time of the old court. The brrinle, courante, and minuet have scarcely been saved; in their stead, the younger sort at court dance contredanses, in which neither the gravity nor the nobility of the old dances can be found. Such are la jalousie, le cotillon, les munches zlertes, les rats, la cabarretikre, la testard, le remouleur, and so forth, so much so that in the course of time only clownish dances will be danced any more at ceremonial assemblies. This will mean the end of the serious dances and justifies the reproach that the French are of a fickle humor and in this as in many other things often sacrifice the good to the pleasure of novelty.

The freedom inherent in the English country dances, particularly in their steps, which did not demand the same discipline as those of formal French dance, often manifested itself in a general romping abandon: This puts me in mind of the English dances, which are very common at balls these days. Whoever has seen them danced will have observed that in them one is not bound to any graceful or artful steps but rather is concerned more with jumping in the German manner, wherein nothing more than the particular figure is observed. Some take this freedom too far and jump around far too annoyingly and make such a noise with their stamping feet as if Dick and Harry were doing their kermis dance on the dance floor with Bess and Molly. (Meletaon 1713,201)

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Such dancing in the so-called German manner meant simply romping about more or less like peasants without much art or discipline. This free and unstructured way of dancing, well captured in William Hogarth’s engraving The Country Dance (1753),was enjoyed by high and low, as Bonin notes (1712,23940): As for so-called ’German’ or common dancing, it is not only in use everywhere among the common people but is even found at balls and at courts, for even in this sort of dance people wish to enjoy themselves after the galant or French dances. I can give no good reason why it is called ’German,’ for I know that the common people and peasants in France jump around in just such a manner and that it thus could just as well be called French dancing, but perhaps because it has been common in Germany for a long time, it has been so named, for it could be called more suitably common jumping or common dancing. Indeed, it is more than too common, for as already said, not a wedding is held wherein one does not usually dance in this manner; to be sure, should one visit these festivities, one will see the guests dancing in the German manner.

In his retrospective look at dance in eighteenth-century Edinburgh, the Scotsman William Creech (1815, 114) in like manner comments upon the romping character of country dances, noting that by 1786 “minuets were given up, and country dances only used, which had often a nearer resemblance to a game of romps, than to elegant and graceful dancing.” The freedom and abandon characteristic of eighteenth-century English country dances consisted not merely in the ”German” steps but also in a kind of egalitarianism wherein social rank counted little. As Bonin remarks (1712, 235), ”in English dancing, wherein the whole assembly can dance together at one time if the space is large enough, rank is not so strictly observed as before, but whoever can dance the best is placed foremost, with the ladies and the gentlemen across from each other, unless some other arrangement is required by the figure.” Such freedom and abandon were not to everyone’s taste during the period. Bacquoy-Guedon ([l778], 55-56) felt that the unstructured manner of dancing common in country dances would lead to bad dance technique and even to a loss of moral fiber. As his reviewer in the Mercure de France aptly summarizes (Feb. 1778,152),Bacquoy-Guedon ”takes to task English and German contredanses, the figures of which are too unbridled and excessive, whch c a w the body to contract bad

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habits and whch can even be dangerous to the morals of youths. It is to be wished that they be replaced with French contredanses, wherein the expression is less strong and the movement better regulated.” So popular had romping country dances become that by the second decade of the eighteenth century, the only formal French couple dance commonly figuring in social functions throughout most of Europe was the minuet. Taubert (1717,615)notes, for example, that the minuet ”is a right merry dance common everywhere and is indeed the most beloved dance at the present time so much so that at all the assemblies throughout almost the whole of Europe nothing but the minuet is danced apart from the old passepied and some English dances.” Despite the popularity of the minuet, few evidently danced it well, not surprisingly gven the overall preference for a certain negligent air on the ballroom dance-floor. As Josson remarks (1763,23), ”there are few persons who dance the minuet, for apart from a very small number, all the rest are ignorant of it down to its most basic principles. Those who take a turn around the room executing some ill-formed steps fancy that they know how to dance the minuet, which they have learned perhaps in fifteen days or in a month at the very most.” Indeed, the preference for a certain artful carelessness in social dance led some to abandon the port de bras of the ballroom minuet altogether and confine their efforts to the feet. Taubert (1717, 553), for example, notes in h s discussion of the minuet that “these days indeed some foolish teachers and corrupters of dance assert that the port de bras is now no longer in fashion and thus discard it because it is too affected.” Hiinsel (1755,128)similarly writes in his section on the minuet port de bras that ”many do away with it altogether and reason that it is no longer in use; others claim it is affected; still others deem it most unnatural, irrational, and forced.” The German dance, or the allemande (not to be confused with the so-called German dancing mentioned above), became particularly popular throughout fashionable Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century. Ldce the English country dance, it allowed the executant to romp with a certain measure of abandon, for the allemande was almost completely unstructured and improvisatory. As Hiinsel notes (1755,162), “its figure is not regulated, and each dancer can perform it according to his own fancy,” and ”its form and port de bras can also be done in ddferent ways.“ According to Pa& (1756,65),the abandon of the allemande was evident particularly in German-speakmg parts: ”There is hkewise the allemande, which is danced as a diversion; it is

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well imitated, but rarely does anyone acquire the lightness and the daring turns of the natives of that country where persons of the lughest standing turn throwing themselves from one arm to the other, pirouetting under the arms and rising into the air so much so that the positions are not very moderated.” The abandon marufested itself most clearly in the gentleman f i g or even throwing lus partner up into the air wlule dancing. In his discussion of the allemande, H;insel (1755,162-63)touches upon such lifts and notes that ”the gentleman customanly dances straight up to the lady, takes her under the arms and raises her in the air,or even takes her around the waist with both hands and wlurls [her] around in a large turn, turns,and often in doing so throws her into the air while turning around.” Noverre (1760, 358) also alludes to llfts in German dancing. No rule is without its exception, however. Despite the overall preference among amateurs to cultivate a more relaxed manner of dancing and to eschew technically difficult dance movements and more demanding dances, some amateurs throughout our period clearly acquired an impressive level of technical proficiency in formal dance and did in fact avail themselves of their skill in executing more difficult steps throughout the period. As we will see in greater detail in chapter 9, such displays of technique were confined largely to more intimate gatherings, where one was more at leisure and less concerned about making an impression; to divertissements at formal balls, where such display constituted a form of entertainment to break up the monotony of too many minuets; and above all to amateur theatricals and to masquerades, where the anonymity of the mask ensured that the participants could save face if terpsichorean intention outstripped performance ability or one rival outdanced another. As Bonin (1712,159430)makes clear, the high dances “must not be danced anywhere else except at masquerades or redoutes or on the stage in plays and operas, although they may be done at an assembly among very intimate and well-known good friends, when one wishes to be particularly merry, where galaizferie and the proper character of the dancing are not so strictly observed.” NOTES 1. Special thanks to Bruce Alan Brown for supplying this quotation. 2. In the seventeenth century, the term baladin was a common designation for a ”professional dancer.” Furetiere (1690) himself gives as a definition “dancer by profession on public stages, who dances for wages and for

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money. It is sometimes more generally used of buffoons or clowns, who amuse the people." The Dictionnaire de I'Acadimie of 1694 likewise defines the term as an "ordinary dancer in ballets" (cited in KougioumtzoglouRocher 1990, 2:24). By the 1770s the word was largely pejorative: "Baladin. This word used to mean any theatrical dancer; it is now used to designate only a clown" (Dictionnaire de I'Acade'inie 1778, 1:95). 3. The word honn2te, translated here as "fashionable," had a wider field of meaning in seventeenth-century French than it does currently. Furetiere (1690)defines the word thus: "That which merits esteem and praise because it is reasonable, in accordance with good morals; it is used above all of a man of wealth, a fashionable man who has adopted a worldly air, who has sazloir ziiiire. " 4. Even such a large space as the Paris Opera, which was regularly converted into a ballroom after opera performances by raising the floor of the pit level with the stage, could become so thronged with people that little room was left for dancing. At a masked ball held there in 1721, for example, "the crowd of maskers was so great that one could dance with ease a little only at four o'clock in the morning when people began to leave" (Mercure de France June 1721, 5). Sara Goudar (1777, 1:56) similarly writes that at an Italian masked ball in 1777 "the crowd was so great that you could have suffocated there." 5. Taubert uses the French word tour here, which can mean either a "figure" in dancing or more broadly a "feat"; the context above suggests the latter is meant. 6. C o y s de ballet here means simply the combined entrees or individual dances rather than the combined forces of the nonprincipal dancers. De Pure (1668,228)uses the expression corps de ballets in a similar sense and defines the term thus: "The c o y s de ballet is nothing other than a combination of the entries and incidents which go together and make up a pleasing whole." 7. Entrepas, translated here as "entre-steps," is presumably a play on entrechat. The term entrqas was also used, however, in horsemanship to denote "a forced gait or in fact a broken amble" (Trichter 1742,624). 8. Martinet gives in fact "baladieres," presumably a slightly garbled form of b a y a d h a influenced by baladins. 9. A Conzlersation was a social gathering with no planned entertainments or refreshments; that is, "the conversation consists merely of talking" (Taubert 1717,1108).

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Chapter 3

The Four Traditional Styles of Ballet

Beware of errors of taste that might lead you to make a Tartar dance like a sylph, or a peasant like Telemachus. (Daubervall797, trans. in Guest 1996,404)

While the dance of the eighteenth century was broken down broadly into two very different and distinct styles, namely, ballroom dance and ballet, so too the latter was further subdivided into distinct styles. There were in fact four broad styles of ballet cultivated in the eighteenth-century theater, and these "characters," as they were sometimes called, were distinct not only in the kmds of personages portrayed or the sorts of costumes typically used but also in the choice of steps, ports de bras, and attitudes, and even in the manner of executing these movements or positions. Since art was to hold a mirror up to nature and truthfully reflect the differences found among men, so too ballet as an art needed to portray these differences with verisimilitude, at least in theory. Given that, say, a lung and shepherd were not to move or comport themselves in the same manner in life, both these characters in the fictional world of the theater needed to dance differently and move in a manner befitting their station, and likewise with other characters as well, or as Dorat puts it (1771,171), "the dance of a shepherd is not that of a god." This cultivation of ddferent dance styles was not merely motivated by the dictates of dramaturgical necessity but was also based on the clear-eyed recognition that not all the bodies or aptitudes of dancers are equal or interchangeable and that each dancer is naturally well suited to some kmds of movements but often dl suited to others. In 81

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contrast to its homogenized modem counterpart, eighteenth-century ballet was more inclusive thanks to its cultivation of different styles and had room and need for different body types, for the natural gifts and shortcomings of each individual were not to be ignored but exploited. Ideally, each dancer was to follow his own bent and not be forced to execute movements at odds with hs inborn predisposition. Indeed, the secret of pleasing lay not in conforming to an outer model but in having the intelligence to recogruze and employ one’s own natural talent fully, as Borin makes clear (1746,20): Before concluding this fourth part, I think I cannot show the usefulness of the rules in this art better than by speaking of some dancers who have so perfectly availed themselves thereof and who have found the secret of pleasing and of procuring for themselves renown, although they were not born with all the talent needed to reach perfection. They have had the intelligence to employ only their natural talent, which they have managed with so much address that their admirers maintain they leave nothing to be desired. Those who have realized they have smooth, lithesome movements, a fine figure, together with exquisite taste and a grand possession, have chosen a style of dance that is terreri-terre, noble, gentle, and graceful. Others, knowing themselves to be light and vigorous, have chosen to dance in a lively and brilliant manner and to amaze through their elevation and the difficulty of execution.

The origin of the four traditional styles may well owe something to the old theory of the four humors, according to which each individual had h s own unique ”complexion,” or combination of “humors,” which were supposed to be the four body fluids of blood, phlegm, choler, and bile. A predominance of any one of these humors was thought to make an individual predisposed by nature to be respectively sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, or melancholic. As Pasch puts it (1707,26-27), the whole body of the dancer is to be considered here and mainly what sort of complexion and strength the individual has and what sort of humor he has, since the background and station as well as the responsibilities and profession of a person rather often create many differences, in accordance with the proverb honores inutant inores [honors change manners]. This I have set down in more detail in my text, in the chapter dealing with what one is to observe in teaching dance to men, women, children, adults, the more aged, the tall, the short, the fat, the slender, the strong, the weak, the fiery and active, the phlegmatic and

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sluggish, the clever, the stupid, the capricious, and so forth, and all of this is in large part derived from the different complexions. And just as it is laugh-worthy when an individual who is saturnine, sanguine, and so forth saddles all the other complexions with rules which seem good to him for his affairs and would always be right for him but would make his complexion the sole ruler over all of [human] nature, so it would not be good if one did not distinguish between these complexions in the true art of dance but passed over everyone with one stroke of the comb.

The division of theatrical dance into distinct styles was not an innovation of the eighteenth century but was in fact a practice mherited from the foregoing period. Already in the first half of the seventeenth century, ballet was subdivided into at least two broad categories. Saint-Hubert (1641,4-5), for example, notes in his handbook on dance that ”there are two kinds of ballets, the serious and the grotesque.” In the late seventeenth century, the number of styles evidently increased, largely, it appears, as a result of Lully’s attempt to write more ”characterized” music that would capture the essence of a unique dramatic situation. Dubos (1719,1:493) notes in particular that ”the success of the airs de zdesse gave Lully the idea of composing some that were fast and characterized at the same time. One commonly calls characterized airs those wherein the tune and rhythm imitate the style of a particular kind of music and whch one can imagine to have been proper to certain peoples and even certain personages of ancient fables, who perhaps never existed.” Dubos (1719, 1:495)notes further that Lully’s novelty led to a variety and elegance in the ballets and violin tunes never before seen. Sixty years ago [around 16601, fauns, shepherds, peasants, Cyclopes, and Tritons danced almost the same. Dance today is divided into a number of characters, and each of these characters on the stage has steps, attitudes, and figures that are proper to it. Even women have little by little found their way into these characters.

In the eighteenth century, ballet was commonly but not invariably subdivided into four broad styles, whch are not always consistently named from one writer to the next. As noted in the previous chapter, these different styles could be designated by terms which in other writers refer to ballroom dance. Gallini (1762,72),for example, notes that “as to the different characters of dances, there are, properly

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spealung, four divisions of the characters of dances: the serious, the half serious, the comic, and the grottesque.” Gallini (1762, 19) evidently was uncertain whether the half-serious should be termed in fact the half-comic, for he speaks in one breath of “the moderately comic, or half serious.” Angiolini (1765)and Sulzer (1794,4:506)likewise subdivide theatrical dance into four different styles; Angiolini provides French equivalents for these characters: la belle danse or la danse noble for the serious, the demi-caractere for the half-serious, the comique, and the grotesque. Other writers give only three styles, with the comic and grotesque simply lumped together as a combined category, for as Weaver (1728a, 56) notes, the “Grotesque among Masters of our Profession, takes in all comic Dancing whatever.” These three styles appear in Bonin (1712, 58-59) as the ”serious” (ermtlzafftig); the ”brisk” (hurtig), that is, the half-serious; and finally the comic and grotesque (cornique et grotesque), dealt with as one. Noverre (1760,229-30) also discerns three broad categories: first, the “serious” or “heroic” (which he also calls la belle danse or la danse noble), second, the ”mixed” or ”half-serious” (which he also calls the demi-caractere or galant), and finally the “comic” or “grotesque”: Serious and heroic dance bears within it the character of tragedy; the mixed, or half-serious, commonly called the deini-caractkre, bears that of noble comedy, otherwise called high comedy, and grotesque dance, which is called pantomime and incorrectly so since it says nothing, borrows its features from comedy, from the comic, gay, and pleasant sort. The historical paintings of the celebrated Vanloo are the image of serious dance, those of the galant and inimitable Boucher for that of the demi-caractkre, and finally those of the incomparable Teniers for that of comic dance. The talent of the three dancers who particularly embrace these genres must be as different as their figure, their physiognomy, and their training. The one will be tall, the other galant, and the last amusing. The first will draw his subjects from history and fable, the second from pastorals, and the third from the base, rustic class.

Planelli ([1772] 1981,111, 113) initially indicates that dance ”is broken down into the h g h and low; the h g h dance is that which a dancer does in rising as h g h as he can off the floor with both feet, the low dance that which is done with both feet or at least one foot resting on the floor.” Later in his discussion of pantomime ballet, he discerns three styles, the “serious” or “heroic,” the “demi-caractere,” and the

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”grotesque.” Other writers reduce the styles to only two broad categories as well, with the serious and half-serious as one and the comic and grotesque as a second. Taubert often subsumes the grotesque mder the rubric of the comic, speaking, for instance (1717,962), of ”the movements in the bullet cornique et grotesque, or the art of comic dance,” while the combined serious and half-serious go by the name of la haute dunse or le bullet skrieux. Lange (1751, 6) similarly breaks down theatrical dance into only “le bullet skrieux and le bullet cornique et (1755, 173), who writes that stage dancing grotesque,” as does H-el is divided ”into two classes, to wit, the serious and the comic; the French call them, moreover, le ballet shieux and le ballet cornique et grotesque.” Weaver (1712,162-67) in hke manner gives the two broad categories of the serious and the grotesque, subdividing the former into the ”grave” (serious)and the ”brisk” (half-serious). Further subdivisions are made by others. In h s discussion of pantomime ballet, Arteaga ([1785] 1998,241),for example, discerns also a ”sylvan” and a “tragc” style: As poetry has its sundry styles, so does dance, and the shortcomings and virtues of both are regulated by the same principles. The attitudes are playful and merry in comic ballets, animated and terrible in the tragic, majestic and grave in the serious, beautiful and simple in the sylvan, charming and delightful in the amatory [i.e., demi-caractere], regulated and elegant in all. These are required for the styles of pantomime.

Dubos (1748,3:130)goes so far as to claim that “now the dance is divided into several characters. The artists, if I am not mistaken, reckon sixteen, and each of these characters has its proper steps, attitudes, and figures upon the stage.” Some sources, moreover, give even further alternate names for some of the styles outlined above. Instead of the comic or grotesque, Sol (1725,54),for example, speaks of “character dances, with peasants, and so forth.” The critics in the Mercure de France often give descriptive phrases when referring to the serious style, such as the ”the majestic, noble, and imposing style” (July 1772,2:146),or ”imposing, noble dance” (June 1772,158), or the ”grand genre of dance” (Oct. 1770, 1:159),or, finally, ”noble, graceful dance” (June 1771,176). The tendency to lump together the serious and half-serious on the one hand and the comic and the grotesque on the other reflects a basic feature of these styles. That is, the serious and half-serious were restricted to what one might call “classical” positions and steps,

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while the comic and grotesque often included nonclassical elements, such as positions without turnout, or jumps and steps taken from folk or national dance or from the repertory of movements common to fairground acrobats. Despite their differences, these styles shared many of the same movements, and the serious style in particular, also known as la danse noble, la belle danse, la haute danse, le genre gracieux, le grand genre, or the grave, was commonly held to be the foundation of the art. As Noverre puts it (1807,2:116),”the study of la belle danse leads to all the styles; it is the key, and this study is to the art what rudiments and grammar are to the purity of language.” Gallini (1762, 72) likewise indicates that ”for executing any of [the styles] with grace, the artist should be well grounded in the principles of the serious dance, which will give him what may be called a delicacy of manner in all the rest.” Despite its fundamental importance, the serious style was the least popular of the four traditional styles generally among audiences throughout eighteenth-century Europe. This character was, however, greatly popular in Paris, especially at the Paris Opera, and most of the great talents in this genre throughout the period were to be found manly in the French capital. The great Louis Dupre (1697?-1774), a pupil of Louis Pecour, was widely held to be the finest male dancer in this style from the first half of the period and had the honor of being called the ”God of dance.” Not only an outstanding dancer, Dupre was also a formative teacher, and many of the great dancers, teachers, and choreographers from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries could trace their pedagogcal lineage back to him. “llus fine dancer served as a model for Vestris the Elder” (Noverre 1807, 1:80),that is, Gaetan Vestris (1729-1808), Dupre’s pupil and then successor as principal dancer in the serious style at the Paris Opera. Vestris in turn became “the best model of la danse noble” (Mercure de France July 1772,2:150)and was similarly styled the ”God of dance.” Pierre Gardel(1758-1840) was also a noted dancer in the serious style at the Paris Opera. Dixmerie (1769, 524) notes that the character of the serious genre was greatly indebted to the famed dancer Marie Salle (1707?-1756), its most outstanding female practitioner in the early eighteenth century: “The noble genre also had women dancers of rare, outstanding talent. The old theater laid claim to the likes of Subligny, Guyot, and Prevost, but it was noble and graceful Salle who deserved and met with all the applause. It was she who established the notion of what tlus genre of dance should be.” Salle’s suc-

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cessor as the most outstanding female dancer in the grave style in the second part of the century was Anne Heinel (1753-1808), ”the most perfect model for serious dance” according to Noverre (1807,2:118), or as Bachaumont puts it (1780, 9 Aug. 1768, 4:78), ”the most majestic woman dancer within human memory.” Heinel’s LTersion of the serious style was so close to Vestris’s that in watching her perform, “you would think you were seeing Vestris dance as a woman” (Bachaumont and d’hgerville 1780,9 Mar. 1768,3:314). The serious style then was one devoted to the portrayal of the lofty, noble, digrufied, and sublime and thus was the style usual with such characters as gods, goddesses, lungs, queens, grand heroes, and heroines. Sulzer (1794,4:506),for example, makes clear that t h s style was to portray the ”high, serious characters” of tragedy: The fourth class encompasses dances of a high, serious character, as required by the tragic theater. They are made up either of solo dances, which portray only great and serious characters, or of whole actions of a certain theme. Here, everything must come together that the art can represent in terms of position and movement for the expression of great sentiment.

Given its task of portraying loftiness and digruty, the serious style by necessity was largely restricted to a certain gentle and ”languid” quality, characterized by “those tilts of the head, those cadenced unfurhgs of the arms, those libidinous movements of the body, the languor and softness of wluch put me to sleep as readily as one of Lully’s operas,” as Suard notes (1753?,33). T ~ ”softness” E did not imply lunpness but rather a digrufied fluidity and smoothness. Such ”strong softness”was clearly typical of Heinel’s dancing, for her admirers found particularly laudable the ”dignity and gracefulness of her person and perfection of her dancing, which is at the same time soft and strong, bold and graceful” (Mercure de France July 1770, 1:185). Since the grave style was devoted to softness, the serious dancer, who needed time to ”unfurl” his limbs in a graceful and languid manner, typically danced to slow music, to such movements as the grave, loure, couranfe, saraband, passacaille, pavane, “the Spanish pauane . . . which is commonly called les folies d’Espagne” (Taubert 1717, 369), and sometimes the chaconne. As Magri indicates (1779,1:116), to be pleasing in the serious style, one needs to dance in a languid manner, and by being so used to this kind of softness, the body is ever

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Chapter 3 languissant, as the French say. Thus, he who dances in the serious style will have a hard time dancing in the other styles but will dance gracefully in graaes, loures, passacailles, and sometimes chnconnes, although not all serious bnllerini dance the latter, as was said in the relevant chapter.

Bielfeld (1770, 3:365) in like manner notes that the serious dancer typically performed to slow-moving music, that to express the different characters of the persons who compose a ballet, or any other theatric dance whatever, the subjects they are to represent, and the sentiments they are supposed to entertain, the master of the ballet makes use of the different modes or characters in music, and the steps that are appropriated [i.e., appropriate] to each mode; as those of the saraband, courant, louvre, &c. for the grave and serious, and those of the minuet, passepie, chaconne, gavot, rigaudoon, jig, &c. for the gay, lively or comic.

Weaver (1712, 164) notes in passing that the passacaille and chaconne in particular belonged to the grave style as cultivated by the likes of Louis Pecour: ”It must be allow’d that the French excel in this kind of Dancing; and Monsieur Prcour (as I am inform’d) in the Chaconne, or Passacaille, whch is of the grave Moziement, and the most agreeable Character in this Dancing.” Descriptions of performances from the period also indicate that a slow musical tempo was characteristic of this kind of dancing. German-born Anne Heinel, for example, fittingly known in her adopted homeland of France as the ”Engel” (German for angel) because of the lofty quality of her movement, was able to move so gracefully in such slowness that she ever resembled Pygmalion’s statue gradually coming to life. As Walpole puts it (1904,25Aug. 1771,8:76), there is a finer dancer, whom Mr. Hobart is to transplant to London; a Mademoiselle Heinel, or Ingle [i.e., Engel], a Fleming. She is tall, perfectly made, very handsome, and has a set of attitudes copied from the classics. She moves as gracefully slow as Pygmalion’s statue when it was coming to life, and moves her leg round as imperceptibly as if she was dancing in the Zodiac.

The serious style was not defined exclusively by musical tempo, however, and serious dancers could also dance to more animated music at times. Heinel’s debut performance at the Paris Opera in

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March of 1768, for example, was to both slow and lively music; a critic in the Mercure de France (Mar. 1768,180)notes that “Mademoiselle Heinel, aged fifteen, a pupil of Monsieur Lepy, former principal male dancer for His Serene Highness the Duke of Wurttemberg, debuted Friday the twenty-sixth to tunes added to the divertissement of the fifth act for this purpose. This debut, made up of three different entries, was done to a tune in the graceful genre, a Zoure ending with a bit of a chaconne, and finally a lively gavotte.” There is no indication that Heinel danced in any style other than the serious. Because of the typical slowness of the music, the serious was mainly a terre-a-terre style, characterized by “Softness,easie Bendings and Risings” rather than powerful and brilliant jumps, as Weaver indicates (1712, 163). Expanding upon Weaver, Gallini (1762, 75-76) writes that I have before observed that the grave or serious stile of dancing, is the great ground-work of the art. It is also the most difficult. Firmness of step, a graceful and regular motion of all the parts, suppleness, easy bendings and risings, the whole accompanied with a good air, and managed with the greatest ease of expertness and dexterity, constitute the merit of this kind of dancing. The soul itself should be seen in every motion of the body, and express something naturally noble, and even heroic. Every step should have its beauty.

Rather than stunningly difficult capers and turns, the serious style was largely taken up with slow steps, beautiful unfurling movements of the arms, picturesque attitudes, and sustained aplombs (balances on one leg). The importance of these elements as the defirung features of the serious genre is evident from a description of the dancing typical of Gaetan Vestris left b e h d by the nineteenth-centuryDanish dancer and choreographer August Bournonvde, who was a student of Gaetan’s son Auguste. According to Boumonvdle (1979, 456), Gaetan’s “serious dancing consisted mostly of picturesque poses, beautiful arm movements, and slow pas-in short, of performances which emphasized the external merits he possessed.” Grimm (1879, 1 Feb. 1769, 8:262) likewise indicates that attitudes and aplombs figured sigruhcantly in the slow-moving noble style: The great Vestris is the one who dances at the Opera to so much acclaim; he is indeed the greatest dancer whom we have had since the celebrated Dupre. He learned in France this genre of la danse noble, peculiar to the

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Chapter 3 French, which consists in a succession of steps, attitudes, and nplovzbs, all of which says nothing and means nothing at all; they are academic exercises out of place, which greatly please the French. Vestris took h s genre to Stuttgart and Vienna, as Favier and Dupre formerly did to Dresden and Warsaw.

Easy bendings and risings equally well characterized the serious dancing of Marie Salle, whose dancing showed ”simple, touching graces,” for “it was not with jumps and gambols that she touched the heart” (Noverre 1807,2:103).Aquin de Chbteau-Lyon (1754,187) singles out for comment Salle’s fine balances and arm movements: ”I saw appear the rival of the Graces, the inimitable Mademoiselle Salle; in her broken and negligent pas were found now tenderness and voluptuousness, now the finesse of her balances; the justness of her equilibrium, her arms, the expression of the goddesses would make you easily take her for the queen of her art.” Fine movements of the arms in particular were a sigruficant feature of t h s style, and the need for performers in t h s genre to dance above all with their arms is evident from the sources. At the beginning of our period, le Cerf de la Vieville de Freneuse (1705, 12) saw Pecour dance in the noble style and singles out both his regal steps and beautiful arm movements for comment: ”Pecour and Lestang danced, the one with those fine arms and those majestic steps, whch even in his decline make him a dancer almost unmatched, the other with that air of a man of quality, which is so difficult for a dancer to capture.” Noverre (1807, 2:176), who studied under Louis Dupre in the early 1740s, quotes the famed serious dancer’s maxim stressing the importance of the arms: ”The great Dupre said to me one day, ’it is not enough to dance well with one’s legs; one must also know how to dance with the arms.”’ Noverre (1807,2:106)also mentions a student of Dupre, the serious dancer ”named Camille, [who] danced only with her arms.” Aquin de Chbteau-Lyon (1754, 189) remarks upon the fine unfurling movements of the arms for which the serious dancer Puvignee was known: ”Consider this young performer, who takes Mademoiselle Salle as her model: You will find her attitude[s] interesting;her justness and gracefulness will show the success of her imitation. With what delicacy she unfolds her arms!” Walpole (1904, 30 Dec. 1783,13:106),who saw Heinel dance in England, makes particular mention of ”her arms sublime that float upon the air.” Indeed, to Magi (1779,1:116),the serious dancer’s ability to dance well with

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h s arms was synonymous with dancing well in this genre: ”Most of

the time the movement of the arms is the dancer’s greatest asset, especially for a serious dancer, who will be deemed good on the basis of t h s h d of movement alone; indeed, experience will show that a h e carriage of arms and a soft bend in the knees makes up for and takes the place of any other shortcomings, since such dancers usually have little leg and almost no breath.” One port de bras ihat gave performers in the grave style opportunity to display their ability to dance well with their arms was the socalled h g h rounded arms. In this movement, the executant was to “throw both arms at the same time to the fore and then back again, whch, it is to be understood, is done for the sake of appearance” (Bonin 1712, 167); that is, the dancer, with h s arms held out to each side forming more or less a straight line with the shoulders, takes the arms forward so that the hands come to be extended in front of h m just below the shoulder joints and then takes them back out to their initial position in a circular manner. Magri (1779, 1:115-16) describes this movement in greater detail; the context whence Magri’s passage is drawn makes it clear that the arms begin at shoulder height: The high rounded arms are those which are fully open and little by little are taken forward almost as if you wished to bring them together, but they do not go beyond the line of the shoulders and, coming into eyeshot [forming] almost a half circle, go back to their position. The bnllerino does not need to follow this equal movement of the arms with his eyes, for they like the head must remain indifferent, unlike with the arms of opposition. Whenever done, this arm movement is accompanied by an inclination from the waist, to the fore together with the arms, and in rising from the waist, the arms extend as well until they are back to where they were to begin when the body was well stretched. Serious bnlleriiii usually make use of this at an end, in a solo, in going back, and the like.

The emphasis on the arms in this style was at the expense of the legs, resulting in a dearth of impressive airborne feats. Goudar (1773a, 61) notes in particular that ”gods, kings, and heroes should not be made to dance,” that is, to caper about. Just such an avoidance of feats of strength characterized the dancing of Gaetan Vestris, who according to Despreaux (1806,2:286) ”enjoyed for thirty years the greatest success in this kind of dance, which does not demand tours de force but address and much grace.” Instead, the serious

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dancer cultivated mainly terre-a-terre steps. Prominent among such steps was the pas grave, also called the temps de courante, contretemps sans sauter, or the ”march” in eighteenth-century English. As Magri indicates (1779, 1:55), ”the serious and majestic quality of the pas grave is evident from its very name. It is used in the theater and in the ballroom and is found in all kinds of dances, especially in serious dancing, wherein its beauty is heightened when done with majesty. It was greatly used in the old dances, especially in the heroic and grave.” The following brief description from Taubert (1717,696) outlines one version of the step in three time: Both knees bend on the upbeat, and while bending, the ankle of the right foot is drawn in behind the ankle of the left and [then] brought forward, to the right around the heel of the left, while rising on the toe on the first quarter note (it can also be brought beside or in front of the left heel while bending). On the second quarter note, standing on the whole foot, slide the toe of the right forward (see the temps de courante in chapter 19 and in chapter 45 in Chorigraphie). On the third quarter note, the body is brought forward onto it.

Impressive pirouettes were to be especially avoided in this style, for the violence of rapid wlurling was at odds with the noble simplicity and peacefulness that was to be the hallmark of thus genre. Tkus limited use of pirouettes is mentioned by Noverre (1807,2:128) in connection with Vestris’s dancing in particular. He notes that ”Vestris the Elder did pirouettes much better than his son, but he was not prodigal with them; he left the spectator desiring more.” In a review of an entree performed by the serious dancer Pierre Gardel in the Paris Opera’s 1782 production of Daplzne‘ et ApoZZon, a critic from the Mercure de France (5 Oct. 1782, 40) similarly alludes to the practice of avoiding pirouettes in the grave style: ”It was observed that he had done only one single pirouette in this entre‘e and that he had performed it with the ease and precision which such steps demand; these steps, hardly lending themselves to grace but showing only force, should be performed without effort and are only seldom used in la danse noble.” Indeed, early eighteenth-century dances in tlus style extant in Feuillet notation, wluch will be discussed in greater detail in chapter 9, show just such a paucity of pirouettes; seldom are more than a couple of such turns found in a whole dance. When included, the pirouette, inevitably ouzwrte (with the gesture leg stretched to the side) or battu (with the foot of the gesture leg beat-

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ing the supporting leg) is often to be done slowly with one or at most two rotations. The ”Saraband of Issee perform’d by Mr. Dupre & Mrs. Bullock,” found in Roussau (1725?, 31-36), for example, contains only two such turns in the whole of the dance, a pirouette ouzlerte with one and a half revolutions in the sixth measure of the first figure and another pirouette ouverte with one revolution in the fifth measure of the fifth and penultimate figure. These extant dances in Feuillet notation from the begruing of the eighteenth century provide concrete examples not only of the limited use of pirouettes in the grave style but also of its preference for m a d y terre-a-terre steps and small jumps rather than capers. As an example, we list the steps from the first two of the four figures malung up the grave saraband ”danced by Monsieur Piffetot and Monsieur Chevrier in the opera Alcide” found in Feuillet (1704,154-57). The first figure is composed of the following steps with their eighteenth-centurynames (the numbers indicate the measure of music): 1 pas grme en l’air 2 pas grazle en l’air 3 pirouette battue with one rotation, pas plie‘ with petit tour de jambe 4 pas grazje 5 assemble‘ plik, coupe‘ a deux mouvements 6 demi-coupe‘ emboite‘ with dkgage‘ and petit four de jambe 7 cliasse‘, contretemps with half turn, contretemps de gazlotte battu with half turn and petit tour de jambe. The second figure contains the following: 1 contretemps de gaziotte battu, demi-coupk, pirouette ouzierte with one and a quarter turns ending emboitk 2 demi-fouettk 3fouettk 4 bourre‘e with quarter turn 5 sissonne with a three-quarter turn 6 coupe‘ entier battu 7 contretemps de gaziotte with quarter turn 8 demi-coupk ouziert. Only eight of the twentyone steps from these sixteen bars of music, which comprise exactly one half of the whole dance, are springmg steps: the assemble‘ plie‘ in bar 5, and the chasse, contretemps, contretemps de gavotte in bar 7, all from the first figure, and the contretemps de gavotte in bar 1, the second jump of the fouette in bar 3, the sissonne in bar 5, and the contretemps de gavotte in bar 7, all from the second figure. Whde other early eighteenth-century dances belonging to the grave style and extant in Feuillet notation sometimes contain more springmg steps and even such capers as entrechats a six, the overall preference for terre-aterre steps and small jumps with few capers if any is still marked throughout, in agreement with the essential character of this style as gven in those sources describing the genre broadly or evident from descriptions of performances. The languid quality typical of the serious style stemmed not merely from the predominance of smooth, slow movements but also

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from sustained balances in ”picturesque attitudes,” as Boumonville puts it. Louis Dupre was evidently unmatched by any other dancer in the art of striking such poses; ”no dancer has surpassed him in the nobility of attitudes or the beauty of dhloppements” (Dorat 1771, 66). A description of an Italian parody of Dupre’s dancing given by De la Lande (1769) indicates that the parodist affected ”now and then poses lasting one to two measures” (cited in the Journal de musique 1773,6:62).In like manner, Despreaux (1806,2:292-93), looking back at the dance of the eighteenth century, remarks in particular upon the use of sustained aplombs in the serious style: ”Formerly, our most celebrated dancers, in the middle of the gravest dances, would stop and balance on the toe of one foot for ten to twelve measures; they could have taken Saint Simeon Stylites as a patron, who remained on one leg for forty years.” Because of its languid, terre-a-terre nature, the serious style seemed simple, but this apparent simplicity masked the difficulty of excelling in this genre, a fact remarked upon by a critic in the Mercure de Fraiice (2 Oct. 1765,2:204):“Monsieur Vestris, despite his service at court, danced in the passacailk in the fourth act [of Hyperinnestre] to the applause or rather admiration of connoisseurs, who sense all the worth and all the difficulty of a style of dance that is simple in appearance but which brings together all the perfections of this talent.” Indeed, compared to the brilliance of the other styles with their tours de force, the grave, with its apparent simplicity of mainly slow terre-a-terre steps and small jumps, was much less amazing to the public. This apparent simplicity of the grave is also alluded to by Rochemont (1754,66-67),who notes that a foreigner, half dancer and half acrobat, by his lightness, his suppleness, and the prodigious energy which he infuses into all his movements perhaps pleases us more sometimes than Dupre himself, whose dance, simple and easy in appearance, is much less amazing. Yet despite this greater possible pleasure, we feel wonderfully certain that the latter artist is far superior to the former.

However easy and simple in appearance, the grave style demanded remarkable control on the part of the dancer in order to do justice to its predominantly slow, smooth movement. It was not without its own brilliance, for quick beats of different kinds provided contrast, together with a limited use of beaten jumps, such as entrechats. Roller (1843, 147,150-51), who had been trained in the serious style

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under Muzzarelli and Vigano among others in the late 1780s and early 1790s and had a career as a soloist before h s retirement from the stage in 1799, gives a combination that demonstrates the difficulty of this seemingly simple “grand serious style.” (The stie mentioned in the following description is ”merely a position wherein one stands with one foot flat on the whole sole, whde the other, with the knee bent and well turned out to the side, is set very firmly on the tip of the toe, enclosed in front or behind the other in fifth position.”) Starting position is the stie, with the left foot set on the toe behind the right. Rise on the left foot as high as you can and beat, beginning with the right behind the left, behind and in front passing around the left as many times as your level of proficiency will allow. Then place yourself in the stPe, with the right foot set on the toe behind the left, rise high up on the same and beat the left foot around the right. In these battenrents both knees are well stretched, however, and the movements must come only from the hips. In doing this, you must hold yourself very high on the toes, for the higher you stand on the toes, the shorter the path that the beating foot must follow around the other; in this way the speed is increased, and the number of battements is also increased in the time given. In a solo, theatrical dancers in the grand serious style commonly began with a grand tour de jambe, which they executed very slowly and masterfully, whereupon they did stPe-battements and ended the combination with an entrechat; this was a tour de force, they thereby setting in fine contrast first a show of sterling strength and then that of nimble speed, which always met with great approbation from the spectators.

A slow rond de jambe followed or preceded by brilliant battements appears to have been a common combination traditional to the eighteenth-century serious style. Such a combination can be easily enough found in early eighteenth-century grave dances extant in Feuillet notation; typical examples can be found in the first two bars of the first figure from a saraband in Roussau (1725?, 31) and in the third and fourth bars of the third figure from an entree for two men danced by Blondy and Marcel in Les f2tes vinitiennes (Gaudrau 1713?, 2:97). In the passage given just above, Roller has the serious dancer end lus terre-a-terre combination with an entrechat by way of contrast, and early eighteenth-century serious dances extant in Feuillet notation show in fact a limited use of capers as a way of bringing brilliance to the seemingly simple style of the grave. The ”Loure or Faune perform’d before h s Majesty King William ye 3d by Monsr.

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Balon and Mr. L‘abbe” in Roussau (1725?, 1-6), for example, contains one entreclzat ri six eiz tourrznizt in the seventh measure of the first figure, and three deini-entrechats ri six (asseinblk battus to use the current term), one in the fourth measure of the fourth figure, another in the third measure of the fifth figure, and the third in the fourth measure of the sixth figure. Given its broad lack of airborne tours de force, this style was particularly suitable for dancers too advanced in age to caper well anymore or for those whose careers as jumpers were cut short by an untimely injury. Louis Dupre had in fact started out in the more active styles outside of the serious and was remembered for his portrayal of demons and in particular his execution of the gargouillade in this role (Encycloptdie 1786, 417). Sometime evidently in the 1730s, he “stopped dancing because of an injury that he sustained in the leg during his work at the Opera.” Wishing to return to dancing, feeling ”less pain and more strength, he went to the Magasin to propose that he return to his work, but in heroic dance, however, not daring in his convalescence to expose himself yet to the violence of the dance for demons” (MPinoire, n.d., 2). Ultimately Dupre in his more advanced years restricted himself to the serious style exclusively and was able to dance into the 1750s,when he retired as principal serious dancer from the Paris Opera in h s fifties. If the grave style lacked brilliance because of an absence of tours de force, it did have the advantage, however, of being generally spontaneous, since the solos were usually improvised. As Magri notes (1779, 1:104), ”the cliacoiziie is not danced by all serious balleriizi because they dance on their own, and usually all the solos are danced extempore.” Thanks to its overriding preoccupation with dignity and sublimity, the grave style lacked not only complexity and seeming brilliance but also often expressiveness, and the style was often criticized for its coldness and lack of variety. The inexpressiveness common in this genre, especially in the first half of the eighteenth century, stemmed not merely from the predominantly languid, gentle quality inherent in a preponderance of slow terre-a-terre movements but also from the practice of wearing a mask. With his face encased in a mask, the dancer was effectively deprived of the most expressive part of his body. Lack of expression, thanks in part to the mask, was a common complaint leveled at serious dancers at the Paris Opera. One such critic was Laus de Boissy (1771?,16-18), who writes that

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it is not that I despise in itself noble or serious dance and that I prefer lively, gay dance; unquestionably, both have a merit proper to themselves. Rather, I wish that la dame noble, or la haute danse, as one will want to call it, would convey something to the heart and soul, and that one would not believe that it is enough to have linked together some terre-a-terre,’ pirouettes, and aplombs, and so forth in order to say then that this is la d a m e noble. To my mind, nobility goes hand in hand with boredom. The pas de deux in this noble genre, a dance which would be so easy to make interesting through pantomime, almost never paints anything. One sees twofigurants take hands, release them, turn around each other, take hands again, look at each other, now over the arms, now under, and so forth, but one cannot read anything in their gestures, that is, in the different movements of their arms and legs, for as to their eyes, one must not dream of anything. As these persons have nothing to express, their countenances became useless, and great care has been taken to cover the face up with a mask of illuminated plaster. Generally, grave or noble dance will never express anything if not animated by an action that one can link thereto.

Casanova’s description of a performance by Louis Dupre, ”the god of simple, majestic dance” (Dorat 1771,66), at the Paris Opera in 1750 provides a concrete example of the simplicity,inexpressiveness, and lack of variety that critics felt marred this sort of dance: All of a sudden I heard those in the pit clap their hands at the appearance of a tall, fine-figured dancer wearing a mask, a black wig of long curls which came down to his waist, and a robe open in front that reached his heels. Patu told me in a devout and penetrating manner that I now beheld the great Dupre. I had heard him spoken of, and I payed close attention. I saw this fine figure come forth in cadenced steps, and reaching the edge of the orchestra, he slowly raised his rounded arms, moving them gracefully, and extended them fully. Then he brought them together again, moved his feet, did some petits pas,’ battements at mid-leg,’ followed by a pirouette, and disappeared after appearing by backing into the wings. The whole of Dupre’s dance lasted but thirty seconds. The clapping from the pit and the boxes was general. I asked Patu what this applause meant, and he answered me seriously that they were applauding Dupre‘s gracefulness and the divine harmony of his movements. He added that he was sixty years old and that he was the same as he was forty years earlier..’ “What? He has never danced otherwise?” ”He could not have danced better because this development that you have seen is perfect. Is there anything beyond the perfect? He always

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Clinptrr 3 does the same thing, and we always find him fresh; such is the power of the beautiful, the good, and the true, which enters the soul. This is true dance, this is song. You Italians have no idea.” At the end of the second act, Dupre appeared again with his face covered with a mask (that goes without saying) and danced to a different tune, but to my eyes it was the same thing. He came towards the orchestra, stopping an instant, his figure well shaped I own. And suddenly I heard a hundred voices in the pit say out loud: “My God! My God! He’s unfolding! He’s unfolding!” Truly, it was an elastic body, which became bigger as it unfolded. I conceded to Patu that there was grace in all that, and I saw that made him happy. (Casanova 1961,2:110-41)

Casanova was not the only one to find the dancing of Dupre, the nonesuch of the grave style, to be unvarying and inexpressive. Noverre (1807,2:106-7), who had once been a student of the famed dancer, in like manner found Dupre ”uniform” despite the remarkable beauty of his moXTements: It was a beautiful machine, perfectly organized, but one that lacked a soul. To nature he owed the fine proportions of his body, and this excellent construction and assemblage, well combined in the overall framework, naturally resulted in gentle and agreeable movements and a perfect accord in the lissom play of his joints. All these rare qualities lent him a heavenly air, but he was uniform; he did not vary his dancing, and he was always Dupre.

Suard (1753?, 34-35) intimates that many found the grave style of the likes of Dupre to be boring, that ”it is indeed only because of prejudice and habit that Dupre and Mademoiselle Puvignee are applauded today, for a man who finds himself at the Opera for the first time will perhaps be bored in seeing them execute a grave dance but will be at once overly enchanted by an ent& of Furies, so great is the power of truth on souls deprived of passion.” Angiolini (1765) similarly found the grave style of Dupre and Vestris to be inexpressive thanks in part to the practice of wearing masks: With regards to the h g h dance of the likes of Dupre, Vestris, and their precursors, such as it was before Monsieur Noverre appeared (who has turned this latter style in the direction of expression), each makes of it the finest, most elegant, and most difficult as well. As all expression, however, had been banished from it in the past by covering up with a mask

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the face of the dancer, who most of the time even danced alone, this dance could thus affect the beholder in only a very mediocre manner, making his heart suffer merely some fleeting attacks of voluptuousness, those that one senses when the beauty of nature, adorned with its simple graces and aided by those of an art which hides itself, is presented to our view.

As Angiolini indicates, Noverre was instrumental in bringing greater expressiveness to this style in France, specifically through the introduction of pantomime, which in the first half of the eighteenth century had been used mainly in the comic and grotesque styles. As Noverre (1807,2:139) hmself writes, before h s time pantomime in ballet had been restricted largely to the "low and disgusting scenes" of farces: Indeed, Madame, when I set out on a new path in my art [in the 1750~1, ballets offered only flat caricatures. You can understand as much from their titles, such as Les sazjoyards [The Savoyards], Le casseur de aitres [The window breaker], Les sabotiers [Men in wooden shoes], Les charbonniers [The charcoal burners], Les Pierrots [The Pierrots], Le suisse dupe [The hoodwinked Switzer], and so forth. These ridiculous farces and all the low and disgusting scenes that went into their composition opened my eyes and made me set my mind on noble subjects. Fable offered its gods, history its heroes, and renouncing vulgar men, who know only how to move joyously or sadly, I endeavored to give to my works the nobility of the epic and the grace of pastoral poetry. Success crowned my first attempts; my genre spread, and I have the satisfaction to see at a very advanced age that it has been adopted and sanctioned by the public of all the nations of Europe.

Before the ennobling of pantomime ballet, thanks to the efforts of not just Noverre but also other choreographers such as Hilverding and Angiolini, serious dancers by and large appear to have had notlung but contempt for pantomime. Many people generally felt that the pantomimic dance common in the more lighthearted genres was incompatible with the nobility of la danse noble: By the word pantomime everyone usually understands a comic dancer worthy of exercising his talents only in the fairground spectacles;everyone fancies that his whole art ought to be limited to the lighthearted and even burlesque genre. The pantomimes themselves, at least those whom we have seen on our stages, share this unfair misconception with serious dancers, who despise them. (Mercure de France Feb. 1745,166)

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The prejudice against pantomimic dance in the serious stylt proved to be particularly strong in France. As late as the 1760s, at i time when heroic and tragic pantomime ballets were being mountec with some frequency in Germany and elsewhere, France remainec largely closed to this genre. As Pitrot (1764, 182-83) writes in thc program to lus serious-heroic pantomime ballet Ulysse duns Z’iZe dc Circk, mounted at the Comkdie-italienne in 1764, ”tlus genre of bal let, with action and expression, [has been] long unknown in the cap. ital.” A critic in the Mercure de France (Nov. 1765,213)similarly note: in his review of the heroic pantomime ballet Vengeance de Z‘Amour, ot Diane et Endyrnion, mounted in Fontainebleau in 1765, that “thc genre of heroic pantomime is little or poorly understood here” ir France. The following sketchy synopsis of the heroic-serious pantomime ballet Mkdke et Jason, as performed by the serious dancers Gaetan Vestris, Anne Heinel, and Marie-Madeleine Guimard, provides an example of the sort of dramatic work created in the serious style once combined with pantomime: On Friday the twenty-sixth of January, the ballet of Midie et Jason was given again at the Theitre. This dramatic ballet, composed by Monsieur Vestris, has enjoyed the greatest success. The unsteadfastness of Jason, who forsakes Medea in order to wed Creusa, his new love, Medea’s spite, her efforts to awaken tenderness in her unfaithful husband by showing him her children, the fury of this jealous woman, her spells, Creusa’s wedding celebrations, the insidious reconciliation that Medea feigns to make with her rival, the poisoned gifts that she gives her, the torments and death of Creusa, Jason’s despair, the Furies who trouble him, the wounding wrath of Medea carried off in a chariot drawn by dragons, the murder of her children, whom she stabs before their father, a rain of fire and the setting aflame of the palace, all this action and spectacle produced a great effect. What was most admirable was Mademoiselle Heinel’s talent for expressing the force of the most contrary passions and feelings; her dance, her gestures, her attitudes, the features of her face form an imposing and swift-moving tableau, which moves and transports the spectator. Such is the powerful art of pantomime when its execution is precise and natural. Mademoiselle Heinel is perfectly matched in this ballet by Monsieur Vestris, who represents with force the role of Jason, by Mademoiselle Guimard, who plays the role of Creusa with great feeling, and by Monsieur Gardel and others, who are not only outstanding dancers but also wonderful actors and pantomimes. (Mercure de France Feb. 1776, 158-59)

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For every pot there is lid, as the old proverb goes, and for every style of eighteenth-century ballet there was an ideal body, one necessary to represent convincingly the essential character of each style. As the late eighteenth-century dancer Despreaux puts it (1806, 2:249-50), “there are three kinds of figures, the tall, middling, and short, and thus by necessity there are three kinds of dance: the noble or serious style, the style of the galant berger or demi-caractere; the comic style or the genre of the pifre. There is a fourth for thick, short, and strong dancers, which is usually trivial.” The serious dancer in particular needed to be tall and elegant, without too much evident musculature; that is, he needed to have an imposing and lofty physique that matched the nobility and dignity of his role. According to Noverre (1760,231), the serious dancer unquestionably needs to have a noble and elegant figure. He who devotes himself to this style undoubtedly has more difficulties to surmount and more obstacles to overcome in order to reach perfection. He has difficulty assuming an agreeable shape: The longer his limbs, the harder it is for him to make them rounded and to unfold them gracefully.

Although his face was usually hdden by a mask, ideally the serious dancer was to have “a noble countenance, lofty features, a proud character, a majestic look-that is the mask of the serious dancer” (Noverre 1760, 233). A critic in the Mercure de France (2 Oct. 1784, 3940) similarly makes clear that a tall, elegant figure was essential to “la dnnse noble, a precious genre that is important to maintain on this stage [of the Paris Opera] and which demands at the same time an elegant, tall figure, strength and lightness, correctness and ease in the steps, and a most perfect accord in all the movements.” By elegance Despreaux (1806, 2:249) understood a certain thinness and a lack of obvious musculature: ”Elegance in figure is a gift of nature that very few people possess; one must be thin and well formed, with small bones and with muscles that are little pronounced, a raised chest and a high head without affectation. A short and thick man never has elegance.” Jean Dauberval was one serious dancer who grew to be ”thick” as he matured and consequently ”was obliged to renounce the serious style. First modeled by the Graces, he became thick and muscular” (Noverre 1807, 2:116). Heinel, with her “charming face, svelte figure, happiest proportions” (Mercure de France July 1772,2:146),was suitably

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long and lean; indeed, she was tall and imposing enough almost to pass for a man, as her contemporary Catherine-Rosalie Duthe rather unkindly remarked (1909,267):“A stately man in the clothes of my sex; such was the effect she always produced on me. Colossal form, a figure in keeping with it, hands and feet to match, a skin wonderfully firm and white, a very fine face with large features, eyes so enormous that they were like camage entrances.” The great Dupre was similarly tall and imposing in stature, ”five foot seven to eight inches” in the old French measurement of pieds de roi (Despreaux 1806,2:260-61),that is, around six feet in our imperial system. Gabtan Vestris similarly had an “elegant figure of about five foot six inches [i.e., about five foot ten]; handsome man, fine leg, noble and highly expressive face” (Desprbaux 1806,2:261). The division of dance into different styles based in part on body type was determined not merely by aesthetics but also by sheer physical necessity. Ectomorphic bodies-that is, slender, longlimbed frames, which were held to be ideal for the terre-h-terre grave style in the eighteenth century-tend to be poor at beaten jumps, thanks to their typically thinner muscles, narrow hips, long legs, and hypermobile knees. As Noverre puts it (1760,302-3): anyone with such a build will need to forgo entrechnts, cabrioles, and all difficult and complicated movements, with all the more reason that such a one is invariably weak, for his hips, being narrow, or to couch it in the parlance of anatomists, his pelvic bones, being less flared, allow less play to the muscles that are attached to them and on which the movements of the trunk in part depend, movements and bends much easier when these same bones are much wider because then the muscles begin and end from a point farther away from the center of gravity. However that may be, dance that is noble and terred-terre is the only one suitable to such dancers.

The hypermobility of the knees of such jnrretP dancers especially constitutes a serious impediment to brilliant beats. As Noverre again puts it (1760,300-301), the contraction of the muscles during the effort made in jumping stiffens the joints and forces each part to return to its place and reassume its natural shape; the knees, forced in this way, are carried inward then [i.e.,become hyperextended] and take up their volume again, which is an obstacle to the beats of an entrechak The more these parts come together, the more those below them move apart; the legs, unable to beat

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or cross, remain as if immobile when the knees move, rolling disagreeably over each other, and the entrechat, being neither cut nor beaten nor crossed below, will not have the speed or brilliance which are its merit.

If the serious style was devoted to the portrayal of imposing grandeur and gravity, the half-serious was given over to the display of bubbly nimbleness and sylphlike lightness. Also known as the demi-caractgre, the galant, or the brisk, the half-serious was much more popular than the grave style throughout eighteenth-century Europe. While the serious was the preserve of dancers portraying high gods, great kings, and grand heroes, the brisk style was the genre for the representation of such lesser divinities as Cupid and Mercury, such figures drawn from daily life as gallant youths in love or even characters from high comedy, and finally such anacreontic figures as satyrs, fauns, nymphs, sylphs, and bergers (idealized shepherds). More often than not the dances in the demi-caractere style centered around lighthearted amatory intrigues. As Sulzer indicates (1794,4:506), the third class encompasses dances that are called half-character, or demi-caractPre, in the parlance of this art. Their subject matter is an action drawn from ordinary life, in the character of the comic theater, a love affair, or some intrigue, wherein are mixed even individuals of not an entirely common way of life. These dances still require elegance, pleasing embellishments, and taste.

Noverre’s pantomime ballet Les petits riens, performed at the Paris Opera in 1778 to music composed in part by Mozart, gves some idea of the lightheartedness of this style, preoccupied as it was with amatory intrigue: The performance of lefinte geinelle was followed by a new pantomime ballet composed by Monsieur Noverre, Les petits riens, made up of episodic scenes which have almost no connection between them but which present a succession of tableaux that the muse of Anacreon or the brush of the likes of Boucher and Watteau would not disavow: Cupid caught in a net and put in a cage by Mademoiselle Guimard, the game of blind man’s bluff wherein Monsieur Dauberval plays the main role, a prank by Cupid, who presents to two shepherdesses (Guimard and Allard) another shepherdess (Asselin disguised as a shepherd), are the three scenes of the composition, which is most witty and most agreeable. (Grimm 1880, June 1778,12:117)

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In order to convey the lightheartednessof this style, the half-serious dancer typically performed to such lively movements as gavottes, riguudons, passepieds, gigues, and even minuets and chaconnes and availed himself of quick jumps and nimble capers that showed “Vigour, Lighfness, Agility,” as Weaver (1712, 163) makes clear in his comparison of the brisk and the grave: There are two Movements in this Kind of Dancing; the Brisk, and the Grave; the Brisk requires Vigour, Lightness, Agility, Quicksprings, with a Steadiness, and Coininand of the Body; the Grave, (which is the most difficult) Softness, easie Bendings and Risings, and Address; and both must have Air and Firmness, with a graceful and regulated Motion of all Parts: But the Artful Qualification is a nice Address in the Management of those Motions, that none of the Gestures and Dispositions of the Body may be disagreeable to the Spectators.

In his outline of the general features of the brisk style making up his composite category of the serious, Bonin (1712, 56) indicates that ”in thisdance, one must come down onto the floor seldom and very little but rather rise now here, now there, with the greatest of nimbleness and speed and show such quickness in the feet that the interweaving is like lightning, and at times it cannot be made out which is the left and which is the right foot.” Drawing upon Weaver’s comparison given just above, Gallini (1762,77-79) similarly indicates that the widely popular demi-caract6re was given over to ”lightness” and high brilliant jumps, for which it was impossible to have too much nimbleness: In the half-serious stile we observe vigor, lightness, agility, brilliant springs, with a steadiness and command of the body. It is the best kind of dancing for expressing the more general theatrical subjects. It also pleases more generally. The grand pathetic of the serious stile of dancing is not what every one enters into. But all are pleased with a brilliant execution, in the quick motion of the legs, and the high springs of the body. A pastoral dance, represented in all the pantomime art, will be commonly preferred to the more serious stile, though this last requires doubtless the greatest excellence: but it is an excellence of which few but the connoisseurs are judges; who are rarely numerous enough to encourage the composer of dances to form them entirely in that stile. All that he can do is to take a great part of his attitudes from the serious stile, but to give them another turn and air in the composition; that he may avoid confounding the two different stiles of serious and half-serious. For this last, it is impossible to have too much agility and briskness.

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Angiolini (1765) likewise notes that the brisk style had the broadest appeal thanks to its brilliant lightness, graceful movements, and preoccupation with affairs of the heart: I turn now to the dances commonly called deini-caractere. The dance in the demi-caractere style is as close to la belle danse, or la haute danse, as the dance of which I just spoke [i.e., comic] is to the grotesque. Sheepfolds, Romans, pastorals, agreeable anacreontic inventions, indeed, everything within the scope of French opera provides material for the composers of these dances. This style demands of its performers correctness, lightness, equilibrium, smoothness, and grace. It is here that the arms (if I may be permitted this expression)make their first appearance in dance and are to be supple and graceful; in the previous two styles [of the grotesque and comic], they count for nothing, serving merely to allow the dancer to soar with greater ease. This kind of dance is brought to life by enlightened composers with address according to rules; if pantomime is wedded to this with art and expression, if the passion of love, which constitutes the usual subject matter here, is treated with fire and refinement, it can excite in the heart, especially of the youthful, some slight and fleeting emotion, such that is felt in the scene of an opera or in the happy dinouanent of some comedy or in the narrative of some novel. The composers of these ballets can be likened to poets who produce comedies, eclogues, and pastorals, and the dancers who perform them with grace and refinement to the performers at the Opera and Comedie.

To the late-eighteenth-century dancer Despr6aux (1806, 2:286-87), “the genre of the bergers is one of the most pleasing in dance; it gives rise to grace and takes up a middle-ground between grave dance, which is almost always cold, and the comic style, which often sinks to the grotesque.” Perhaps the most famous female proponent of the half-serious style was Marie-Anne de Cupis de Camargo (1710-1770), celebrated for her fiery brilliance and her elevation in jumping. As such she was the direct opposite of her contemporary Sall6, who cultivated the terre-2-terre softness of the serious style. The striking contrast between the two dancers is often remarked upon in the sources; an anonymous “madrigal” in the Mercure de France (Jan. 1732,14647), for example, sings of Ah! How brilliant you are, Camargo! But, great God, how ravishing is Salle! How light are your steps, and how gentle are hers!

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Chapter 3 She is inimitable, and you are novel; The nymphs jump like you, But the Graces dance like her.

Voltaire (1733, 24) also alludes to Camargo’s lightness in jumping: ”Light and strong in her suppleness, lively Camargo jumped to [Lully’s] brilliant, swift sounds and to those of Rebel and Mouret.” Aquin de Chiiteau-Lyon (1754,188)also speaks of this “performer so wondrous in her genre; it is Mademoiselle Camargo. What brilliant steps! What nimble jumps! As light as the Zephyrs! The eye can scarcely follow her.” Noverre (1807,2:104-5), who saw the celebrated dancer perform in the twilight of her career, describes with greater detail the character of Camargo’s half-serious style and notes that her dancing was lively, light, and full of gaiety and brilliance. Jetis battus, royales, and entrechats, cut without rubbing, all those teiiips today [in 18071 which have been removed from the catalogue of dance and which were seductively brilliant, were executed by Mademoiselle Camargo with extreme ease. She danced only to lively tunes, and it is not to such quick movements that grace can be shown, but ease, speed, and gaiety took its place. In a spectacle [i.e., French opera at the Paris Opera] where everything was gloomy, drawn-out, and languorous, it was a joy to see a dancer so animated and whose liveliness could draw the public out of the drowsiness into which monotony had plunged it.

Casanova (1961,2:14142)also saw Camargo dance at the end of her career, in 1750, the year before she retired from the stage; although the elevation was evidently gone for which she had been known in her youth, the brilliance of her footwork was still very much evident: “All of a sudden after Duprk, I saw a woman dancer who like a Fury crossed the whole space rapidly doing entrechats to the right and to the left but hardly rising at all; this was wildly applauded.” In the course of Camargo’s performance, a few other jumps for which she was known are mentioned; Casanova is informed that ”when she was young, she used to do the saut de basque and even the gargouillade.” The lightness and brilliance of the jumps in this style made the dancer appear sylphlike. To Grimm (1879, Nov. 1776, 11:385), Charles Le Picq (1744-1806), whose “grace and lightness triumphs especially in the demi-caractere,” danced ”like the king of the sylphs” as a shepherd in the ballet Les caprices de Galatlzke, mounted at the Paris OpQa in 1776. In like manner, a critic in the Public Advertiser (9

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Jan. 1790) found the dancing of Marie-Louise Hiligsberg (?-1803) in the half-serious style to be fairylike: "All that the mind can picture of aerial vision, of fairy lightness, and of polished grace, are to be found in this charming little creature" (cited in Price et al. 1995,534). The most outstanding dancer in the half-serious style from the period was undoubtedly Auguste Vestris, whose ability to remain airborne in lus brilliant gambols was unparalleled. A letter from the period now among the Dixon Extracts at the Folger Library (MS. Ma52) similarly remarks upon Vestris's sylphlike lightness during his performances in London in 1780: "It is indeed impossible not to be transported at the ease, the ability & harmony of all his motions: they are so exquisite, that he scarcely appears a mortal but rather a sylph, formed of etherial mould, and destined to skim aloft in higher regions" (cited in Langhans 1984,138). The short "ballet demi-caractere" entitled Les galants zdlugeois from the FerrGre manuscript (1782?, 11-17), made up of dances for corps and soloists without pantomime, gives some idea, perhaps, of the lightness typical in this style created by a multitude of jumps. The second, allegro dance for the corps, choreographed for eight dancers executing various figures traced out in the manuscript, contains the following sequences of steps, almost all of which are jumps (the Roman numerals indicate the number of measures needed for the immediately preceding steps, and the Arabic numerals the number of measures for each figure given in the manuscript): 1) ContCretemps], sissonne (ii); e'ckuppe' butfu [(ii)]; (4). 2) Ckusse'd quatrepas (ii); cont[retemps], sissonne (ii); (4). Ckasse's d trois pas (iv), (4). Carre' en glissade (iv), (4). 3) Ckasse' d quatre pas, sissonne (ii); contrepas [i.e., the same on the other side (ii)]; (4). The same (iv), (4). 4) Pas de bourre'e,glissade (ii); demi-conf[retanps] (ii); the men: two chusse's (ii); cont[retemps] (ii); (4). Eckuppe' battu (ii); ckasse', sissonne (ii); the women: cont[retemps] (i) and confretemps] double (ii); (4). 5 ) The women: cont[retemps] (ii); bal[ance'l de regard (ii), and the men: e'ckappis ~narque's(iv); (4).Contrepas (iv), (4). 6 ) Conffretemps] battus (vi); ckasse', sissonne (ii); (8). Demicontfretemps], contrepas (ii); chasse' en tournant (ii); (4). Ckasse', sissonne (ii); coupe' entfier] (ii); (4). 8 ) Four ckasse's d trois pas (ii); ballotte' (ii); (4). Demi-cont[retemnps] (ii); ckassi, sissonne (ii);(4).

Prominent among the capers that figured sigruficantlyin the halfserious style were cabrioles and entrechats, jumps in which Camargo clearly excelled and which were singled out for comment in

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a review of her debut at the Paris OpQa in 1726 (Mercure de France May 1726,1003).The cabriole droite, for example, required the dancer to ”beat the calves together, springing up into the air off of both feet but landing on one, or beat two or three times with both feet, not with the calves coming together but [with the feet coming together] from the side, which manner the French call a cabriole en ailes de pigeon, for [the feet] go beyond [and strike] one against the other [weilen es gegeneinander iiber gehet], as pigeons do with their wings” (Bonin 1712, 168). The entrechat, also called the cabriole croiske, or “cross-caper” in eighteenth-century English, required the dancer to interweave his legs while beating in the air, that is, one leg beating now in front, now behind the other in an alternating manner as many times as possible. According to Ferriol(l745,1:126),entrechats a six and a huit were done as follows:

Cabriole [croisiel h six, this begins in fourth position with the right foot behind. Jump, crossing [the legs] three times, and land with the right foot in front in fourth position. This can also be done with the left foot behind. Cabriole[croisie]h huit, this is done from fourth position with the right foot behind; jumping, crossing [the legs] four times in the air, and land again in the position in which it began. It can also begin with the left foot behind, and in this manner other more difficult ones are done. Not only brilliant jumps but also lifts appear to have figured in the repertory of movements belonging to the half-serious style, as well as to the comic and grotesque. As noted in chapter 2, the practice of a male dancer lifting his female partner into the air while dancing was certainly known and used in eighteenth-century ballet, and even in folk and national dance of the period, such as in the allemande. While certainly at odds with the noble terre-A-terre languor of the grave style, lifts, according to Dorat (1771,153), were suitable to such anacreontic characters as satyrs and nymphs, who of course belonged to the half-serious genre. As discussed in chapter 2, Zinzendorf mentions a lift in connection with the ballet Lafoire (The fair) of 1761, fairs being particularly common as subject matter for comic ballets. While the serious dancer needed to be tall, elegant, and thin, the half-serious dancer needed to be of middling height with strength in the legs for lus nimble gambols. As Noverre puts it (1760,232-33), “a dancer in the demi-caractkre and voluptuous dance unquestionably needs to have a middling build, which can bring together all the beau-

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ties of an elegant figure. What does height matter, if fine proportions shine forth equally in all the parts of the body?” While the serious dancer’s countenancewas to betray a proud loftiness, the dancer in the brisk style needed ”features less lofty, a countenance both agreeable and interesting, a face made for the expression of the tender and the voluptuous. This is the physiognomy suited to the dancer in the demicaractbe and pastoral style.” To Despreaux (1806, 2:287, 250), “this genre requires dancers to be of middling build, thm, and well shaped.” Such was the figure of Charles Le Picq, a ”dancer in the demi-caractkre,“ who ”had a middling build, thin and perfectly proportioned.” In contrast to the serious and half-serious styles with their refinement and grace, the comic and grotesque genres broadly were given over to caricature. As Gallini (1762,53) makes clear, such caricature had no place within the ”classical” styles of the grave and the brisk: ”The cultivation of the natural graces, and a particular care to shun all affectation, all caricature, unless in comic or grotesque dances, cannot be too much recommended to those who wish to make any figure in this art.” Indeed, the comic and grotesque, taken together as a broad category, endeavored mainly to excite mirth or laughter through the exploitation of grimace and caricature and, particularly with the grotesque, contortion. As Gallini again writes (1762, 67), the comic, or grottesque dancers, indeed are in possession of a branch of this art, in which they are dispensed from exhibiting the serious or pathetic; however, they may be otherwise as well acquainted with the fundamental principles of the art, as the best masters. But as their success depends chiefly on awakening the risible faculty, they commonly chuse to throw their whole powers of execution into those motions, gestures, grimaces, and contortions, which are fittest to g v e pleasure by the raising a laugh. And certainly this has its merit; but in no other proportion to the truth of the art, which consists in moving the nobler passions, than as farce is to tragedy or to genteel comedy. They are in this art of dancing, what Hemskirk and Teniers are in that of painting.

In their attempt to paint the unrefined naturalness or the oddity of their characters, the comic and grotesque had recourse to a repertory of droll jumps and positions and to a line of the body different from the serious and half-serious styles. Some of these different movements and positions will be mentioned in passing as we discuss the general facets of these genres.

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It might be further noted here that the comic and the grotesque made great use of pantomime throughout the whole of the eighteenth century. Indeed, it can be said that pantomime was the preserve of these two styles before it was ever fully exploited by the serious and half-serious styles, for as noted above, serious dancers in particular appear to have been largely closed to the idea of combining dance and pantomime in the first part of the century, especially in France. Algarotti (1763, 54-55) singles out the comic and grotesque as styles wherein dance linked to pantomime produced works worthy perhaps of Bathyllus, the famous comic pantomime of ancient Rome: “To speak truth, in the comic and grotesque styles we have seen dances worthy of applause and dancers as well who were, as he said, eloquent both with their hands and feet and perhaps were not so far away from Bathyllus.” Such eloquence did not go unnoticed early in the century by critics in the Mercure de France, for example, who praised the likes of ”Roger, Renton, and Haughton, three excellent pantomime dancers newly come from England, who are generally applauded. The figure of Monsieur Roger, who was already seen here two years ago, always strikes one as most original; one never gets tired of seeing him” (June 1731,1597).Two years earlier, a critic in the same journal (July 1729,1660-62)speaks favorably of the skill of such English performers in expressing themselves with great intelligence and clarity and “without the help of words” in their comic pantomime ballets at the Opera-comique: On the seventh of this month, the divertissement from the third act of the piece we just mentioned [Laprincesse de la Chine] was replaced by a singular ballet, most striking and true in its composition and in the nai’uete‘ of the characters which are outstandingly portrayed in it and by the finesse and lightness of the execution. Five men and two women, dancing to the tunes of a Scottish musician, represent with an intelligence which leaves nothing to be desired, through their steps, their attitudes, and their gestures that which happens in the inusicaux of Holland, which are kinds of beer taverns something like our guinguettes, wherein sailors and other different nationalities experience the sundry advantages of gallantry. What is expressed here in animated tableaux, most ingenious and most agreeable, is love and jealousy. These passions are rendered with great understanding by the inimitable dancers who make up this ballet. Monsieur Nivelon and Mademoiselle Rabon, a young, very fine dancer, appear as a Dutch lover and mistress. Monsieur Roger, who composed the dances of the ballet and whose figure

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alone is capable of making the greatest stoic break out in laughter, figures in it as the valet of the Hollander; Monsieur Sall6 as a Scotsman, and Monsieur Rinton as a Scotswoman,his mistress; Monsieur Boudet as valet to the Scotsman. These two nations are very well characterized by these excellent pantomimes. We will not enter into greater detail in order to give some idea of this figured ballet wherein without the help of words one is able to express oneself with intelligence, without the slightest equivocation, and with the greatest clarity.

Given their penchant for pantomime, the comic and grotesque styles not surprisingly made conspicuous use of gesture and mime rather than merely the more artful ports de bras of pure dance or attitudes of arms: “As for le ballet comique or grotesque in theatrical dance, the elegant port de bras has nothing at all to say there, for the comic actions depend mainly on gesture, and most of the matter called for by the purpose of the work is always explained with the hands” (Taubert 1717, 543). Angiolini (1765) in like manner notes that ports de bras played a more limited role in the comic and grotesque, that ”in [these] two styles, they count for nothing, serving merely to allow the dancer to soar with greater ease.” Concrete examples of such plentiful use of gesture and mime can be found in the sketchy theatrical dance scenarios published by Lambranzi (1716), wherein are found, for example, a drunk peasant falling to the ground and drinking from a tankard (l:lO), old women scratching their bellies and behinds (1:15), a Dutch sailor warming his hands under his arms (2:10), two figures fighting with staves (2:21), a man blowing kisses to a woman who in turn collects them in her apron (2:23), a tailor measuring a woman while he dances (2:28), a cobbler going through the motions of shoe-mending in time to the music (2:29), a hunter miming the actions of shooting a bird, plucking it, and cooking it over a fire (2:31), two performers playing tennis while dancing (2:32), soldiers going through drill as they dance (2:33-34), two Moors winding and unwinding themselves in sashes (2:39), two figures kick-fighting (2:49), and the like. Some of the dance scenarios given by Behr (1713,81-82) likewise call for gesture or mime. His entree of Cyclopes, for example, portrays “the three smithy hands Steropes, Brontes, and Pyragmon [who] forge weapons of war for Mars, the god of war, while and during dancing. When such affects have moved them, they lay aside the weapons they have forged and dance, all three very merry among themselves.” A comic entree for old women has the performers “dance

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faintheartedly in a very bent-over and stooped attitude” and at one point has them ”go backward, coming together, and knock their behinds together,” all to music “made up of such songs that are usually sung to young children in the cradle” in order to show that the women are in their second childhood. Lazzi, that is, tricks and slapstick antics drawn from low comedy, clearly figured prominently in dances belonging to the comic and grotesque styles. ”Several amusing Znzzi” figured in Dehesse’s comic pantomime ballet Le rkz7eil de Tlzalie, mounted at the Comedieitalienne in August of 1750. According to the cursory synopsis in the Mercure de Frame (Aug. 1750, 169-71), the lazzi are performed by doctors in ”a comic consultation wherein they cannot come to any agreement” while attempting to bring relief to an injured woodcutter. The patient is ultimately revived by a simple glass of good wine, “finds himself at once healed and pays tribute to the remedy with his entrechats.” The opening of Dehesse’s pantomime ballet Le pkdant, mounted at the Comedie-italienne in 1751, provides a concrete example of such slapstick antics. In the ballet, Pierrot is a valet to a pedantic schoolmaster. Having been called for by the pedant, Pierrot is long in coming and arrives only half awake. He supports himself on his master, who moves back, and Pierrot falls. He feels himself raised by the ears. As the pain is not great, he cannot forbear from laughing. The pedant, who has to go out, asks for his robe. Pierrot puts it on him covered with dust; instead of a brush, he takes a broom, which he dunks in water, and cleans his master from head to toe. This angers the pedant again, who takes his ferule and wishing to strike Pierrot in the hand hits his own and is angry again. He takes the birchrod and wants to avenge himself on Pierrot, who from rebellious becomes finally docile. The pedant is touched and makes up with him again. (Mercure de France Feb. 1751,178)

A short dance scenario for grotesque characters given in Lambranzi (1716,1:29-30) employs the Zazzo of the missing and reappearing body: Harlequin appears, as shown in this fine illustration, and begins little by little to dance in his manner. Then Scaramouche draws near to him with a lantern, dances, and apes Harlequin but finally decides to go off. Scaramouche comes back with a musket in his hand, all muffled in his cloak, and sets a burning candle on the end of the barrel and waits for

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Harlequin to finish dancing. Having shot him dead, he goes back into the wings; Harlequin, however, stands up again and runs off into the other side. Then Scaramouche comes back with the lantern in hand in order to see the body but cannot find it and so goes back off. Harlequin, however, quickly lies down in front of the wing so that he is in the way. When Scaramouchecomes back yet again without the lantern, he falls, somersaulting over Harlequin, stands up again, then takes Harlequin, stands him up on his feet quite stiff, turns his head to and fro, now forward, now backward, throws him over his feet [i.e., turns him upside down], stands him again on his feet, and then takes him on his back and carries him off. With this, the tune ends.

Despite the overall similarities between the comic and the grotesque, the two were not identical. The comic style avoided the extremes of the grotesque and devoted itself largely to the representation of the lighthearted exploits of the common people. As Sulzer indicates (1794,4:506), comic dances make up the second class. I dare say, they are of a somewhat less tumultuous character [than the grotesque] and portray the ways, revels, and amatory intrigues of the common people. The movements and jumps are less tumultuous [than in the grotesque] but are still lively, appearing somewhat rollicking and robust. They must, however, always have somethingamusing and merry about them. The main thing here is lightness, quick artful movement, and frolicsomeness.

(Gallini 1762,83-84) gives more detail about the general character of this style and notes that the comic dancer was to follow nature rather than high art as much as possible and maintain a ”moderately buffoon simplicity” in his dancing and antics: The comic dance, having then the diversion of the spectator, in the way of laughing, for its object, should preserve a moderately buffoon simplicity, and the dancer, aided by a natural genius, but especially by throwing as much nature as possible into his execution, may promise himself to amuse and please the spectator; even though he should not be very deep in the grounds of his art; provided he has a good ear, and some pretty or brilliant steps to vary the dance. The spectators require no more.

In order to portray convincingly the likes of “mechanics,” that is, the common working sort, the comic dancer could even incorporate

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movements, attitudes, and gestures taken from nature rather than "high life": The comic dancer is not tied up to the same rules or observationsas are necessary to the serious and half serious stiles. He is not so much obliged to study what may be called nature in high life. The rural sports, and exercises; the gestures of various mechanics or artificers will supply him with ideas for the execution of characters in this branch. The more his motions, steps, and attitudes are taken from nature, the more they will be sure to please. The comic dance has for object the exciting mirth; whereas, on the contrary, the serious stile aims more at soothing and captivatingby the harmony and justness of its movements;by the grace and dignity of its steps; by the pathos of the execution. The comic stile, however its aim may be laughter, requires taste, delicacy, and invention; and that the mirth it creates should not even be without wit. This depends not only upon the execution, but on the choice of the subject. It is not enough to value oneself upon a close imitation of nature, if the subject chosen for imitation is not worth imitating, or improper to represent; that is to say, either trivial, indifferent, consequently uninteresting; or disgustful and unpleasing. The one tires, the other shocks. Even in the lowest classes of life, the composer must seize only what is the fittest to give satisfaction; and omit whatever can excite disagreeable ideas. It is from the animal joy of mechanics or peasants in their cessations from labor, or from their celebration of festivals, that the artist will select his matter of composition; not from any circumstances of unjoyous poverty or loathsome distress. He must cull the flowers of life, not present the roots with the soil and dirt sticking to them. (Gallini 1762,7941)

A n g i o h (1765)in like manner notes that in this portrayal of the common sort of humanity, movements and steps could include nonclassical elements such as steps or movements taken from national dance: The comic style comes next [after the grotesque] and is not at all very far removed from the former. The composers of ballets in this style endeavor to represent the amorous intrigues of shepherds, gardeners, villagers, and workers of every sort, or national, Provencal, Croatian, English, and Flemish dancers in their manner. As for the dancers, they do not allow themselves the tours de force employed by the grotfeschi; rather they content themselves with capering away, with increasing the number of entrechats, gambols, and beats without rhyme or reason, but with a sort of correctness and with a little more respect for the cadence.

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Normally incapable of bending and maintaining aplomb, they dance almost always to lively, swift-moving tunes; they would not be able even to walk to the slow, starchy movement of a passacaille without falling. If these comic dancers are nimble, one can admire their strength wedded to precision and lightness and even laugh now and then when they artfully transform their stiffened gestures needful for their exertions into grimace. I compare the composers in this style of dance to the creators of farce, and these dancers to the actors in comedies who play character roles.

Comic pantomime ballets centering on the simple life of villagers and peasants were particularly popular in the 1740s and 1750s. This craze for ”peasant ballets, with which one has been sated and bored” (Noverre 1760,91), resulted in the creation of such works as Un rendez-vous champe^tre(A rendezvous in the country) of 1740, La vendange (Harvesting grapes) of 1751, Les meuniers (The millers) of 1751, Les batteurs en grange (The threshers in the barn) of 1752, Lafgte villageoise (The village festival) of 1754, La matinke zillageoise (A morning in the village) of 1755, and La soirke villageoise (An evening in the village) of 1755, to name a few. Alternately, comic ballets might center on the common sort at play, particularly in taverns or at fairs, as did the pantomime ballets La guinguette anglaise (The English garden tavern) of 1731, Les veillkes hollandaises (Eveninggatherings in Holland) of 1734, L’estaminette flamande (The flemish tavern) of 1735, Lafoire de Bezons (The fair at Bezons) of 1735, and Lafoire de Zamoysck (The fair at Zamoysck) of 1758. Not just vdlagers and peasants but also ”workers of every sort,” even artisans and artists, could figure in ballets and dances in the comic style. Worthy of mention here are Dehesse‘s Les artisans (The artisans) of 1756 and, from the Ferrere manuscript (1782?, 1-10), Le peintre amoureux de son modkle (The painter in love with his model). The latter was evidently created in the wake of Anseaume‘s two-act comic opera Le peintre amoureux de son modde, premiered at the Thestre de la Foire Saint Laurent in Paris on 26 July 1757; this opera was in turn a parody derived ultimately from Duni’s Italian comic opera IZ pitfore innamorato of the same year. Anseaume’s opera enjoyed some popularity and was revived in 1758, ”with a new pantomime ballet” (Mercure de France Mar. 1758, 189), and again in 1759 and 1762. Ferrere’s comic pantomime ballet was likely staged together with one such performance of Anseaume’s comic opera, in Paris or the provinces, and gives some idea of the nature of mid-eighteenth-century comic pantomime ballet.

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As the manuscript indicates, “at the end of the overture, the curtain rises revealing the painter’s studio. A number of people [twelve to be exact] in dancing arrive at the painter’s,” executing a number of geometrical figures. In the second number, an allegretto, ”the painter enters dancing with his wife and continues the pantomime,” during which his wife indicates that she must go out, thereby leaving the painter alone to meet with his model. To music marked staccato, “the painter has his easel set up in order to paint h s mistress, who arrives at that moment; he greets her and has her sit.” In the following number marked largo, ”he sketches with a brush the portrait of his mistress in black and red,” but his wife reappears and frightens off the model. The painter hides the painting he was doing and ”shows her that he was painting a landscape,” thereby appeasing his wife. Then to a minuet, the painter dances a pas de deux with his wife, during which she discovers the hidden portrait. In the following largo-allegro section, she shows him the painting, threatens him, and breaks it over his head; ”the husband runs off with his head through the portrait.” He returns in the ensuing andante in order to apologize and make up with his wife. In another andante, ”they dance together, with the man starting.” The corps returns to dance a figured dance in the ensuing allegro, followed by a pas seul for the painter, one for his wife, then a pas de deux for both, ending with a general contredanse performed by the corps. In addition to the lighthearted adventures of villagers, workers, or artisans, the exploits and antics of inherently comic figures could form the subject matter for comic dances or ballets. One such character was Don Quixote, some of whose adventures figured in a pantomime ballet mounted at the OpQa-comique in 1734: ” O n the ninth of July, at the end of these same pieces [La inkre einbarrasske and L’absence] was given a new pantomime ballet entitled Don Quichoffechez la duchesse. One had desired to present in figured dances the different follies that this errant knight did at the Duchess’s during his stay there. This ballet is ingenious and very well executed“ (Mercure de France July 1734,1618). The comic would-be knight also figured in Pitrot’s pantomime ballet Don Quichotte, mounted at the royal theater in Dresden in 1756 (Pauli, 1756,49).Alternately, a comic dance might center around ridiculous personifications, such as that mounted at the Opera-comique in 1729, which was ”a ballet made up of all the different distempers, of a pas de deux for Migraine and Paralysis, Seizure, and so f o r t h (Mercure de France Apr. 1729,787).A

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further possibility for a comic dance was the imitation of beasts or birds, a possibility exploited by Pitrot in a parrot dance, which began with a pas grave, evidently satirizing the serious style and transforming the unfurling arm movements typical of that style into the flapping wings of a bird: In these ballets of which I have just spoken above, the masters of this art have made all of Olympus caper. Monsieur Noverre made the gods dance, Monsieur Angiolini the goddesses, Monsieur Pitrot the demons, but this last master, whose talent shines in this theater, has made a parrot dance. As you see, this is done by having a great talent for dance, for of all the animals, it is the least dance-like in movement. It seems that nature, who on the whole has given great agility to fowl, did not want to grant such to it. The parrot can hardly hold itself up on its feet. If in coming down from a tree, it does not cling to a branch with its claw, it will fall flat on the ground. There are examples in America of several who have killed themselves for want of having had a support, but the ballet master takes no note of this; he turns his back on Nature and composes his pantomime without bearing in mind the little agility of the beast that he introduces onto the stage. He does not stop at this: He makes the parrot a prodigy of his art that must dance like the great Vestris himself. The bird begins his dance with a pas grme, wherein he unfolds his arms in the form of a fan, which is a novelty to the pantomimic stage and creates a sensational effect in a unique genre. After the pas graae comes the light dance, of which the beast acquits itself fairly well despite the shortcomings of its legs. But what is even more remarkable are the beats of its wings that it does around the stage in rhythm to the sound of the violin, for the bird must be a musician, and if not, he would not be able to execute the dance. (Sara Goudar 1777,1:176-77)

Comic dances could contain "acts" with such props as chairs or ladders. The ballet for Les eaux de Bourbon, mounted at the Comkdie-frangaise in 1731, for example, included a dance for convalescents wherein "two characters fitted out as invalids taking the waters seem to dance in chairs, which forms a singular object of amusement" (Mercure de France July 1731,1788).Ladder dances involving balancing feats and acrobatics appear to have been particularly popular throughout the period. Lambranzi (1716, 2:42) gives a cursory sketch of just such an act, wherein "two persons, with ladders on their shoulders, come out, one on the right side and the other on the left side. They place them together on the

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Figure 3.1. A scene from a ladder dance scenario, after Johann Georg Puschner (Lambranzi 1716, 2:42).

floor, as shown in the figure above [fig. 3.11. After one goes up the ladder and does a ’rump’ or somersault through the rungs with his head to the floor, the first part of the performance is over.” Nemeitz (1727, 176) alludes to a similar feat that he saw at the Paris fair, wherein ”a man dancing on a ladder did amazing capers with it, which he nonetheless always kept balanced.” According to The Tatler (25 Nov. 1709), ladder dances, pantomimic dances, and the like were so popular as to constitute the main draw for some to attend the playhouse. This was seized upon by competing directors who were not above such acts in their eagerness to ”put bums in the seats”: It has been within the Observation of the youngest amongst us, That while there were two Houses, they did not outvie each other by such Representations as tended to the Instruction and Ornament of Life, but by introducing mimical Dances, and fulsom Buffoonries. For when an excellent Tragedy was to be acted in one House, the Ladder-Dancer carried the whole Town to the other.

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A Satyr Against Dancing (1702,6) also alludes to the popularity of ladder dances on stage, remarking "Yet nothing will our modern Plays enhance, / But Dame Ragou L'abbe or Ladder Dance." Among the things advertised in The Tatler (15 July 1709) that "may be bought cheap in Drury-Lane" are listed "Materials for Dancing; as Masques, Castanets, and a Ladder of Ten Rounds." The tradition of comic dances making use of such props as ladders continued into the early nineteenth century. The last great dancer in the comic style, Charles Frangois Mazurier, is in fact commemorated performing such a ladder dance in a print showing scenes from Blache's 1824 performance of the pantomime ballet Les meuniers, reproduced in Winter (1974,236). Indeed, one of the scenes depicted is almost identical to the ladder scene shown in Lambranzi (1716,2:42)over a hundred years earlier. To convey the lightheartedness of this style, comic dancers availed themselves of mainly jumping steps, contenting themselves "with capering away, with increasing the number of entrechats, gambols, and beats without rhyme or reason, but with a sort of correctness and with a little more respect for the cadence" than grotesque dancers had, as Angiolini puts it (1765). Indeed, slow music, and with it slow terre-8-terre steps, was largely out of place here, for comic dancers "dance almost always to lively, swift-moving tunes; they would not be able even to walk to the slow, starchy movement of a passacaille without falling." The opening corps dance from Le peintre amoureux de son mod2le (Ferrere 1782?, 1)provides a concrete example of the comic's preference for animated jumping, for almost all of the steps listed are jumps: 1) Contreftemps], entfreckaf] (ii); ballotfe' (ii); four entfreckats] z701e's (iv); (8).2) The first ones: ckasse's d quatre pas, sissonne, balance' (ii), four brise's d trois pas (iv);the second ones: four chassis ri trois pas (iv);contfreternps] (ii);pas de bourre'e ouoert (ii); (8).3) Four chassis ~3 trois pas (iv), (4).Glissade h frois pas, assemble' (ii); contlrepas] [i.e., the same on the other side] (ii); (4). The first ones: ickappe' marque' (ii); the same (ii);pirouette droite (ii); coupe' entfier] (ii); the second ones: six ckasse's d trois pas (vi); contfretemps] (ii); (8).4 ) Two ckasse's d quatre pas (ii); contfrepas] (ii); (4). Demi-contfreternps], contrepas (ii); contfrepas] (ii); (4). Pas de bourre'e, balance' (ii); the same (ii); (4). Ckasse' u quatre pas, demi-enf[reckaf]ferme' (ii); contfrepasl; (ii).

The preference for jumps in this style is also evident from a review of Jean Marcadet's debut at the Paris Opera in 1777.According to the

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1777 almanac ThZtres forains, Marcadet, who had started his career as a child dancer in Audinot‘s Boulevard theater the Ambigucomique, ”made his Opera debut with the greatest success in the style of the famous Dauberval,” that is, in the comic style (trans. in Winter 1974, 173).A review in the Journal des tkkitres (15 Dec. 1777, 79) clearly indicates that Marcadet’s comic genre made conspicuous use of jumps: What has this young man done then and what does he do every day to merit the prodigious applause that he gets? He hurls himself onto the stage, doing two or three turns on himself; he advances to the edge of the footlights in three entredzats, where he repeats coiips de poignetj and gargouillades, and when the end of his music comes, he doubles over at the waist, strikes his knees with both his hands, gives the pit a little nod as a sign of friendship, and in a jump finds himself at the back of the stage.

As the comic dancer was not ”tied up to the same rules or observations as are necessary to the serious and half serious stiles,” as Gallini notes above, steps, movements, and even whole dances taken from folk or national dance traditions also lay well within the preserve of the comic dancer. Some of the comic dance scenarios published by Lambranzi (1716, 2:5, 2:7), for example, require the performer to dance in a national or pseudonational style. His scenario for a gondolier, for instance, has the performer execute a “furlana in the Venetian manner, which is a manner that has its proper usual steps,” while in another scenario a Swiss ”dances after the manner of his country.” So-called German dancing, that is, romping about like peasants, figured in a number of pantomime ballets mounted at the Paris Opera in the second half of the eighteenth century. This practice met with criticism from Papillon (1782, 88), who complains that ”the only thing that one could take to task is that in certain corps d’enfrke, a little use was made of what is called the German genre. This genre, although far from farce, strikes me as somewhat out of place in these ballets and even more so in the theater where they are executed, a genre that wrongs theatrical dance, at least in part, and daises de ville in every sense of the expression.” Cossack dances could also be used. One figured prominently in Hilverding’s pantomime ballet La foire de Zainoysck, for example, wherein ”someone feigns wishing to make off with a Cossack’s mistress, in order to amuse a Polish lord. His anger diverts the com-

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pany; he is appeased through the gift of a pelt, and they prevail upon him to dance in the manner of his country” (Journal encyclopdddique Jan. 1758,119). Similarly at the Opera-comique in 1759, on the twenty-second of the month of September,a Cossack performed on this stage a dance which is very likely the only dance of his country. He was accompanied by a kind of mandolin. The singularity of this terre-k-terre dancing consists in kcarts and positions of the body which strike us as most painful but in which he did not seem to be hampered. His dancing is lively, light, and measured with much precision? (Mercure de France Oct. 1759,2199)

Gervais and Nivelon danced the folk dance the ptrigourdine in the Paris Opera’s 1782 production of €Zectre (Mercure de France 23 Nov. 1782,181). In England, Scottish Highland dancing, or at least something resembling it, lay within the preserve of the comic theatrical dancer and became particularly interesting to the English public in the wake of the last Jacobite rebellion of 1745. Gallini (1762, 184-85) notes that this dance form, or at least elements from it, was suitable for a comic dance in the theater: It is to the HIGHLANDERS in North-Britain, that I am told we are indebted for a dance in the comic vein, called the Scotch Reel, executed generally, and I believe always in trio, or by three. When well danced, it has a very pleasing effect: and indeed nothing can be imagined more agreeable, or more lively and brilliant, than the steps in many of the Scotch dances. There is a great variety of very natural and very pleasing ones. And a composer of comic dances, might, with great advantage to himself, upon a judicious assemblage of such steps as he might pick out of their dances, form a dance that, with well adapted dresses, correspondent music, and figures capable of a just performance, could hardly fail of a great success upon the theatre.

Indeed, extant playbills for the eighteenth-century English stage indicate that comic dancers in Britain employed Scottish dance, or at least something inspired thereby, to amuse restive English theatergoers between the acts of plays. The entr’acte ”The Highland Reel: A New Comic Dance by Aldridge, Miss Valois, and Sga. Manesiere,” for example, entertained patrons of Covent Garden on several occasionsbetween March 1768 and December 1774 (cited in E m e r s o n 1972, 126-27). In like manner, a Scots dance evidently alluding to exploits of

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the charming ”prince” Charlie in the wake of the Jacobite revolt, described in a letter from Ralph Bigland to Alexander Macmorland dated 3 March 1749 (Forbes 1895,2:254),met with the approbation of a London audience: I have since I came here [to London] been lately two or three times at the play and what invited me most was to see a new dance called the Scots Dance consisting of about 20 lads and lasses dress’d after the Highland fashion. The scene represents a very romantic, rocky, or mountainous country seemingly, at the most distant view you behold a glorious pair (which far surpass all the other actors) sitting among the rocks, while the rest are dancing below among groves of trees. Some also are representing with their wheels a spinning; all the while the music plays either Prince Charlie’s minuet or the Auld Stewarts Back Again. At last descends from the mountains the glorious pair which to appearance is a prince and princess. Then all the actors retire on each side while the royal youth and his favourite dance so fine, in a word that the whole audience clap their hands for joy. Then in a moment the spinning wheels are thrown aside and every lad and lass join in the dance and jerk it away as quick as possible while the music briskly p l a y s 4 v e r the Water to Charlie, a bagpipe being in the band. In short it is so ravishing seemingly to the whole audience that the people to express their joy clap their hands in a most extraordinary manner indeed. (cited in E m e r s o n 1972,128)

Some of the dances and steps taken from folk traditions were clearly modified or balleticized to some extent when performed on stage. The late-eighteenth-century dancer Despreaux (1806, 2:283), for example, notes that the Cossack dance was often less exaggerated than the original folk version, which was “a trivial dance from Poland, made up of grimaces.” In the origmal ”the dancer sits almost on his heels,” but on stage ”it is ennobled a little by polishing it, that is, by not exaggerating the movements.” The hornpipe, a dance taken from the British step-dancing tradition, was another such nonclassical dance that in like manner was often modified and balleticized. According to Gallini (1762, 183), comic dancers did in fact endeavor to master the true hornpipe with its tapped steps: “Some foreign comic dancers, on their coming here, apply themselves with great attention to the true study of the hornpipe, and by constant practice acquire the ability of performing it with success in foreign countries, where it always meets with the highest applause, when masterly executed.” According to the late-eighteenth-century

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American dancer John Durang (1966, ll),however, these tap-steps were frequently replaced with more airborne gambols, especially when executed by French dancers, for "the French seldom do many real ground steps" in the hornpipe. One such "real ground step" from the step-dancing tradition that made its way into mainstream comic ballet was the pas de pied, or "foot step," also called the pas marque' or the pas froffe', which was nothing more than a balleticized version of the tap-step known as the "shuffle." Vieth (1794,2:415) describes the step in the context of ballroom dance as follows: Foots, steps common in English dances wherein, while the one foot springs up almost imperceptibly, the toe of the other is thrust sideways onto the floor; the latter is set down behind the former, and then the same is repeated with the first foot. These are also called striking steps or pas marquis. (The latter term also refers to other steps, however, that are merely done in figuring [i.e., dancing] on the spot, for which among others thejeurets, either to the fore, rear, or side, are handy.) If the striking steps are very marked, then you will hear a double beat, which the toe of the working foot does on the floor, one in thrusting it out and the other in drawing it back.

Fundamental to English hornpipes and jigs, the shuffle was also used in eighteenth-century English country dances as a kind of embellishing step. References to the tapping, stamping, or bangmg of the feet on the floor common in these dances can be found in a number of sources from the period, such as Rameau (1725a, 108), the Journal e'franger (May 1754,229-30), Ratier (1759?,14-15), Despreaux (1806,2:281).The pas de pied was clearly used on stage, for it figures in the extant choreography for the comic pantomime ballet La rkjouissance zdlageoise (Ferrere 1782?,29), wherein a peasant woman "makes off in pas de pied" and then later "comes back on in pas de pied." She was evidently doing the jumps with greater elevation than was usual in the step-dancing tradition, for she was able to travel easily over the stage in executing them. The practitioner of the comic, devoted as he was to the representation of figures drawn from the lower strata of life, was ideally to be short and stocky. As Noverre indicates (1760,233-34), "the figure of the comic dancer needs fewer perfections; the shorter he is, the more his body lends grace, kindness, and nai'vetk to his expression." Noverre adds that "a pleasant physiognomy, ever animated with

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liveliness and gaiety, is the only one suitable to comic dancers. They should be, as it were, the monkeys of nature and ape that simplicity, that uninhibited joy and artless expression that holds sway in the village.” Despreaux (1806, 2:290) similarly notes that ”the comic is the third genre of dance; it requires a short, robust body. As this build allows for greater agility, the dance is gayer and more amazing and generally pleases the public more.” Jean-Barthelemy Lany (1718-1786) was one of the most outstanding comic dancers from the period. It was he who introduced onto the stage of the Paris Opera the novel genre of the plifre, or rustic shepherd in contrast to the idealized berger. He was ”short, around five foot [i.e., about five foot four], broad-shouldered, strong-legged, very strong, very precise, very correct” (Despreaux 1806,2:262).He was succeeded at the Paris Opera by Jean Dauberval (1742-1806), who started out in the serious style but became “thick and muscular” and thus was obliged to turn to the comic (Noverre 1807,2:116).According to Despreaux (1806, 2:290), Marie Allard (1742-1802) was also well renowned in this genre; ”she was middling in height, very fat, very lively, light, and charmingly talented.” Marguerite-Angelique Peslin (1748-?) was equally suited to the comic, for “she was very good at tours de force and vigorous jumps” and “her features, which are quite repulsive, and her heavy mannish figure are not capable of expressing the charms and majesty of the Muse of Dance” (Bachaumont 1783,9July 1770, 19:234). Vigee Lebrun (1984,1:106) notes that Allard and Peslin also danced in the grotesque style and that both lacked slender elegance: ”Mademoiselle Peslin and Mademoiselle Allard were two dancers in the genre that in Italy is called grotesque. They did tours de force, endless piroueffes without charm. Both of them, although very fat, were truly amazing thanks to their agility, especially Mademoiselle Allard.” Sister to the comic, the grotesque was largely devoted to mirth as well. It differed most noticeably from the former in that the grotesque dancer’s movements and jumps were marked by extreme exaggeration and contortion, his art having at times more in common with the antics of an acrobat than the movements of a dancer. His dancing was taken up m a d y with extremely difficult jumps of remarkable elevation: As to the grotesque stile of dance, the effect of it chiefly depends on the leaps and height of the springs. There is more of bodily strength re-

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quired in it than even of agility and sl[e]ight. It is more calculated to surprize the eye, then to entertain it. It has something of the tumbler's, or wire-dancer's merit of difficulty and danger, rather than of art. But the worst of it is, that this vigor and agility last no longer than the season of youth, or rather decrease in proportion as age advances, and, by this means, leave those who have trusted solely to that vigor and agility deprived of their essential merit. Whereas such as shall have joined to that vigor and agility, a proper study of the principles of their art; that talent will still remain as a resource for them. Commonly those dancers who have from nature eminently those gifts which enable them to shine in the grottesque branch, do not chuse to give themselves the trouble of going to the bottom of their art, and acquiring its perfection. Content with their bodily powers, and with the applause their performances actually do receive from the public, they look no further, and remain in ignorance of the rest of their duty. Against this dissipation then, which keeps them always superficial, they cannot be too much, for their own advantage, admonished. (Gallini 1762,8446)

Weaver (1712,168) in like manner notes that this style was "intermixt with Trick, and Tumbling, that the Design is quite lost in ridiculous Grimace, and odd and unnatural Actions" as well as "Grimace, Posture, Motions, AgiZity, Suppleness of Limbs, and Distortion of [the] Faces." Magri (1779,1:127) provides a concrete example of the extreme elevation that these grotesque dancers were able to achieve. Magri, who was a groftesco himself, active as a performer in the 1750s and 1760s, boasts of having been able to do a rkvoltade over the head of the tallest man that could be found: Such great height was reached in this jump that the heads of the tallest men could pass under the bend of my knee; and what is more, the second time I danced in Turin, His Royal Highness the Duke of Savoy, the present King of Sardinia and its happy ruler, had the tallest grenadier of the supernumeraries, dressed as he was in his theatrical garb,; come out onto the stage, and even he could pass under the bend of my knee in this jump of mine.

Zamacola (1796,32-33) likewise touches upon the extremes of the grotesque dancer, who could "bound three or four yards," in his tongue-in-check description of social dancers running after the music and trying to get to their necessary positions in contredanses: "It often happens that the music goes faster than the dancers in a confredanse, who do not have enough time to get to

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their allotted positions, especially when the contredanse has double figures. In this case, a springing step is done, just as when grotesque dancers at the opera bound three or four yards to plunder in a campaign.” As noted in chapter 2, not only were the jumps themselves to be breathtakingly high but the limbs as well were thrown up in as high and contorted a manner as possible, showing “Suppleness of Limbs,” as Weaver puts it. In the grotesque jump called the spazzacampagna, for example, the dancer needed to raise both his feet above the head at the height of the jump. In exposing hunself to ”deadly danger at every moment” in his attempt to reach amazing elevation while representing the ”dregs of the common people,” the grotesque dancer often sacrificed musicality and landed off the beat if it ensured amazing height in jumps: In Italy, we have dances that are called grotesque, and the dancers who perform them are known as groffeschi.These clowns frisk about only in leaps and bounds, and most often off the beat; the latter, they even willingly sacrifice to their perilous jumps. Their dances commonly revolve around the adventures of peasants, rustic shepherds, and other sorts from the dregs of the common people. To avoid doing the same all the time, they dress themselves as Germans, Englishmen, Spaniards, Turks, fancying they represent the true character of the nation whose garb they have donned, but their jumps and attitudes are almost always the same. I think that the composers of such ballets are to be ranked together with those poets who make parodies: and grotesque dancers with Pierrots, Punches, and Scaramouches, characters celebrated in such spectacles commonly reserved for the [low] theater. I do not say, and please note this, that one cannot excel either in the composition or in the execution of such dance, but I think that this style is the slightest of all. It can excite in the beholder nothing but amazement mixed with fear in seeing the likes of them exposed to deadly danger at every moment. (Angiolini 1765)

Sulzer (1794,4:506) likewise indicates that amid all the exaggeration, respect for the cadence of the music was less of a concern among grotesque dancers: The first or lowest class is called grotesque; it is characterized by a lack of restraint or by something exotic. At bottom, these dances present nothing but extraordinary jumps and strange, silly gestures, revels, and adventures of the lowest class of mankind. Little here is to do with good taste; nor is one so particular here that the cadences of the dances agree so precisely with those of the music. This style demands mainly strength.

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In their attempts to reach great height and lugh extensions, dancers in the grotesque style sacrificed not only cadence but grace: Here and there in the pantomime ballets, which pretty generally please [Italians],especially when there is some extraordinary farce in it, are always found frightful performers of capers, who are called grotteschi and who through a thousand very dangerous jumps done with heaviness and without grace produce a show as interesting as a bull-fight in France, yet this forcefully moves the sensibility of the Roman rabble. These dancers are inspired or rather goaded on by applause in the form of bellowing, which very well corresponds to their sort of quality. (Mercure de France 21 Apr. 1787,137)

Desprkaux (1806, 2:252) in like manner indicates that "the dancers from Italy called grotesque seek only to amaze; their dancing is ignoble. They seem to be unaware that dance is an art which is to please." Grotesque dance was used to portray not only "the dregs of the common people," as Angiolini indicates above-that is, daft bumpkins and crude peasants, and other characters "exotic" to European audiences, to use Sulzer's word, such as Turks, Laplanders, and Chinesebut above all characters from the commedia dell'arte. Indeed, to Weaver's thinking (1728a, 56), the grotesque style was largely synonymous with the dancing of the likes of Harlequin, Scaramouche, and Punch with their ridiculous distortion and grimace: By Grotesque Dancing, I mean only such Characters as are quite out of Nature; as Harlequin, Scaramouch, Pierrot, G.c. tho' in the natural Sense of the Word, Grotesque among Masters of our Profession, takes in all comic Dancing whatever: But here I have confin'd this Name only to such Characters where, in lieu of regulated Gesture, you meet with distorted and ridiculous Actions, and Grin and Grimace take up entirely that Countenance where the Passions and Afections of the Mind should be expressed.

As Lambranzi notes in his Italian preface (1716, i), the buffoons from the commedia dell'arte needed to be represented by a most odd manner of dancing and by comic positions. Each of these characters had his own unique style and costume: The merry or burlesque characters, that is, Scaramouche, Harlequin, and the like, must be performed with a bizarre manner of dancing and particularly by false and ridiculous positions. It would be ill suited, for

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example, if a Scaramouche, Harlequin, Scapin, or Punch were to dance a minuet, snmbnnde, coiirnnte, or entrie, since each of these has his own ridiculous burlesque steps and the like. Thus, Scaramouche has his huge long expansive steps that are hard to imitate, the Scaramouche steps and capers, as will be given with each of these figures; the same holds for the other characters such as Harlequin, Mezzetin, Scapin, Matto, the Bolognese Doctor, Narcisino, Fenocchio, Orbo, Zotto, Strupiato, Pantalone.For all of these, no steps or figures can be done in costumes other than those normally seen in Italian theaters; in these, the dancers have freedom.

A little information is extant on the individual styles of the more popular characters from the Italian comedy. Scaramouche, for example, was known for h s ”pedantic and extravagant airs” (Pauli 1756,43), for his ridiculous gravity, his contorted movements, and exaggerated high extensions of the legs in particular; as such he was the direct opposite of Harlequin. As Hogarth notes (1753, 149), ”Scaramouch is gravely absurd as the character is intended, in overstretch’d tedious movements of unnatural lengths of lines: these two characters [Scaramouche and Harlequin] seem to have been contrived by conceiving a direct opposition of movements.” Behr (1713, 55) in like manner notes in connection 1,ith Scaramouches that “their positions are in the Spanish manner [i.e., with the feet parallel rather than turned out], yet their steps are very large and expansive, their gestures serious, the which, however, always comes off as being comical and ridiculous.” Attitudes provided the perfect forum for displaying the “expansive,” ”over-stretchd,” and ”unnatural lengths of line” typical with this character. As Magri (1779,l:lll) indicates, the dancing of Scaramouche was filled with ”forced” or exaggerated attitudes, ”used in the characterized dances for the transalpine‘ as well as for Coviello or Scaramouche; these dances are utterly filled with sundry kinds of forced attitudes.” The engraving of the early-eighteenth-century dancer Dubreil as Scaramouche (fig. 2.10) provides a concrete example of the degree of contortion achieved in attitudes by performers of this role. Perhaps the most famous of Scaramouche’s”over-stretch’d” movements was h s simple walking step, wherein his stride was so broad that the sitz bones of the dancer came to be only a couple of feet or so off the floor when the feet were furthest apart during one stride, the dancer nearly doing full splits on the floor in the course of each step. This pas de Scaramouclie is illustrated in Het Groote Tafereel

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der Dwuusheid (1720,44).This illustration, wherein Scaramouche performs this step on the tightrope while playing a fiddle on his head, is reproduced in Lawner (1998,68).The step is also illustrated in Lam-

branzi (1716,1:25), shown here in figure 3.2. Lambranzi notes in the caption to his illustration that “as this figure shows, Scaramouche comes out and does huge steps mixed with capers and piroueftes and dances in this manner as it has been rather often noted.” Zacharias von Uffenbach’s description (1935,31) of a dance for a Scaramouche performed at London’s Drury Lane Theatre on 13June 1710 gives some idea of the oddity typical with this character. Scaramouche avails himself here of ”droll attitudes,” ”contortions of the body,” frequent high jumps into the air, not to mention the virtuoso feat of dancing on the ”tips of his toes”: A man appeared as Scaramouche,but he was far from being as elegant a dancer [as Hester Santlow, who preceded him], though he excels in droll attitudes, leaping and contortions of the body, in which I never saw his equal. The most amazing of all was that he danced a ”Chique” [i.e., gigue] with great aghty on the tips of his toes with his feet turned entirely inwards, so that one cannot conceive how he was able to bend his feet thus backwards, stand on tiptoes, and spring about without straining his feet or breaking them at the ankle-joints. He jumped so high in the air and with such frequency, alighting each time on his toes, that, when he suddenly collapsed, his feet were not to be seen; then he

.-

- -.-

.

Figure 3.2. Scaramouche doing his pas de Scaramouche, after Johann Ceorg Puschner (Lambranzi 171 6,1:25).

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immediately sprang up again without putting his hands to the ground to help himself. That he further set one foot exactly before the other backwards, and, placing himself flat on the ground, sprang up immediately with great nimbleness, is not so much out of the ordinary, and I have seen it done often.

Uffenbach mentions here the practice of turning the feet completely inwards, which was evidently a feat cultivated by eighteenthcentury contortionists as well, as shown in figure 2.13 from Het Groote Tafereel der Dnmsheid. Indeed, like the comic, the grotesque availed itself of nonclassical steps, positions, and movements. Prominent here were the five so-called false positions of the feet, which required one or both of the legs to be rotated inwards rather than outwards, and as such these positions were a ridiculous inversion or parody of classical techruque. According to Feuillet (1700a, 8), these positions were formed as follows: The first is formed when the toes of both feet are turned inwards so that they touch and the heels are apart on the same line; second when the feet are apart the breadth of one foot length between the toes, which are both turned in, with the heels on the same line; third when the toe of one foot is turned out and the other in so that they are parallel to each other; fourth when the toes of both feet are turned in so that the toe of one foot is close to the ankle of the other. Fifth false position is written like fifth true, and they both look the same [in notation]; however, they are in fact quite different from each other, for while in the true position the toes of both feet are turned out, in the false they are turned in, crossing each other so that the heel of one foot is directly opposite the toe of the other.

Sol (1725,54) notes specifically that “these false positions are greatly used in character dances, with peasants and so forth.” As noted above, Behr (1713,55)indicates that Spanish positionsthat is, positions wherein the feet are kept parallel rather than turned out or in-were greatly used by Scaramouche as well. These positions are clearly described by Magri (1779, 1:30): First Spanish position is formed by setting together the feet parallel so that the inner sides of both touch at all parts, with the legs, knees, and everything naturally stretched. In second, the right foot is taken behind the left the breadth of one foot so that the toe is in a straight line with the heel of the other. In third, the right foot is placed so that its instep rests against the side of the heel of the left foot. Fourth is formed from

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the same position in which the feet are placed in third by separating them by one foot length so that the feet are parallel. In fifth, the heel of the right is taken to the toe of the left, both feet forming a straight line.

Some jumps used in the comic and grotesque styles were properly executed in these Spanish positions, such as the galletti, or "cockerel" jumps, described thus in M a p (1779,1:133-34): The capers called galletti begin with the feet parallel, that is, in Spanish first. After the bend, which is done with the knees coupled together, draw up the legs, joined thus as they are, while springing and then stretch them again; the heels come back to do a beat toward the thighs, and in coming down, land with the feet still together. There is another way to do them, which is more difficult; after the first drawing up, stretch the legs, raising them in front as much as you can, curving the body as if going to sleep on the legs themselves, and as you begin to come down, bring the legs downward again and take the body back up to its natural position. There is another way to do them; namely, in springing, raise the legs (coupled again without being drawn up behind) in front right from the beginning, lowering the body over them, and in coming down do the same as given above. Because they need to be very high, all these capers are preceded by a brisk or a sissonne.'O They are called galletti because they are like the jumps of a cock. You may observe that when a cock springs up to take flight, it draws up its legs as in the first; if it springs up in order to make at some animal in a fight, it jumps up by stretching the legs in front, as in the last two given.

What appears to be roughly the same jump figured in a comic tambourine dance performed by the child wonder Lolotte Cammasse, who in 1739 was able to dance "in a manner well beyond her age, being only ten years old as of the fifteenth of last September," for on 7 April in the same year at the Comedie-franqaise, she "executed a very brilliant piece, namely, the tambourine dance, with beats, the fluency and correctness of which were amazing. She has added to it this year, and on her own, the amazing feat of beating her tambourine with both feet to the fore and rear within the space of only one measure" (Mercure de France Apr. 1739,774,777-78). The Scaramouche seen by Uffenbach was also able to land in and then spring out of a prostrate position on the floor, even "without putting his hands to the ground to help himself" up. This sort of jump appears to be a more virtuoso version of a feat found in the sequence called the talon lie ltvre, to give Helmke's name for this composite step, which was apparently restricted to Cossack dances

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in Helmke’s day (1829,188-90). Here the dancer lands on all fours with the body only slightly off the floor and then springs up again out of the same position: Dart forward with the arms stretched out, like a hare doing a jump, put both hands on the floor such that the hand forms a stand, with only the thumb and fingertips touching the floor; at the same time throw the feet back so that they land on the toes, stretch the body, and above all the knees, and lower your chest considerably to the floor between the arms, with the elbows pointing up, so that of the whole body only the feet and fingertips touch the floor. Thrust the head back so that the face is not hidden and count ”four.” Then bound back up with the body.

In contrast to Scaramouche with his gravity, Harlequin betrayed a lighthearted, superficial character, one as vibrant in its many-sidedness as his particolored costume and as amoral and unpredictable as an animal. As Jean-FranqoisMarmontel(1723-1799) puts it, his character is a mixture of ignorance, nuztwfi, wit, foolishness, and grace. He is a kind of dissolute man, a great child who has flashes of reason and intelligence, in all of whose mistakes and blunders there is something pungent. The model Harlequin is all suppleness and agility, with the grace of a young cat, with an exterior coarseness that makes his performances more amusing; he plays a lackey who is patient, faithful, credulous, gluttonous, always in love, always in difficulties on his master’s account or his own, who afflicts himself and consoles himself with the readiness of a child, whose sorrows are as amusing as his joys. (cited in Duchartre 1955, 126)

Harlequin’s ”exterior coarseness” inevitably led him into acts of mischief, into ”buffoonery and antics” (Pauli 1756,43), often of a lascivious kind. During these acts, the dancer or pantomime portraying this character was able to exhibit such movements as “the frequent and significant wriglings of HARLEQUIN’Stail” or ”HARLEQUIN’S tapping the neck or bosom of his mistress, and then kissing his fingers” (The World 25 Oct. 1753),or hs “endeavouring to creep under Columbine’s petticoats” or “laying his legs upon her lap” (The Connoisseur 19 Dec. 1754). As the Cdendrier Izistorique des thkhtres (1751) indicates, Harlequin was ever ready for ”knavery and deceit”: His character is that of an ignorant valet, who is simple at bottom, but who does his best to be witty, even to the point of malice. He is a glutton and a poltroon, but faithful and energetic. Out of fear or self-interest,he

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undertakes all manner of knavery and deceit. He is a chameleon which takes on every color. He must excel in impromptus, and the first thing above all that the public asks is if a Harlequin is agde, if he jumps, dances, and turns somersaults. (cited in Duchartre 1955,127) Lambranzi (1716,1:32-33) gives a dance scenario that well illustrates Harlequin’s “knavery,” one wherein the rogue teases and torments a blind man. In his mischief-making, Harlequin availed himself of a slapstick sword to slap about his opponents and, in brandishing this weapon, to overturn the natural order: ”It is certainly very just, that Harlequin should flourish with his dagger of lath, and invert the order of nature, whenever he finds it necessary” (The World 8 Apr. 1756). Indeed, the use of the slapstick to create mischief was still very much part of the Harlequin role in the early nineteenth century. As Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) reminisces of a performance by this roguish character (1888, loo), ”standing ready at all points, and at right angles with his omnipotent lath-sword, the emblem of the converting power of fancy and light-heartedness . . . he draws h s sword, slaps his enemy, who has just come upon him, into a settee.” In agreement with his bubbly, lighthearted character, Harlequin cultivated small, quick darting or circular movements of the body. As Hogarth indicates (1753, 149), “the attitudes of the harlequin are ingeniously composed of certain little, quick movements of the head, hands and feet, some of which shoot out as it were from the body in straight lines, or are twirled about in little circles.” Examples of such quick darting movements typical of Harlequin can be found in a simple Chacoonfor a Harlequin created by the dancing master Roussau and engraved in Feuillet notation in the 1720s.Roussau includes a forwardjutting movement of the head, performed by ”stretching ye nek and head forwards without moving ye shoulders”and then taking the head back in a birdlike movement. This same darting movement is apparent in Harlequin’s greeting, also gven in Roussau, which requires the performer with hat in hand “to stretch yr arm forwards draw it back again then move it forwards again wh[ich] is ye salutation of an Harlequin.” The certain little, quick movements of the head that shoot out from the body or twirl around, or the flourish of the hand holding the hat, doubtless formed part of the “little antics” alluded to in a review of Cammasse’s performance as a Harlequin in 1740, wherein the child dancer executed ”with great lightness and correctness the little antics with the hat and head and so forth, not to mention the most daring

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pirouefte ever done, and all with mazing correctness“ (Mercure de France June 1740,1197).The twirling movement of the head lived on into the early nineteenth century and is most evident in Leigh Hunt’s description of a performance by Harlequin (1888,100):”Giddy as we think him,he is resolved to show us that his head can bear more giddiness than we fancy; and lo! beginning with it by degrees, he whirls it round into a very spin, with no more remorse than if it were a button.” A succession of quick, little movements was also employed by one of the greatest Harlequins of the eighteenth century, the English pantomime John Rich, who was able to “dance three hundred steps in a rapid advance of only three yards” (Senelick 1998, 350). The ”quick HarIequin trip” alluded to by Jackson (1793, 368) in his description of a scene from Harlequin Sorcerer performed by Rich in 1752, wherein Harlequin is hatched from an egg, may well be an instance of such a succession of rapid minced marchks: ”From the first chipping of the egg, his receiving of motion, his feeling the ground, his standing upright, to his quick Harlequin trip round the empty shell, through the whole progression, every limb had its tongue, and every motion a voice, which ’spoke with most miraculous organ,’ to the understandings and sensations of the observers.” According to Behr (1713, 55-56), Harlequin’s ”gestures are very comical. He has nothing but pluck and binds himself to no figure; rather wherever he can avail himself of only a ridiculous jump and a comic attitude, he is ready at once to do so.” Indeed, Harlequin developed his own set of comic attitudes. In the dedication of his Chacoonfor a Harlequin, Roussau, for example, alludes to the attitudes or “ye postures w[hi]ch are most in practice for the Harlequin.” It is clear that caprice played some role in the choice of such poses, for Roussau indicates that he “endeavour’d to represent some of yours,” that is, some of those used by a dancer named Louis Dupre, presumably not the great serious dancer of the same name. It appears that such attitudes were typically used to conclude each phase of mime or phrase of dance, and Roussau in fact illustrates ”the attitude or full posture the Harlequin must be in when he begins each part.” The dancer begins each of the seven figures in one of four poses, with each figure ending typically with a pause in the choreography to allow the dancer to hold the pose. One of the poses shown in Roussau, wherein the dancer holds one hand on hs slapstick in his belt and sets the other hand on the brim of his hat, appears to have been widely used, and the iconography throughout the period often shows Harlequin striking this pose. In England, the grotesque pantomime Henry Woodward (1714-1777) evidently established the practice of concluding each phase of mime or

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dance with one of only five fixed poses, representing admiration, defiance, determination, fhtation, and thought. This tradition survived until the end of the period when James Byrne, the ballet master at Dnuy Lane, did away with this convention or rather broadened the number and variety of the poses (Beaumont 1967,110). As noted above, the comic and grotesque could employ ”nonclassical” positions and movements. Spanish positions, that is, positions wherein the feet were held parallel to each other, were commonly used by Scaramouche. That they were used by Harlequin as well is suggested by one of the illustrations given in the fifth figure from Roussau’s Chucoonfor a Harlequin, wherein the dancer does a series of sautb, or soubresauts to use the current term, on the tips of his toes in first Spanish position. In addition to employing Spanish positions, Harlequin, like many of the commedia characters, made conspicuous use of tricks or feats taken directly from acrobatics. As the Calendrier historique des thkdtres (1751) makes clear, such feats as somersaults were an inherent part of Harlequin’s antics, for “the first thing above all that the public asks is if a Harlequin is agde, if he jumps, dances, and turns somersaults” (cited in Duchartre 1955, 127). The famous Harlequin Tomasso Antonio Vicentini (1683?-1739), for example, better known as Thomassin, ”would do a somersault with a glass of wine in his hand without spilling a drop” (Duchartre 1955, 41). Indeed, some performers working in the grotesque genre clearly led a double life as both professional acrobat and dancer. The early-eighteenthcentury performer Antoni, for example, danced both on the Paris Opera stage and on the tightrope, being in his day the most perfect rope-dancer ever seen in France. His dancing was noble and easy, such that a skilled dancer might have performed on a stage. To this talent he united that of jumping with admirable elevation, justness, and precision, not to mention that he was original in the dance of the Drunkard, which he performed several times on the stage of the Academie Royale de Musique to the liking of all connoisseurs. (Parfaict 1756,1:152-53)

Descriptions of a number of tumbling tricks from the period give some idea of the dexterity achieved by performers in the grotesque style. One such feat was “the somersault, a dangerous jump wherein the feet turn around the body while the head is down. Tumblers do several somersaults in succession” (Compan 1787, 110). A further trick was the saIto mortale, or ”deadly jump” in Italian, which is illustrated in Lambranzi (1716, 2:45) and vaguely described in the

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caption to his figure as a ”somersault from back to front,” over another standing body, as the figure makes clear (fig. 3.3). llus feat is clearly described in detail in Helmke (1829, 192-94), in connection with a character dance for two in the “Cossack style: They dance up to each other and g v e both hands, which they hold up like an arch. Then each man tums on his spot, but both at the same time without letting go of their hands. In thisway, they come to stand back to back with their hands held over their shoulders. The first man bends his body somewhat backward, and the second man somewhat forward at the same time. Then the first man bends his body quickly and forcefully back to the fore, and at the same time the second man swings his body up from behind with the greatest of rebound so that with his head he comes to stand on the first man’s head, with the feet stretched straight up. Then bending he swings himself over in front of the first man and thereby comes to stand opposite him.The first man’s shoulders receive the heavy load of the second in going over, which he must counter at the same time, for this counter-forceserves the second man as a lever, who would fall if the first man were to bend under this force. Then both men turn,and the first likewise somersaults so that each comes to stand again in his spot.

Further tricks, depicted in Lambranzi (1716,2:43-45), include handstands, leapfrog, and what might be called “human wheels,” in which two performers, holding each other foot to head and either belly to belly (fig. 3.4) or back to back (fig. 3.5), coil themselves, forming a single wheel as it were, and roll about on the floor. With his two humps, one on his back and one on his belly, his grotesque mask with a long aquiline nose, and his conical hat, Punch was as graceless as his figure and as violent and cruel as his English name suggests. As Hogarth indicates (1753, 149), ”Punchinello is droll by being the reverse of all elegance, both as to movement, and figure, the beauty of variety is totally, and comically excluded from this character in every respect; h s limbs are raised and let fall almost altogether at one time, in parallel directions, as if his seeming fewer joints than ordinary, were no better than the hinges of a door.” As such he evidently combined the overstretched line of Scaramouche and the quickness in movement of Harlequin, for Behr (1713, 56) notes that ”his dancing is in the manner of Scaramouche and Harlequin.“ One jump typical of this character that affords a clear example of his utter gracelessness was the saut de pendu: The sauf de pendu, or the “hanged man’s jump,” is used in the role of Pulcinella, or the Drunkard, or with some other clumsy character, or

Figure 3.3. 2:45).

The salfo morfale, after Johann Ceorg Puschner (Lambranzi 1716,

Figure 3.4. 2:43).

“Human wheels,” after Johann Ceorg Puschner (Lambranzi 1716,

Figure 3.5. “Human wheels,” after Johann Ceorg Puschner (Lambranzi 1716, 2:44).

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sometimes it is done [merely] to be queer, this being a difficult jump. It also begus with the feet parallel and with the knees together. Bend, and in springing, straighten the body well with the legs coupled. The arms, which are stretched, fall, with the hands touching the thighs and the head lost to one side. Then when coming down, take one foot well up into the air as high as possible just before touching the floor, landing obliquely on the other foot. The difficulty of this jump lies in the great height needed to catch the spectator’s eye; otherwise it will amount to nothing. He who lacks the ability to reach such height should on no account do this caper. (Magri 1779,1:134-35)

A further grotesque movement evidently common with Punch, showing his “clumsy, crippled manner” (Pauli 1756,43), was a walking step wherein the dancer moves about with his feet spread well apart to the sides and either parallel or fully turned in, with his knees bent and just off the floor. This ludicrous and difficult feat is illustrated in Lambranzi (1716, 1:40), who shows Punch ”dancing around in a circle in this manner, and after odd crooked limping steps are done, the dance ends to the amusement of every spectator” (fig. 3.6). A similar version of this step is described in Magri (1779,

- .. -. - .

.-..-

Figure 3.6. Punch “dancing around in a circle in this manner, “doing” odd crooked limping steps,” after JohannGeorg Puschner (Lambranzi 171 6,1:40).

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1:137), who claims that ”in the role of the French Pulcinella, who usually has two humps, I have come down with the feet in Spanish fourth with the knees, together and bent, half a palm’s breadth off the floor, and in such a manner, I proceeded to walk, ending the walk with a pirouette en Z‘air [i.e., four en Z’air] taken from this same position.” The jump from which Magri landed in Punch’s limping step alluded to just above was the caprioZa aforbice, or “scissor caper,” a step commonly employed with this character as well, according to Magi (1779,1:136): The forbice is a caper used in conjunction with the character of Pulcinella. It begins in Spanish first position and is cut therein. Spring, and while in the air with the knees joined as if nailed together, spread the feet, taking indifferently the right or the left forward, and in coming down, bring the feet back together again into the same first position, in which you land balanced. This does not need to be too high. This caper is done in another manner, which requires greater height and is done fully open; that is, the knees are not joined but are stretched with the legs, which open from the hip joints, sending one forward and one backward. In the first way of doing this step, I have taken the legs back together into Spanish fifth after the first opening and opened them again in the same jump. In the second, I have done a half turn of the body while beginning the descent. All these capers, which belong to the character of Pulcinella, are done with a movement of the arm on the same side as the foot. In the role of Praut, or the French Miller, great use is made of the fully opened forbice.

Less information is available about the dancing of other such grotesque characters. According to Pauli (1756, 43), Pierrot was known for his “silliness and naYvefk,” Hogarth (1753,149) noting that ”Pierrott’s movements and attitudes, are chiefly in perpendiculars and parallels, so is his figure and dress.” Other sketchy descriptions of dance performances in this genre hint at the oddity of the grotesque style generally, with its love of caricature and contortion. According to the summary of a dance called ”the King of Morocco’s Diversions” performed by a certain Grimaldo Francolino from Malta at the King‘s Theatre in London on the second of March 1727, Francolino evidently hoped to impress his audience through his ”surprizing Activity [i.e., agility] and Strength in a Dance on his

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Knees with a wonderful heavy Machine upon lus Head, never yet attempted by any one before” (The London Stage 1960, 2/ii: 911). Equally bizarre is a dance scenario given in Lambranzi (1716,1:28), wherein two dancers, each clad in a giant shoe and leg terminating in a slouch hat, dance about together. Dances of peoples that were exotic to European audiences, such as Turks, Chinese, or Lapps, belonged to the grotesque style as well. The famed grotesque dancer Laurent appeared in a dance “in the low comic vein” for a Laplander in the opera Ernelinde, mounted at the Paris Opera in 1767 or 1777 (Despreaux 1806, 2:254). Hilverding’s pantomime ballet Psyche et ]‘Amour, first performed in 1752 at the Burgtheater in Vienna, contained a scene wherein Psyche, after having broken her word to Cupid, finds herself in the middle of a vast wasteland. The view is bounded by frightful rocks, which are arid and covered with snow. Out of the hollows rise scrubby shrubs stripped of their greenery. The painter created in this set that beautiful horror of the land of the Lapps, where the scene is now set. A group of Lapps covered with snow, laden with icicles, and armed with arrows, come and frighten Psyche with their attitudes, yielding only to Boreas, who through the vivacity of his steps and the expressiveness of his attitudes brings her to a pitch of despair. Uournal encyclopidique Jan. 1756,77-78)

Here the Lapps function much like the Eumenides, who traditionally were to hound and torment a character in his darkest hour. Dances for peoples from other locales provided grotesque dancers with ample opportunity for droll but impressive jumps, such as the so-called Turkish caper, described in M a g i (1779,1:133): It is evident from the name of this Turkish caper that it is meant to be used in Turkish roles. It is done [with the legs] drawn up under the body, and instead of beating as usual and interweaving, the soles of the feet beat together; the beat can be done two or at most three times. It is likewise done to the side, with the body oblique in the air, as usual. In these, you land on one foot.

Chinese characters were particularly apt to employ bizarre movements. The iconography suggests that squatting or sitting positions were traditional with Chinese characters on the eighteenthcentury stage, with the performer standing in a bend in a forced

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second position of the feet, for example (figs. 3.7-8), or sitting on his heels (fig. 3.9), or alternately sitting with his legs crossed. The late-eighteenth-century dancer Roller (1843, 223-24) describes a droll pas chinois, performed from a cross-legged position on the floor, that was evidently used in the ”Chinese” ballet Das Fest lies porzellanenen Turms zu Peking: Sit up on the floor with both legs [crossed],with the heel of the left foot in front of the right knee, and the toe of the right foot behind the left knee, with both legs, from the knee to the fore-part of the foot, crossed flat in front of the body. Rise a little, insignificantly so, from this seated position and lean the body slightly to the left, during which the right foot is drawn out from behind, is thrown sideways to the right in a circle and is set again crossed in front of the left so that its heel comes to be in front by the left knee, the body sitting again quite naturally.Now lean the body slightly to the right, and the left foot is drawn out from behind, is thrown sideways to the left in a circle, and is set in front of the right foot so that its heel comes to be in front by the right knee, and again with the right foot, and so forth.

An extant description of Noverre’s pantomime ballet Les f2te.s chi-

noises (The Chinese festivals), mounted at the Foire Saint Laurent in

1754, indicates that the choreographer used in the opening scene both sitting positions and bobbing movements, the latter evidently parodying the Chinese custom of multiple bows, which reminded a critic in the Spectacles de Puris (1755,4:136-37) of an undulating sea: The stage first shows an avenue ending with terraces and steps leading to a palace on a height. This first set changes and shows a public place decorated for a festival, and at the back an amphitheater where sixteen Chinese are sitting. With a quick change in locale, instead of sixteen Chinese, one sees thirty-two, who perform a pantomimic exercise on the steps. As the first go down, sixteen other Chinese, both Mandarins and slaves, come out of their dwellings and go onto the steps. All of this creates eight ranks of dancers, who in successively stooping and rising imitate rather well the waves of an agitated sea. (cited in Brown 1991,148)

In addition to squatting positions or bobbing movements, a pointedfinger gesture evidently could also be used, wherein the forearms were held upwards with one finger of each hand pointing aloft (figs. 2.4 and 3.8).

Figure 3.7. A mid-eighteenth-century dancer in a Chinese role, after J.4. Martin, in the New York Public library, reproduced in Kirstein (1984,113).

Figure 3.8. A mid-eighteenth-century dancer in a Chinese role, after J.4. Martin, in the New York Public Library, reproduced in Kirstein (1984, 113).

Figure 3.9. “Monsieur Pagode” after Roquillard in Gherardi (1700), in the N e‘W Yo1rk Public library, reproduced in Kirstein (1984, 113).

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However bizarre a figure grotesque characters cut with their droll jumps, bizarre costumes, acts of contortion, and other antics, the grotesque style of dance still required artistry so that it would appear "pleasantly ridiculous rather than worthy of ridicule." As Bonin (1712,60451) notes in his general discussion of the comic and grotesque, there is seldom a comedy or opera wherein the dancing is not a few times done in sundry ways, and as the personages are all in costume, Harlequin, Scaramouche, Punch, peasants, and other dancers make their appearance. Such characters do a solo, or ballets are performed with entries in them, which must be done in such a way that they are not simple and tasteless. Such dancers likewise truly need to have a special predisposition, as they may not use words to make themselves comical but rather only attitudes and positions of the body so that such dances may be varied in a hundred or more ways, but this, as said, must be done in such a way that it looks pleasantly ridiculous rather than worthy of ridicule or displeasure. Many look fine on the stage in their drollest costumes,but when it comes to dancing and they are to do their figures, they look so ludicrous that it could take away one's appetite for food and drink, as crooked feet, queer jumps, and strange masks are not enough; this manner of dancing also requires a certain artistry.

Gallini (1762, 86-87) likewise warns that the grotesque dancer was not to lose sight of nature amid all the contortion and grimace: But though the grotesque may be a caricature of nature, it is never to lose sight of it. It must ever bear a due relation to the objects of which it attempts to exhibit the imitation, however exaggerated. But in this it is for genius to direct the artist. And it is very certain that this kind of dancing, well executed, affords to the public, great entertainment in the way, if what may be called broad mirth; especially where the figure of the grotesque dancer, his gestures, dress, and the decorations, all contribute to the creation of the laugh. He must also avoid any thing studied or affected in his action. Every thing must appear as natural as possible, even amidst the grimaces, contortions, and extravagancies of the character.

Despite warnings that this style was to eschew anything that might excite ridicule or displeasure in the spectator, it was not unknown for the grotesque to go beyond the bounds of decency. It often incorporated into its dances and pantomimes "everything bar-

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baric, indecent, and unnatural” and “dishonored the stage with the lazzi, gestures, jumps, and looseness of indecent dancers who trod under foot taste, delicacy, and custom and made representations unfitting for delicate souls” (Angiolini [1773] 1998,52). In a letter to Count de Mercy-Argenteau dated 17 June 1776, the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria alludes to the tendency of dance for Italian characters to gravitate to the lewd and low and commends Noverre, with his pantomime ballets of a more noble character, for ridding the theaters ”of the sometimes rather indecent ways of Italian dancing” (trans. in Guest 1996,87). Indeed, the lewdness of eighteenthcentury comic theater reached an all-time high, or rather low, in Italy particularly. The famed Italian comic playwright Carlo Goldoni (1761) laments, for example, that ”the comic theatre of Italy for more than a century past had so degenerated that it became a disgusting object of general abhorrence. You saw nothing on public stages but indecent harlequinades, dirty and scandalous intrigue, foul jests, immodest loves” (trans. in Beaumont 1967,83). The following review of Grandval fils’s Sirop-au-cul, ou l’heureuse dklivrance, tragidie hirof-merdifique (Asssyrupus [literally ’Syrup-inthe-Arse‘], or the Happy Deliverance, Heroic Shit-erific Tragedy) gives some idea perhaps of the ”indecency” and scatological humor of the lower end of the eighteenth-century comic stage. Doubtless the like was found in conjunction with comic and grotesque ballets outside more staid European theaters. From time to time appear productions that are low, insipid, and indecent and which become the object of the curiosity and conversation of all Paris. All such works, however, do not enjoy this honor, and a rhapsody entitled Asssyrupus has begun to excite the contempt that it merits. King Asssyrupus is sick, and the doctors give him up for dead because of a blockage that he has. Act I He is treated and given up for dead a second time because he is constipated. Act I1 Fate decrees that the prince can be healed only once someone has blown up his arse. His mistress does this, and his health returns. Act ID: He marries her in recognition of this service and condemns his subjects to eat his excrement because not one of them came forth to save his life. This is a satire against doctors, after the fashion of Sticcoti, a bad Italian comedian. (Grimm 1877,27 Dec. 1751,2127-28)

This example of low scatological humor was not an isolated case, for many other works in different genres from the period were produced

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that could match the contents of Syrop-au-cul and that were completely in accord with the lighthearted spirit of the age. One such literary creation was Hurtault's L'art de piter, reviewed by Grimm (1877,21 Feb. 1751,2:32): A 108-page pamphlet has appeared called The Art of Farting. In it can be found what a fart is, how many kinds of farts there are, how a fart is formed, the effects they produce, the drawbacks and advantages they entail. This rag, containing nothing agreeable and no wit, is proof, moreover, of the abuse made of the press. For every book of philosophy and morals that is printed in this country, one finds a hundred pamphlets contrary to common sense and good manners.

Not all grotesque dancing was to inspire laughter through buffoonery or indecency. The Furies of the eighteenth-century theater, for example, those fiends from Hell personifymg such besetting passions as hatred, rage, revenge, cruelty, confusion, and the like, were characters in the grotesque style intended to inspire horror and to paint symbolically the inner turmoil afflicting a character in his darkest hour. Scenes given over to Furies or demons tormenting their victim abounded in operas in the heroic-tragc vein throughout the period. To express their violent character, the choreography typically created for dances of Furies, or the Eumenides as they were also called, was made up feats of impressive velocity, of precipitous jumps and violent turns. As Bonin indicates (1712,165), the Furies are dances the speed of which can scarcely be imagined, for not only the music itself but also the feet must move in and out like lightning, such that the latter, because of the speed, can hardly be told apart, which is the right or which is the left, when a Fury is danced. It is just as if all the spirits of Hell have been let loose on the stage, spirits who represent confusion, revenge, wrath, and cruelty themselves. There must be movement in and out, back and forth, forward and backward, in a straight line and in a circle such that the feet come to be very little on the floor.

Cahusac (1754,3:48-49) in like manner remarks that the Furies specialized in feats of speed and "through swift steps, precipitous jumps, and violent whirling [tourbillons]paint the rage that animates them." The Furies evidently availed themselves of a step vocabulary that captured some of their rage and violence. The tourbillon mentioned

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by Cahusac just above, for example, appears to have been a bona fide step, or rather a sequence of rapid traveling turns, and as such is likely the forebear of the modem petits tours or tours chainis. Figuring prominently among their ”precipitous jumps” was the grunde gargouillude, typically done with the body performing a half or full turn and with both or only one leg executing a rond de jambe in the air. The following description from Magri (1779,1:124)outlines one version of this step: The gargouillade is an old caper, which is done with a digagk turning, and then in the spring, the body is held straight and upright, with the legs and thighs in an even line parallel to the floor; one is held stretched and still, and the other does a tour de jambe. In coming down, land on the leg that was stretched, and the other which did the four de jambe stays off the floor. Between the digagi and the spring, a full turn is done. For greater spring, the jump is done with the foot that was taken out, which gives greater force to the spring. In a jump of this kind, more than one four de jambe cannot be done, but more than one gargouillude can, all with the same foot or with a change [of feet].

The Encyclopidie inkthodique (1786,417)notes that “this step is traditional in entries for winds, demons, and spirits of fire,” one that the celebrated Louis Duprb was famed for when he danced the role of a demon early in the century. Not only the legs but the arms as well were to betray swift, grand, and wild movements, but not without artistry. Magi (1779, 1:111) cautions that ”this wildness and disorder notwithstanding, the Furies merit every attention; indeed, they more than any other character need to be represented and enacted with bodily nimbleness, with quickness in the legs and with grand, swift gestures of the arms.” Such high swinging movements of the arms was as much a practical necessity as an aesthetic one, since Furies commonly armed themselves with burning torches to frighten and torment their victim and help reveal their hellish character, and the dancers portraying these demons had to take care not to set their costumes alight. Bonin (1712,195-96) indicates that their costume is made up of nothing but flames of fire from head to toe, their faces fire red, and in both hands they bear a burning torch. The scene then must also be gloomy, frightful, and dreadful. It can be in fact a hell, somewhat illuminated, ringed round at the sides with frightful crags and chasms, or the scene reveals a mountain that spews fire as the Furies

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come forth from sundry holes and begin their dance with gestures of despair. If to the entree thunder and lightning as well as a rain of fire are added, the character of the Furies will be rendered even more naturally, and the very image of a frightful frenzy will be portrayed.

Just such a hurly-burly of frenzied, precipitous movement by hellish spirits armed with burning torches characterized a dance for Furies in Noverre’s pantomime ballet Renaud e f Armide, performed in Stuttgart in 1763 as part of the duke of Wiirttemberg’s birthday celebrations. According to Uriot’s account (1763, 146-47), Armide in the course of the ballet passes from despair to fury. She invokes the demons and Furies, who rush on at her bidding, armed with daggers and serpents; Vengeance and Rage are at her sides. The entrie that they dance makes one shake with horror. Armide orders them to destroy [Renaud’s]palace and gardens. All of them arm themselves with torches, which they light with the fire from the torches of Vengeance, and form a corps de bullet, which through the precipitous and frenzied movements as well through the arrangement of figures makes a most frightening spectacle. They disperse to all sides, and in an artistically arranged confusion, they set fire to the palace.

The scene of Furies from the fourth act of Rameau’s opera Castor et Pollux, remounted at the Paris Opera in 1791, in like manner made conspicuous use of ”tumultuous dances, with the devils waving their torches” (Mercure de France 1Oct. 1791,37). Truly spectacular displays of fire in such dances for Furies became possible beginning in the 1760s, at least at the Paris Opera, thanks to the efforts of Jacques Bandiery de Laval, assistant ballet master at the OpQa, who introduced more sophisticated flame-throwing torches. A critic in the Mercure de France (Jan. 1766,2:204)makes reference to the novelty of these torches in a production of Thisie at the Paris Opera in December of 1765, which did much to increase the hellishness of the scene wherein Medea invokes the infernal spirits: The torches, with which the inhabitants of Hell are armed, increase its terror. When these torches are agitated, the flames flare so prodigiously that it seems that they will envelope in torrents of fire now those who make use of them, now the worthy victim of their fury. This effect, so wondrous to see, comes from the powder contained in the capsules of the torches, this powder so clean-burning that it produces no smoke or

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smell and poses no risk of burning anyone even slightly in its most brilliant ignition. This discovery is due to the care and ardent zeal of Monsieur de Laval, the composer of this part of the ballet.” Four years later, a critic in the same journal (Apr. 1770,1:169) gives some idea of the nature of the combustibles found in these torches, ”which we believe [make] use of lycopodium or vegetal sulphur, the powder of which flares up, goes out, and lights up again quickly in passing through a fire of wine spirits.” The Furies used not only torches but also other props, specifically daggers and serpents, to afflict and frighten their victim. In doing so, these demons would pursue their hapless victim about the stage or encircle him and dance around him but would recoil with fear when braved. This pattern of now threatening attacks, now frightened retreats, is alluded to by the author of ”Observations sur l’Opera” (1777,27), who speaks of “these demons, who twist their arms and fret in order to frighten a hero, who bring daggers and serpents before him, who jump about with torches, threatening him,but recoil with fear when he advances toward them.” This same pattern is alluded to in a critic’s review of the dances created by Noverre for Gluck’s Iphige‘nie en Tauride mounted at the Paris Opera in 1779. As is evident from the critic’s description, the attacks and retreats were in fact written into the music, which the choreographer failed to observe consistently on this occasion: The pantomime scene for the Furies is on the whole very well conceived, but it strikes us that it would have even greater impact if the dancers danced less in it, if they were to merit more rest and more variety in the tableaux, and if they were to observe more scrupulously the intentions of the music, which seems to indicate to us the moments wherein the Furies are to rush toward Orestes and those wherein they must recoil with a kind of horror. (Mercure de France 15June 1779,179) A hellish pantomime scene found in Gluck’s Les Dunaides as mounted at the Paris Opera in 1784 similarly centered around victims being tormented by Furies and demons, but to the accompaniment of novel sound effects: “The Danaides, shackled in groups, tormented by the demons or hounded by the Furies, fill the scene with their movements and their cries; a rain of fire falls steadily. While this pantomimic action is executed by the dancers, a chorus utters the cries and groans of the Danaides, who in vain attempt to soften

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the demons who hound and torment them" (Mercure de France 1 May 1784,31). The dancing typical of Furies was characterized not merely by feats of strength and speed but also by contortion, most notably in their attitudes, which were to be "forced," that is, exaggerated, in agreement with the extremity of their character. The distortion of the body in this role is explicitly prescribed in Lambranzi's scenario for a Fury (1716, 241), which requires the performer to do "distortions [Verdrehungen] of very different sorts, with furious quick jumps." Magri (1779,l:lll) discusses this exaggeration in attitudes with greater clarity: Forced attitudes are grander than usual as is indicated by the word "forced." They go beyond the [usual] position and belong to the Furies, who go beyond the norm in everything. They are also used in the characterized dances for the transalpine as well as for Coviello or Scaramouche; these dances are utterly filled with sundry kinds of forced attitudes. To do a forward attitude for a Fury, raise the arm on the same side as the foot off the floor to a height beyond the norm with the fingers uneven, expressing a rage apt to make every limb of the body stiff, with gleaming eyes and gnashing teeth like mastiffs, and everything else that can reveal their venomous, spiteful, and resentful nature; no regularity should be perceived in them but only a quick nimbleness in gesture.

Such gnashing teeth, gleaming eyes, and "stiff," that is, stretched arms are evident in the depiction of a Fury eiz attitude from the middle of the century shown in fig. 3.10. Mane Allard clearly excelled in the role of the Fury and was evidently adept at transforming her features into a suitably fiendish countenance, as she did in the Paris Opera's 1765 remounting of Rameau's Castor et PolZux, for example. In this production the famed dancer, "despite the gracefulnessof her figure, became a veritable Fury through the fieriness of her steps, the amazing fluidity of her attitudes and the energy of her pantomimic acting, right down to the features of her face" (Mercure de France Apr. 1765,1:183). Like the torches, serpents, and daggers, fiendish attitudes were used by the Furies to frighten and torment their victim. This practice of employing attitudes as a "weapon" is evident in a critic's description of a staging of Castor et Pollux at the Paris Opera in 1754, in the fourth act of which the Furies attempt to frighten off Pollux with their attitudes: After the trio and the double chorus of demons and magicians in Phoebe's train, to the first tune, the corps d'entrie of demons first advances

Figure 3.1 0. A mid-eighteenth-century Fury after RenC Gaillard, costume design Martin, in the New York Public library Dance Collection, reproduced in by J.4 Kirstein (1984, 124).

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toward Pollux. A pas de deux with Messieurs Lava1 and Hyacinthe follows, then the three Furies with MesdemoisellesLyonnois, Labatte, and Chevrier. These characters, now separately, now united in a pas de cinque, try to frighten Pollux with their attitudes. After the fine chorus ”brisons tous nos fers,” a second air of even greater animation follows; then all the dancing redoubles the efforts to drive off Pollux, but Mercury, striking them with his caduceus, and Pollux, showing the greatest of courage, force them to go back into their cave, into which Pollux disappears with Mercury. (Mercure de France Feb. 1754,190-91)

In availing themselves of attitudes, the Furies could form striking tableaux and groupings. As Magri indicates (1779, 1:111), “sometimes the Furies bear burning torches in hand, and in waving these, in forming tableaux and groupings of more Furies weaving in and out, the dancer needs to be very agile and skilled in the art.” Such striking tableaux figured in a scene of Furies from Cane&, performed at the Paris Opkra in 1765: Demons, armed with daggers and serpents, execute to an admirable tune movements most suitable to frighten Canente. Three further demons emerge from under the stage amid flames, and vividly grouped, they fill up the rest of this first tune with movements even more marked. To a second lively tune, their master appears with two burning torches in his hands. All the others seize him by the arms and form a group with him and at that instant also find themselves each armed with two similar torches. They encircle Canente and hound her with fury. At the same time fire emerges from every part of the palace. The chorus of Circe’s ministers join the demons in order to torment Canente and come together with them and with the performer to form the most striking and most interesting tableau. (Mercure de France Jan.1761,1357-58)

The popularity of such infernal spectacles ensured that scenes of Furies always ran the risk of becoming hackneyed and obliged choreographers to surpass previous efforts with more vivid effects and novelties to keep the genre fresh. As a critic in the Mercure de France (Apr. 1772, 1:174) notes in his review of the Paris Opera’s 1772 remounting of Rameau’s Castor ef Pollux, such lavish and continued use of grand effects succeeded only in lessening their impact: “As to the ballet of the Furies, I have only one observation to make, which is the more this one succeeds, the less others of the same sort necessarily will. To be prodigal with grand effects is to destroy them. It seems that an opera cannot be made without the help of Hell, and since the in-

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vention of [Laval’s] torches, the stage has never ceased to be illuminated by them.” A critic in the same journal (June1775,179)alludes to the genre of the Furies becoming hackneyed and commends Gretry for his cleverness in producing striking music in CPplzule et Procris for Jealousy and the demons, ”a genre wherein everything seemed to be exhausted.” Some choreographers, however, were evidently successful in bringing new life to a genre that could easily degenerate into cliche. One such talent was Laval, who “with several very ingenious novelties and a number of varied characteristic actions, has already enriched the genre of the infernal spirits, whch before had almost always run the same course” (Mercure de France Dec. 1761,174).Gardel in like manner brought novelty to a dance of Furies, wluch was ”grouped in a new and most picturesque manner,” in Sacchini’sDnrdnnus performed in 1786 (Mercure de France 7 Jan. 1786,131). To make this genre spectacular, some productions appear to have relied more on scenic effects, such as ”a Fury who flies through the air on a dragon” in Hircule inourant of 1761 (Mercure de Frniice Apr. 1761, 2:169), or a stage floor that sunders to let the demons out of Hell in T h M e of 1765: ”One sees the earth rise and part by buckling in order to allow [the Furies] to come forth. This manner, which was never used before in the theater, adds to the illusion and prepares the viewer for the horror of the awaited spectacle. The spirits of Hell emerge with some effort from the bowels of the earth, in attitudes that are picturesque and well characterized” (Mercure de France Jan. 1766,2:203).Alternately, some productions tried to enliven the horror through allegory; the Paris Opera’s 1779production of Gluck’s Iphigknie en Tauride, for example, included a short but novel allegory of remorse: In the second act, Orestes, separated from Pilades, abandons himself to all the wildness of fury. He invokes the lightning of the gods down onto himself; then overcomeby the very excess of his pain, he falls into a deep sleep, during which the Furies come and torment him, reproach him for his crimes, and show him the shadow of his mother with her throat cut by him, dripping with blood still flowing from the wound. This is a most sublime allegory of remorse. Never has poetry presented a more striking or more terrible painting of the soul pained or the conscience troubled, but this tableau can belong only to the lyric theater. (Mercurede France 5 June 1779,53)

The Paris Opera’s 1784 production of Gluck‘s Arinide also included a scene of allegory involving the personification of hatred extracting

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love from Armide’s breast, although these gestures were evidently performed not by the dancers but by the singers and clearly did not meet with great success: We have yet to make a critical observation here on the acting that affronted many people of taste. In the last scene of the third act, when the words ”come out, come out of Armide’s breast! Love, break your chain!” were spoken by Hate and repeated by the chorus of demons, the performer playing Hate draws near to Armide and seizes her by the body with a violence and with movements equally at odds with truth and decorum. The demons in their turn do not fail to repeat this action, which becomes even more shocking from them. It is absurd that Hate personified pretends to pull Love out of Armide’s breast by ripping open her chest apparently to get at him. It is equally absurd that the evil spirits, ever at the beckoning of the enchantress, would permit such familiarities with their sovereign. We do not know if this acting is of an ancient tradition, but we believe that it cannot be justified by any principle of taste or reason. (Mercure de France 17 Nov. 1784,173-74)

If in theory the dances of Furies were to inspire horror in the spectator, in practice such dances by and large do not appear to have been terribly successful at painting frightening images of Hell. Noverre (1807,2:107-8), who was active in the theaters of Europe for roughly the last sixty years of the eighteenth century, suggests that the genre, at least as cultivated at the Paris Opera, seldom inspired horror even in the most fainthearted: ”Finally, Madame, I saw Malter, who was nicknamed the ‘Devil,’ because he danced the demons. His dancing was strong, hard, and dry; always frightful, he frightened nobody. This imaginary and fanciful genre has not been perfected. Our devils at the Opera do not imitate those of Aeschylus; they are good devils who do not even spook the women.” This failure appears to have owed something to the nature of the music typically used in scenes for Furies and demons, which was strangely enough often in a major key and as such too bright to paint convincingly the tormenting fires of Hell. Consider, for example, the tune for a Fury dance in Lambranzi (1716,2:41).The tendency for the music to soften the impact of the Furies is alluded to in a review of the Paris Opera’s 1779 production of Gluck’s Iphige‘nie en Tauride: This dance of the Eumenides, who in the second act come and torment Orestes in his sleep, increases the terror and pathos that one would perhaps have difficulty bearing without the music, for it is a notable feature of this enchanting art that it softens and even makes delightful

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the painting of situations that are most heartbreaking and most frightful, for the agreeable sensations which arise from the same material of art temper the too violent movements that imitation can excite in the soul. (Mercure de France 25 May 1779,197)

Doubtless the typically overrefined costumes of the Furies, made of beautiful stuffs and replete with plumes, also contributed in a small way to softening the impact of such scenes. The following description of costumes for twelve male Furies found in an inventory list drawn up in 1777 at the Munich court and evidently used in Bouqueton's pantomime ballet L'eiiZ&mzent de Proserpine mounted in Munich gives some idea of the sartorial finery that could be used with the Furies: Skirt and one half of sleeves of green taffeta trimmed with gold-colored leonian lace and differently colored foil leaves, embroidered with silver sequins. Upper part of drapery and upper part of body of poppyred taffeta decorated with gold-colored leonian lace, silver sequins and chains made of black taffeta ribbons; lower part of drapery as well as other half of sleeves of puffed golden-colored leonian gauze; 12 breeches of green taffeta and 12 helmets of green and red taffeta. (trans. in Cauthen 1998, xiii)

The tendency to have demons express their hellish character in formal dance rather than in gesture may also have contributed to a lack of dramatic effect. As Mably (1741,117) complains, You must agree, Madame, that the dancing in our operas is often ridiculous. N*** is right; the demons of b n h o r are utter nitwits for failing to come up with anything more difficult than dances in order to show the power of their master. I would say as much about those whom Arcalaus orders to frighten Amadis. Their part is all wrong, and the last folly to pass through their heads was to do cabrioles and entrechats.

Indeed, the review of Noverre's dances for Furies included in the Paris OpQa's 1779performance of Gluck's Iphige'nie en Tauride, given above, similarly complained about too much dancing, remarking that the scene "would have even greater impact if the dancers danced less in it" (Mercure de France 15 June 1779,179). The character of the Winds was the specialty of grotesque dancers as well and was not terribly different from that of the Eumenides. Magri (1779,1:112)notes that "he who is suited to the Furies always represents them or else the personificationof the Wind, which is similarly danced. Those of this style dance la grande z&sse, as it is called by the French, which is not like the character of the Furies or Wind but is

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filled with the same attitudes.” Claude Balon was one eighteenthcentury dancer who specialized in la grande vitesse, for as Nemeitz notes (1727,72), he ”dances the Furies, the Winds, and all the violent dances at the Opera.” As with the Eumenides, the dance of the Winds was made up of vehement tours de force, such as repeated violent pirouettes; echoing Menestrier’s earlier characterization (1682, 159) that ”the dance of the Winds must be light and precipitous,” Le Jay (1725)notes that “for the Winds, the dance should be light and rapid, characterized by frequent pirouettes that imitate the whirling of the wind” (trans. in Dorvane 1998,283). Indeed, as Bonin (1712,19697) indicates in his handbook on theatrical dance intended for amateurs, the Winds were to present a veritable hurly-burly on stage: Now we turn to the entries called les quatre vents, or the Winds. As one is not permitted to consider whether the winds dance, since no one has ever seen a portrait of a wind, only the melody bears this name. The dance itself goes likewise very fast and is made is up of four comers formed by twelve or more dancers, who then very briskly change places pell-mell, presenting at times a veritable hurley-burley. In such an entrie, even before the dance begins, the stage must be most dark as if a storm were about to break, whereupon the men as the Winds, clad in black, dance out and set about their business. In this, more thought is to be given to the figure than to the steps themselves, which are mainly pas de bourrie if the dancers are not at all yet brisk on their legs; with trained dancers, however, other steps can, I dare say, be chosen that demand, it might be added, extraordinary speed.

Just such ”extraordinary speed” characterized the dancing of Laval as one of the Winds in a performance of Tifon et Aurore mounted at Fontainebleau in 1764; “in the first [divertissement of the second act], Monsieur Laval, at the head of the Winds, paints very well the furious impetuosity of these tyrants of the air through the force and swiftness of his dancing” (Mercure de France Nov. 1764,123). The ballet L a f f f edesfleurs from the third entree of Rameau’s Les Indes galantes, first performed at the Paris Opera in 1735, provides a concrete example of how the Winds could be used in a dramatic dance: The ballet is a picturesque representation of the fate of flowers in a garden. They are personified, as are Boreas and Zephyrus, in order to animate this galant painting. First the chosen flowers dance together and form an ever-changing bed of flowers. The Rose, their queen, dances alone. Her dancing is interrupted by a storm brought by Boreas. The flowers feel his anger. The Rose resists this plaguing enemy the

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longest. Boreas‘s steps express his impetuosity and fury; the Rose‘s attitudes paint her sweetness and fears. Zephyrus arrives with reviving calm; he re-animates and raises the flowers brought down by the tempest and concludes their triumph, and his, with tender homage to the Rose. (Mercure de France Sept. 1735,2045-46)

The ballet of the Rose, with its stormy Winds battering the flowers of Flora, does not appear to have been untypical of the way that the Winds were employed in eighteenth-century ballet. At least this is suggested by Dorat’s following characterization of the Zephyrs (1771,166),which likewise has the jerky jumping about of the Winds wreak havoc among Flora’s flowers: Zephyrs, brush the leaves in your light flight, and without being heard, pass through the groves. One laughs at these stormy and sturdy Zephyrs, who make the air groan under their convulsive bounding. Hearing this unknown noise, Flora awakes trembling; they have already made the flowers from her basket bend. At the sight of her new lovers, she fears for the shaky throne where Spring sits, and the pit at length rightly sends these clumsy jumpers bounding into the wings.

A mid-eighteenth-century depiction of the Winds in action reproduced in Winter (1974,103)shows what appears to be the same ”artistically arranged confusion” that characterized Noverre’s dance of Furies in Renaud et Armide, as mentioned by Uriot (1763,147).The attitudes of these Winds (fig. 3.11) reveal the same exaggeration and

Figure 3.1 1. A detail of a mid-eighteenth-centuryWind in action, after an unknown

artist, in a private collection, reproduced in Winter (1974, 103).

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overstretched line that was characteristic of the Furies as well (fig. 3.10), in agreement with Magri’s characterization of this role given above. To la grande vitesse, the noisy and drunken Bacchants appear to have belonged as well, and their dancing was similarly characterized by rapid turning and wild bounds, according to Dorat (1771, 165): “Bacchants, express the fury of drunkenness. Rapidly turn under the God who goads you.” The grotesque style, particularly in the case of commedia characters, required its practitioner to be accomplished in dance, acrobatics, and pantomime. Despite the seeming lack of discipline to be found in buffoonery and caricature, the genre was highly demandDaizciizg is wholly calculated for the Stage, and ing, for ”GROTESQUE takes in the greatest Part of Opern-Dancing, and is much more difficult than the Serious, requiring the utmost Skill of the Performer. . . . A Master or Performer in Grofesque Daizciizg ought to be a Person bred up to the Profession, and throughly skill’d in his Business” (Weaver 1712, 164-65). To excel in the grotesque, the dancer also needed to be naturally disposed to jolliness or at least capable of making himself so upon demand. Bonin (1712,62) indicates that ”he who wishes to excel in this then must be an individual who can assume a merry humor and lively spirits upon demand, for should it so happen that he is to make his appearance but is not disposed or otherwise vexed, it would be better that he quite leave this off rather than making himself contemptible with a forced performance.” Eighteenth-century grotesque dancers, like acrobats, were commonly of Italian extraction, for the style was particularly popular in Italy. As Pellegrin indicates (1754, 58), “it is from Italy that all the tumblers, rope-dancers, charlatans, Mezzetins, Giles, and Harlequins come.” Roller (1843, 206-7) gives some insight into the life that these grotesque dancers led, who not uncommonly started out as orphans or children from poor backgrounds indentured into a kind of serfdom of itinerant theatrical service. These hapless individuals were carefully selected on the basis of their conformation, their disproportionately long legs and high waist evidently making them suitable to do their bizarre but striking jumps and feats of contortion, for which they received meager recompense from their masters: The grotesque dancers were bred (or better said broken in) mainly in Italy. They cannot be numbered among the fine artistic dancers but

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rather among those who through extraordinary practice and strength could do the strangest and the most peculiar jumps. The older jumpers reared in turn the younger ones and trained them. They were bought of parents from the poor class of folk or were taken on parentless. In choosing a new pupil, mainly his strength and build were considered: The shorter his upper body, and the longer he was from the hips to the thighs and legs, the better suited he was to grotesque dancing. They were chosen at an age so that they could appear on stage after a few years. Commonly the teacher and pupil entered into a contract whereby from the time that such a student could perform in public, the pay went to the teacher for a certain period of time, and the latter had merely to maintain his pupil; in this way, the master was recompensed for instruction and training rendered. It was a kind of serfdom for a given breadth of time. These dancers journeyed from theater to theater, and when it was announced that "today there is a new grottesco," great was the throng in keeping with that time. The duration of this sort of serfdom was unbearable for many of these students, however, and if one were so fortunate as to gain the approbation of the public, then he felt that he could become independent and autonomous, and if not kept under careful watch, he would run away from his lord and master. I learnt this directly from a certain Montuani and Casani, who related to me stories from their youth and who were active as grotteschi for nearly fifty years to extraordinary acclaim. This sort of dancer has become rare now [in 18433; he served the fine dancer as a folie and was quite at home (and would still be so today) in such ballets wherein wild exotic tribes, Furies, and other fantastic characters were portrayed.

It was noted at the beginning of this chapter that the four traditional styles of eighteenth-century ballet differed not only in the kinds of characters represented but also in the choice of steps and positions and even in the manner of executing them; in other words, the styles differed not only in subject matter and choreography but also in technique. The degree of elevation in jumping prescribed for these characters was one of the more striking ways in which the individual styles differed technically. According to the tradition as outlined in Magri (1779,1:138), the steps in "a style must be done all in [grand] jumps, or all mid high, or all on the floor, hence the division [of dance] into the three styles"; in other words, the higher the character, the lower the jump, or conversely, the lower the character, the higher the jump. Thus it is that at one extreme the grave, the loftiest and most dignified of the four styles, was to cultivate mainly

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terre-a-terre steps with small jumps rather than capers. At the other extreme the grotesque was to amaze through its "perilous jumps" of remarkable elevation (Angiolini 1765) such that the grotesque dancer like an acrobat could jump over the heads of the tallest men in a revoltade or perform entrechats a dix with two turns in the air, as the grottesco Magri claims he could. The pirouette affords a good example of how a given step could vary in its execution from one style to another. Pirouettes, so essential to such roles as the Furies and Winds, were only seldom done in the grave style, and when they did appear, the serious dancer had fewer options in the way the turns could be executed. While clearly not exhaustive in their catalog of movements, the sources suggest that only two basic kinds of pirouettes were cultivated by grave dancers, and by pirouette we mean specifically a rotation on only one foot as opposed to two. These two basic sorts are described by Taubert (1717, 717-18), who in his handbook gives steps evidently only from the high dance that could be used by more accomplished amateurs to embellish their minuets. The first kind was called a pirouette ouverte ("open turn"), or pirouette teiidue ("stretched turn"), that is, a pirouette ri la secoiide to use the current term, and could be embellished with beats or ronds de jambe, as Taubert makes clear in the following brief sketch (Taubert rather idiosyncratically uses the term tounzi here to designate a turn on only one foot and pirouette to designate a turn on both feet): The tourni, which besides also designates tournnnt de zliEj7exii "turning from the bend in the road," means, however, a rotation or a turning step wherein you turn around very quickly, just like a turning bar on the upright spindle of a gaming table, doing either a quarter, half, three-quarter, or full turn, or a one-and-a-half, or even a double turn, not leisurely on both feet, as in the pirouette, but on only one leg, either the right or the left, with the other turning leg either stretched stiff out to the side (which is called a pirouette ouzlerte, or "open turn," in ChorPgrnphie, wherein we find twenty-two variations of the tourni) or beating over the former, either behind and in front, or in front and behind, or a number of times one quickly after the other to the back, or to the front, then set down again (which is called a pirouette bottue, or "beaten turn," in Clzorigropliie;see numbers 650 to 661 in the table of pirouettes).

As noted above in our discussion of the grave style in particular, the pirouettes that are found in dances belonging to this genre and are

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extant in Feuillet notation from the early part of the eighteenth century invariably have the free leg stretched to the side, with or without beats or ronds de jambe. According to Taubert, the second kind of pirouette, a tourne-broche or "roasting spit" turn, required the dancer to change feet in an alternating manner while turning, the performer presumably drawing the alternating free foot up quickly and repeatedly on the ankle of the supporting leg in doing so. Turning can be done either with the right leg to the left or right side or with the left to the right or left side as well, that is, turning inwards or outwards, which the French call a pirouette ouuerte en dedans and en dehors, or in turning around you step off one foot onto the other, that is, alternately now on the right, now on the left, and in doing so, turn around with such nimbleness that it cannot be made out which is the right or left leg. This is why it is also called a tourne-broche, or "roasting spit" in French, for it continually turns around in a circle, and as it moves, one of its tines cannot be made out from the other.

According to Magri (1779, 1:90-91), the serious dancer Ga6tan Vestris was particularly skilled in this second kind of pirouette, for "during the same turn, he changes feet twice or thrice without stopping or interrupting the turn, something truly worthy of endless wonder." In contrast, the grotesque dancer had a greater variety of ways to turn in his repertory of steps. He could avail himself, for example, of pirouettes wherein the toe of the free foot was held at the heel, ankle (croisk), or knee (en retirk) of the supporting leg, with the knee of the gesture leg kept bent, or a pirouette wherein the heel of the free foot was held on the toe of the supporting leg: The pirouette en refirk is fitting only for the grotesque dancer and is done thus; during the turn on the toe of one foot, the other is held on the knee of the leg that turns or behind the bend of the knee. This pirouette is also reckoned among the indeterminate [i.e.,can be done with as many t u m s as possible]. That with the toe to the heel is also fitting only for the grotesque dancer and is done by resting the toe of the foot that is off the floor against the heel of the foot on which you turn. This pirouette is also indeterminate. That with the heel to the toe is the opposite, wherein the heel of the foot that is off the floor is placed on the toe of the foot that turns.This belongs to the grotesque dancer as well and is indeterminate. The pirouette ouverte, or pirouette tendue, is done

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by turning on the toe of one foot holding the other off the floor to the breadth of second with the knees well stretched. It is a forced, or indeterminate, pirouette and can be done in all the characters. The pirouette croisie belongs to the grotesque dancer; it is also indeterminate and done as follows; the foot not touching the floor is set on the cou-de-pied of the other on which you turn.There are others, but since they are related to these, we will pass over them in silence. (Magri 1779,1:90)

These grotesque turns appear to be of some age and were doubtless inherited from Renaissance dance, like other grotesque steps, such as the salto delfiocco discussed in chapter 2, for what appear to be the forebears of these turns are described in Negri (1602,91-93). A further option for the grotesque dancer was the zurlo basso, or “low pirouette,” which required the executant while turning to bend the supporting leg so much that he could sit down on the heel of the supporting foot. Magri (1779, 1:89) indicates that ”the low pirouette, which is also indeterminate and forced, can be done only by the grotesque ballerino, done by turning quickly on the toe of one foot with the knees bent.” A slightly different version of this turn is given in Lambranzi (1716, 2:37), misspelled as the “zurlo basho,” which shows the dancer sitting on the heel of the supporting foot with both legs parallel rather than turned out and the free leg held extended in front. His caption reads, ”as this figure shows [fig. 3.121, one does turning steps” all the time, one springs up quickly and then does the[se] turning steps again.” Lambranzi’s version is very similar to one given by the lateeighteenth-century dancer Roller (1843, 210-11). Roller similarly has the dancer begin by “taking tempo,” that is, by doing a preparatory jump landing in a pli6 in first position, as he makes clear elsewhere, and has the dancer keep the gesture leg extended rather than bent: Pirouette en bas SUY la terre. The tempo for this is taken as in number 140; at the moment of swingmg around, however, squat down as much as possible on the left foot, on which the turn is done (accomplished dancers sit right on the heel). The right foot, extended out to the side in a horizontal line, must hover stiff [i.e., straight], and the arms are likewise extended away to both sides. Strength and practice are needed to keep the body perpendicular and to keep the extended foot sweeping around freely in a horizontal line over the floor so that it does not sink to the floor. Contra to go around to the right.

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-;==