The Dances of the Napoleonic Period - Summer Course 2018 ATELIER de DANSE
SOCIAL DANCING until 100 years ago was closely integrated with the academic dance of the theatre and dance teachers were choreographers and ballet masters who were called upon to teach the upper classes deportment, social graces, movement and dance. Throughout the 18th and early 19th century, dance masters throughout the courts and theatres of Europe were almost entirely French, demonstrating the importance and appreciation given to the French style and also the respect and honour attached to the development and perfection of French technique. As a result, to this day, the language of the dance is French.
During the Napoleonic period, the Maȋtre de Danse to the court, Jean Etienne Despréaux fought to uphold the qualities of the ancient régime which he had inherited during his days at the court of Marie Antoinette at Versailles. He wrote frequently of the need to maintain the fundamental principles of grace, elegance and good taste and not allow virtuosity to become the sole element of acclaim on the stage (and consequently in the ballroom).
These lessons have been created to follow the pattern of dance teaching technique as presented in the early years of the 19th century. Already in the 18th century, dance movements had been thoroughly analysed and dissected and thus reduced to seven fundamental actions: plier, étendre, relever, glisser, élancer, sauter and tourner. Dance treatises emphasise the necessity to study basic movements to ensure elegance, aplomb and grace before attempting step sequences. Despréaux writes that
‘the art of dancing is not the knowledge of how to execute all manner of steps….the latest recruit to the corps de ballet knows this….but rather a simple, correct manner of execution, consistent with grace; …grace of form, grace of pose and grace of movement’ (Letter to Després).
The exercises to be studied are designed to ensure a controlled and soft demi-plié, extensions of the leg without losing verticality, fluidity in the transference of weight from one leg to another both in demi-plié and in relevé, isolation of the thigh and leg to work gracefully from the cou-de-pied position (used at this time for all pirouettes, jetès and assemblès) as well as the harmonious movement of the arms and head.
Following these basic movements, some simple step sequences (enchaȋnments) taken from contemporary sources will be studied. Strathy (1822) recommends that these are best studied slowly so as not ‘to destroy that gliding smoothness of execution, which ought to be cultivated from the commencement’. The ballroom steps in this period were strictly performed in the terre-à.terre style, a subject much emphasised by all writers of the period and sadly overlooked by many modern researchers and dancers. This quality is not easy to imitate and the interpretation of the step vocabularly of 1805 with present day ballet terminology is no help. The style requires much control and smoothness probably facilitated 200 years ago by the use of the menuet as an essential study to all dance teaching:
Strathy (1822) strongly recommends the study of the Minuet ‘as one of the surest means of acquiring and preserving the most noble and graceful deportment. In the study of the Minuet, one aquires that perpendicularity, and command of balancing, so requisite in good dancing, and without which one can never arrive at any degree of perfection, - but to excel requires a particular talent’
Charles Mason in his French Danse de Société (London 1827) said: “Impressed as I am with the superior excellence of the Minuet in forming the style and carriage of the figure..(allow) me to describe its merits. It is this Dance which ensures to the pupil the highest excellence of elegance of which human nature is capable: it gives sentiment and expression to attitude, inspiring with emulation, and giving an exalted idea of the dignity of the human being. This dance gives also that firmness and precision without which no one can attain any remarkable degree of perfection” (p.10)
DONALD atelier December 2017