A Book of Masques. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1967. A collection of seventeenth-century masques by Ben Jonson, Thomas Campion, and others.
Dancing is frequently mentioned in the introductions to each masque, and there are 48 pages of illustrations of costumes and sets.
Arbeau, Thoinot. Orchesography. Langres, 1589. Library of Congress: <<http://www.loc.gov>>.
Facsimile of original French text online. Also, there are printable copies of the original illustrations at <<http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/arbeau_images.html>>.
Beaujoyeulx, Balthazar de. Balet Comique de la Royne, Paris 1582. Facsimile reprint - McGowan M. (Introduction) Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies, New York, 1967.
I had the opportunity to look at a copy of this text while studying at the Dolmetsch Historical Dance Society Summer School in August of 1998 in Bury St. Edmunds. Provides useful descriptions of geometric formations for dances and the overall structure of a masque, but only if your French is excellent.
Caroso, Fabritio. Il ballarino, Venetia, 1581. Library of Congress: <<http://www.loc.gov>>.
Facsimile of original Italian text online.
______. Nobilità di Dame. Venetia, 1600. Library of Congress: <<http://www.loc.gov>>.
Facsimile of original Italian text online.
Castiglione, Count Baldassare. The Book of the Courtier. (Done into English by Sir Thomas Hoby Anno 1561). London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd.
General examples of Renaissance revelry and courtly attitudes. Castiglione mentions dancing but not extensively.
Davies, Sir John. "Orchestra Or a Poeme of Dauncing" (1596) in The Poems of Sir John Davies. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975.
No literary work about Renaissance court dancing is complete without a quotation from "Orchestra." Sir John Davies praises dancing for 131 stanzas, using dancing as a metaphor for the movement of the sea and the planets as well as arguing that it is a noble and virtuous pastime with classical precedents.
Dryden, John and William Davenant. The Tempest or The Enchanted Island. In Shakespeare Made Fit: Restoration Adaptations of Shakespeare. Selected and edited by Sandra Clark. London: J. M. Dent, 1997.
The Restoration theater’s reworking of Shakespeare is exemplified in the prominent, but inferior use of dancing in Dryden and Deavenant’s version of The Tempest.
The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. London, 1899. Edited by J. A. Fuller Mailand and W. Barclay Squire. New York: Dover Publications, 1963. Two volumes.
Two volumes, also known as Queen Elizabeth’s Virginal Book. Contains instrumental music contemporary with Shakespeare including William Byrd’s "O Mistris myne" sung in Twelfth Night. Unfortunately, there are few notes on the pieces, and half of them are in German.
Four Hundred Songs & Dances From the Stuart Masque. Ed. Andrew Sabol. Hanover and London: Brown University Press, 1982.
The arrangements in the chapter "Dances for the Measures and Revels" are excellent for dances and processions in Shakespeare plays, just avoid those with too late a date. Several of the notes on the pieces refer to dancing, and Appendix C is John Ramsay’s "Practise for Danucinge," a description of 24 English dances from the Inns of Court.
Jonson, Ben. The Masque of Beautie (1608). In The Complete Poetry of Ben Jonson. Edited by William B. Hunter, Jr. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1963.
______. The Masque of Queens (1609), Oberon (1611), and Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue (1618). In Ben Jonson’s Plays and Masques. Selected and edited by Robert M. Adams. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1979.
______. Ben Jonson [Works]. Edited by C. H. Hertford, Percy Simpson, and Evelyn Simpson, 11 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925-1952. Vols. 1, 2, 7, 10, and 11.
A vast assortment of information from letters to bills to a biography, and the plays and masques, many of them annotated. The payments to dancing masters are of particular interest for the dance reconstructor, as are the notes on the satyrs’ dancing in Oberon.
Morley, Thomas. The First Book of Consort Lessons. London, 1599, 1611. Edited by Sydney Beck. New York: C. F. Peters Corporation, 1959.
Arrangements for a broken consort: treble viol, flute, bass viol, lute, cittern, and pandora. Notes on the music of the period and music used for stage production.
Shakespeare, William. The Complete Signet Classic Shakespeare. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1972.
______. The Tempest. Edited by Stephen Orgel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
______. The Winter’s Tale. New York: The Signet Classic Shakespeare, 1988.
Wilson, John Dover. Life in Shakespeare's England: A Book of Elizabethan Prose Compiled by John Dover Wilson. Cambridge University Press, 1911; Penguin Books reprint, 1951.
Adams, Robert M. "The Staging of Jonson’s Plays and Masques." In Ben Jonson’s Plays and Masques. Selected and edited by Robert M. Adams. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1979.
Concise history of the masque and theatrical staging.
Arbeau, Thoinot. Orchesography. Langres, 1589. Translated by Mary Stewart Evans; Introduction and Notes by Julia Sutton. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1967.
The essential text for any beginning Renaissance dance reconstructor. The dances--mostly branles and galliard combinations--are simple and straightforward as are their explanations although the step names are left in their original French. There are some original illustrations of the steps as well as Labanotation, and Julia Sutton’s editiorial comments though detailed, are easily understood. Arbeau gives the melody line for all the dances although arrangements from other sources are recommended for performance. Arbeau’s highly amusing but still relevant defense of dancing makes great reading, and there is also a lengthy section on dance and marching drumbeats.
Baskerville, Charles Read. The Elizabethan Jig. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1929.
Exhaustive examination of the jig. More description of the actual steps than any other source although less is known about how to do a jib than any other dance mentioned in Shakespeare. Lots of quotations from various theatergoers and critics, but some of the interpretations are outdated. Moreover, although Baskerville provides a wealth of information, I found some of his conclusions suspicious, and I would recommend looking at the many sources he mentions before accepting his conclusions as definitive. Still, Baskerville does discuss dancing in Shakespeare plays more extensively than any author except for Alan Brissenden.
Beaujoyeulx, Balthazar de. Balet Comique de la Royne 1581. Translated by Carol and Lander MacClintock, American Institute of Musicology, 1971.
Useful descriptions of geometric formations for dances and the overall structure of a masque, as well as splendid carriages, fountains, and costumes.
Brissenden, Alan. Shakespeare and the Dance. London: The MacMillan Press, 1981.
Essential text for studying dance references in the plays. Extensive analysis both of how dance functions as a plot device and how Shakespeare uses dance references within the text. While Brissenden gives no choreographies -- just the names of suggested dances for fifteen of the plays, he does provide a concise history of Renaissance court dance and explains how dance was viewed by the Elizabethans. Consult this text for specific dance references and for general themes in the different genres of tragedy, comedy, etc. Brissenden also includes a short, but well-chosen glossary of common dance terms and a substantial bibliography.
Caroso, Fabritio. Courtly Dance of the Renaissance: A New Translation and Edition of the "Nobilità di dame" (1600). Translated and edited by Julia Sutton. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1995.
Contains fairly elaborate and elegant dances with modern transcriptions of the lute tabulatures. (In other words, the music can be played on the piano right out of the book.) The dances, however, can be difficult to reconstruct from the book--despite Sutton’s extensive commentary and the Labanotation--if one does not already know the basic steps, and even then, it often unclear what steps occur on what counts of the music. However, the "Notes on Conduct," offering useful and entertaining advice for actors and dancers on how to sit, bow, and otherwise behave at balls and other social gatherings, requires no prior knowledge.
Chujoy, Anatole. "Masques." The Dance Encyclopedia. New York: A. S. Barnes and Company, 1949, 302-303.
A dance-focused overview of the court masque.
Dolmetsch Historical Dance Society. Dances of Shakespeare’s Time, 1994.
_____. Dances for Mortals and Majesty (1581), 1998.
Modern dance manuals and cassette tapes prepared for the Dolmetsch Historical Dance Society summer schools. The manuals assume some knowledge of dancing, but are relatively clear and straight-forward. Both contain useful bibliographies and background notes and Dances of Shakespeare’s Time gives numerous examples of where dance is mentioned in Shakespeare plays, but the choreographies are no more suited to stage productions than those in the original texts. DHDS also has dance manuals and cassettes for many other historical dance periods.
Franko, Mark. The Dancing Body in Renaissance Choreography (c. 1416-1589). Birmingham, Alabama: Summa Publications, Inc., 1986.
Some relevant material, but this work is written entirely in almost incomprehensible sociological jargon.
Fulton, R. C. "The Late Romances and the Masque at Court." In Shakespeare and the Masque. New York: Garland Publishers, 1988.
Discusses the overlap between the English court masque and plays such as The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest. Although not particularly interested in dance, this chapter establishes the validity of applying information about dancing from Jonsonian masques to dances in Shakespeare plays.
Gingell, Bernard Thomas and Jane. The Renaissance Dance Book. London: London Pro Musica Edition, 1987.
This modern dance manual contains dance tabulations, background information, multi-part arrangements of the dance music, and comes with a cassette tape. The majority of the dances are from Arbeau but many of the arrangements are by Michael Praetorius circa 1612, a bit late for most of the plays although most of the actual dances are from 1588 or earlier.
Gurr, Andrew. Playgoing in Shakespeare's London, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Dance is never explicitly referred to, but there is information regarding the audience, players like Tarlton (who’s pictured with pipe and tabor), and performing conditions at the Globe and other theaters.
______. The Shakespearean Stage 1574-1642, 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
No discussion of dancing, but a lot of material about costuming and masques.
Horst, Louis. Pre-Classic Dance Forms. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Book Company, Publishers, 1937 (1968).
Deceptively useful. Although Horst discusses various Renaissance court dances, information is geared towards choreographing modern dances with historical themes. While historical dance-influenced modern dance is certainly appropriate for many Shakespeare productions, it is better to look at Arbeau or Caroso’s manuals yourself instead of relying on Horst’s watered-down description. (and they have much better senses of humor!)
Howard, Skiles. The Politics of Courtly Dancing in Early Modern England. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998.
This brand new book complicates Brissenden’s generally accepted argument for dancing as the embodiment of cosmic harmony as expressed in Sir John Davies’s "Orchestra." Relying more on the observations of Orgel about the manipulation of power in the court masque, Howard argues that dancing, especially in Shakespearean comedies "was a metonym of urban social relations", conflict, and change. (p. 3)
International Encyclopedia of Dance: A project of Dance Perspectives Foundation. 1998 ed. S.v. "Court and Social Dance before 1800," by Ingrid Brainard.
______. "Jones, Inigo," by Gerald L. Carr.
______."Masque and Antimasque," by Andrew J. Sabol.
______."Renaissance Court Dance," by Ingrid Brainard.
______."Renaissance Fetes and Triumphs," by Helen M. C. Purkis.
Excellent general resource if you can find it. Recommended books and articles for further study follow each entry which are on every dance subject imaginable and written by the experts in every field.
Kirstein, Lincoln. Dance: A Short History of Classic Theatrical Dancing. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, Publishers, 1970.
A good introduction to historical dance, but not particularly scholarly.
Le Gratie D’Amore (The Graces of Love): European Court Dance of the Late Renaissance. Taped in Santiago, Chile: Historical Dance Foundation, Inc. with Charles Garth and Elizabeth Aldrich, 1992. Video cassette.
Video of Renaissance court dances interspersed with passages from Arbeau’s Orchesography, Sir John Davies’s "Orchestra," and Shakespeare sonnets #129 and #130. Although most of the eight dances are Italian, the video is in Spanish with English subtitles. Beautiful costumes and period-style setting.
The Music of Arbeau’s Orchésographie. The New York Renaissance Band. Director Sally Logemann. New York: Arabesque Recordings, 1989. Compact disc.
Arrangements of the music Arbeau gives in his Orchesography for the dances. Tempo and arrangements are well-suited for dancing and there are background notes for both music and dances. Even if you will have live music in performance, this CD is excellent for rehearsing. The New York Renaissance Band has also recorded the music in Playford’s The English Dancing Master and Praetorius’s Terpsichore.
Nagler, A. M. Sources of Theatrical History. New York: Theatre Annual, Inc., 1952.
Nothing significant on dancing although some of the primary texts mention dancing at masques and interludes and there is a wealth of information on other aspects of training, performance, and audiences.
Naylor, Edward W. Shakespeare and Music. London: J.M. Dent & Co., 1896.
Whole chapter on dancing founded on Arbeau’s Orchesography and references to dancing by Thomas Morley and other Shakespeare contemporaries. Detailed explanation of dance and music vocabulary in the plays and more hints at choreography than Brissenden’s analysis. While one of two of Naylor’s acknowledged suppositions are no longer believed true, this is still an extremely useful text. Naylor offers unusually clear explanations of rhythm as well as information regarding processions and entrances and exits not found in other texts.
Orgel, Stephen. The Illusion of Power: Political Theater in the English Renaissance. Berkely, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1975.
Analysis of power relations revealed in the English court masque. Discussion of dance’s role in political and philosophical power plays. Orgel is the foremost scholar on the court masque.
______. The Jonsonian Masque. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1965.
Similar discussion of politics and power plays of masques but focuses on the masques written by Ben Jonson. Discussion and description of dancing in the masque, as well.
Peacock, John. The Chronicle of Western Fashion: From Ancient Times to the Present Day. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Publishers, 1991.
Good, general overview of clothing in various time periods. Useful for sense of the clothing of the period and for illustrated glossary of terms, but does not show costumes for the stage. Also, there are neither patterns or construction tips nor any written history of fashion trends.
Sabol, Andrew (Ed.). Four Hundred Songs & Dances From the Stuart Masque. Hanover and London: Brown University Press, 1982.
The arrangements in the chapter "Dances for the Measures and Revels" are excellent for dances and processions in Shakespeare plays, just avoid those with too late a date. Several of the notes on the pieces refer to dancing, and Appendix C is John Ramsay’s "Practise for Danucinge," a description of 24 English dances from the Inns of Court.
Songs & Dances from Shakespeare. The Broadside Band. Director Jeremy Barlow. Wotton-Under-Edge, England: Saydisc Records, 1995. Compact disc.
This compact disc features songs and dances referred to or most likely used in the original productions and dances of the period as well as songs from early revivals of the plays. Lyrics for all songs are included as well as suggestions for which music should be used in which plays and helpful background material. In addition, Jeremy Barlow was the accompanist (or rather, harpsichordist) at the Dolmetsch Historical Dance Society Summer School I attended in England in August of 1998 and personally recommended music and instruments for my production, The Bard’s Galliard... or how to party like an Elizabethan. The Broadside Band also has recordings of Renaissance court dance music. (Shakespeare's Musick (Songs & Dances...)
Sorell, Walter. Dance in Its Time. New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1981.
A history of dance particularly concerned with dancing’s reflection of and interaction with each period’s political and social climate. Particular attention is paid to the courtly entertainment, the Balet Comique de la Royne (1581).
______. Dance through the Ages. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1967.
A varied history of dance text including that of non-Western cultures. Contains a small but comprehensive chapter on dancing and "Shakespeare, Jonson and Jones."
Sutton, Julia and Johannes Holub. Il Ballarino ("The Dancing Master"): The Art of Renaissance Dance. Pennington, NJ: Dance Horizons Video, Princeton Book Company, Publishers, 1990. Video cassette.
Video of Renaissance court dance with demonstration of steps and three Italian dances by Caroso and Negri: "So Ben Mi Chi Ha Buon Tempo," "Allegrezza d’Amore," and "La Caccia d’Amore." Period costumes and instruments for dances. Taller de Danzas Antiguas & The Court Dance Company of New York.
Thompson, Peter. Shakespeare’s Theatre. London: Routledge, 1992.
Pages 104 to 105 offer an excellent summary of the role of dance in Shakespeare, essentially, highlights from Brissenden’s Shakespeare and the Dance.
Wagner, Ann. Adversaries of Dance. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997.
First chapter discusses Puritan condemnation of theater, but most of the primary sources are paraphrased. Most Renaissance court dance quotations are from Arbeau.
Warren, Roger. Staging Shakspeare’s Late Plays. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.
Some information regarding the staging of the masque in The Tempest and the dancing and statue unveiling in The Winter’s Tale though not much on the knights’ dance in Pericles, Prince of Tyre.
Welsford, Enid. The Court Masque: A Study in the Relationship Between Poetry and the Revels. Cambridge: The University Press, 1927.
Although some of Welsford’s interpretations are no longer widely accepted, her extensive research is well worth examining though the sheer magnitude of her study can be daunting if one only seeks a little background information. Almost every masque quotation in any subsequent text can be found in here. Welsford also addresses dancing in the masque directly and suggests parallels between court masques and Shakespeare plays.
Wortelboer, Dorothée. Celeste Giglio: Flowers of 16th Century Dance. Amsterdam: Tactus Music, 1996. Dance manual and compact disc.
This is a secondary source, a modern dance manual with a detailed glossary of steps, sheet music arranged for three or four part ensembles, and an accompanying compact disc. The dances are primarily complicated Italian choreographies from Fabritio Caroso and Cesare Negri’s dance manuals with a few additions from Thoinot Arbeau and other dance masters. While one should always consult the original text, this manual offers workable interpretations of ambiguous passages and clearly specifies what steps should be done during what bar of music. Some adjustments may be necessary in performance on the stage, however, as most of the dances are long, physically arduous, and frequently have a dancer’s back to the audience.
