Book contents
- Performances at Court in the Age of Shakespeare
- Performances at Court in the Age of Shakespeare
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Textual Note
- General Introduction
- Part I Elizabethan Court Theatre
- Part II The Jacobean Tradition
- Part III Reassessing the Stuart Masque
- Chapter 9 Dancing at Court: ‘the art that all Arts doe approve’
- Chapter 10 The Tempest and the Jonsonian Masque
- Chapter 11 Noble Masquing at the Stuart Court
- Chapter 12 ‘Animated Porcelain of the Court’
- Part IV The Material Conditions of Performances at Court
- General Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 9 - Dancing at Court: ‘the art that all Arts doe approve’
from Part III - Reassessing the Stuart Masque
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 October 2019
- Performances at Court in the Age of Shakespeare
- Performances at Court in the Age of Shakespeare
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Textual Note
- General Introduction
- Part I Elizabethan Court Theatre
- Part II The Jacobean Tradition
- Part III Reassessing the Stuart Masque
- Chapter 9 Dancing at Court: ‘the art that all Arts doe approve’
- Chapter 10 The Tempest and the Jonsonian Masque
- Chapter 11 Noble Masquing at the Stuart Court
- Chapter 12 ‘Animated Porcelain of the Court’
- Part IV The Material Conditions of Performances at Court
- General Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter discusses the nature of court dancing in England, placing it in the context of European court culture and changes across time. The chapter focuses especially on the court masque, with an emphasis on continuity and change from Tudor to Jacobean practice. The court dancer was at the heart of the performance, as a masque transformed social dancing into a theatrical performance: in other words, a ballet de cour. Elizabeth maintained the practice of masquing for seasonal celebration and significant hospitality. However, James I enhanced the genre to underpin and consolidate the new Stuart dynasty. Investigation of the Jacobean masque from the perspective of a dance historian reveals the efforts to make the dance entries more histrionic, leading to the professional antimasque, in order to convey more vividly the central message or moral of the masque to an audience of diplomats. In developing a new mode of pantomimic dancing, a rich vein of invention in dance emerged. The new form of mute expression was swiftly adopted by Shakespeare into plays after 1609; as other playwrights followed his innovation, the dance content of drama expanded.
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- Performances at Court in the Age of Shakespeare , pp. 137 - 149Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019