Sylphides and wilis, white gauze and moonlit glades: these are the stereotypical images of the Romantic ballet. A cursory look at the lithographs of the period leaves the viewer with visions of an airy-fairyland far removed from industry, labor, colonialism, or any of the bigger and beastlier concerns of the early nineteenth century. But despite its bias towards otherworldliness, the Romantic ballet was not entirely divorced from the concerns of its time. It shared many interests with the drama, literature, and fine arts of the period and like them drew many of its themes from the material world, although it tended to select and exploit these themes for their color and spectacle rather than utilize them to convey sociological truths or instigate reform. An example of such a “realistic” ballet is Jules Perro's Catarina, whose protagonist is a more robust creature than the sylphs and fays that dominated the period: a female bandit.

What, if anything, relates the dances of the Muslim peoples to the other arts produced by the culture to which they belong? Is there a community of belief and an aesthetic identity strong enough among the Muslim peoples, despite their wide geographic dispersion, that would result in a homo-geneous community of artistic production and appreciation? Is dance among the Muslims an art which, like the visual and aural arts, shares characteristics which reveal a consistency and unity despite regional differences? Or, on the contrary, is “Islamic” only a convenient label for an amorphous body of dance phenomena existing among peoples who share religious beliefs, but among whom little penetrating cultural affinity is revealed in their dance?

Before attempting to answer the above questions, we must call attention to the fact that dance did not play the important aesthetic role in Islamic civilization that it played in some other civilizations (e.g., in Hindu culture, among the Amerindians, and in Western Europe-America during the last few centuries). The Muslims were never able to quite resolve the uncertainty which they, as a people, felt over the legitimacy of dance. There are various explanations for this problem regarding dance. Perhaps all of them can claim some validity.

This essay set out to explore the paradox of the Middle Eastern woman. The dichotomy of concealment vs. display is a stereotype in western culture and a function of sexual division in modern Arabian society. From the Saudi point of view, seclusion is necessary in the public domain whereas in the private domain display is appropriate. Private space is usually female space. It logically follows that belly dancing, a display mechanism, is done in female space by females for other females when the audience includes nonkin.

In the college community, “proper” belly dancing (as defined by the Saudi subgroup of the community Dhahran) can take place only under certain cultural conditions. When constraints break down, both the style and the message change. There are two alternative explanations for the aberrant performance. It may be considered (1) a simple example of deviance, i.e., a violation of the rules, or (2) an example of culture change in mental notions and hence “airport art.” No attempt has been made to assign priority to either explanation or to say that one is more correct. Deviance compounded and perpetuated is culture change. Also, it is necessary to remember that in a multicultural community the same behavior may be categorized differently by different subgroups. Little is to be gained, except, perhaps, a false simplification of the data, by assigning priority to either of the analytical or folk interpretations.

The fourteenth-century Italian lived during turbulent and catastrophic times. Internecine warfare between Guelphs and Ghibellines, reprisals against foraging neighbors, conflict between church and state, and, as though political and religious dissension were not enough, the dreaded black plague, which descended over Europe periodically with devastating results, added to human misery.

Yet, in the face of such calamities Italy covered herself with glory, for in that century the arts blossomed as never before. In musical productivity no other country could boast of over 700 compositions during the period known as the Ars Nova (1330–1420). Francesco Landini, the most famous composer and organist, and a contemporary of Boccaccio, alone has left us over 150 compositions. The composition of music was encouraged by advances in musical notation, such as those described by Marchettus da Padua in his treatise Pomerium (1314), which made possible the precise recording of a much wider range of rhythmic figures.

W. Thomas Marrocco has shown the types of music and dance that are discussed in Boccaccio's Decameron; I should like to present some examples of these art forms, re-created as accurately as we are able to do so, in the form of an entertainment which might have amused the ladies and gentlemen in that secluded villa on the outskirts of Florence in 1348.

In re-creating dances of the past from written documents, two principles must be borne in mind: first, that the records reflect the dance of an earlier period, for the steps and movements must have been tried, learned, and proven successful before a dancing master (or academician) would have deemed them worthy of recording; second, the materials preserved were obviously quite popular in the courts and hence were likely the most “danceable” compositions available. Therefore, it is the task of the reconstructor of these movements to discover the elements that were exciting and appealing to the dancers (and spectators) of the period and to make these elements come to life for contemporary audiences. Besides the obvious necessity of translating verbal instructions for steps and movement patterns and setting these to music, many factors enter into this elusive performance task: the size of the dance area usually employed; the shape, length and weight of clothing worn while dancing; the style and maneuverability of shoes, hats, swords, capes and other accoutrements; body positions generally in vogue as well as attitudes towards the human body, i.e., what was and what was not generally acceptable in terms of the good manners of the day.

The Grand Union was a collective of choreographer/performers which during the years 1970–76 made group improvisations embracing dance, theater, and theatrics in an ongoing investigation into the nature of dance and performance. Grand Union's identity as a group had several sources: some of the nine who have been its members had known each other for as long as ten years when the group formed; they had seen and performed in each other's works since the Judson Church days. Most had studied with Merce Cunningham, and three had danced in his company.

One important and rich source for the group's genesis was Yvonne Rainer's work Continuous Project-Altered Daily (CP-AD). To understand the course of Grand Union's activities, it is useful to look first at the changing nature of CP-AD. Rainer began the piece in 1969, and in March 1970 presented a definitive version at the Whitney Museum. The performers were Becky Arnold, Douglas Dunn, David Gordon, Barbara Lloyd (now Dilley), Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer and various readers.