I did notice the lift, but was far enough away (second row balcony, whence we could see floor patterns well) that I couldn't see exactly where they were lifting from. I did wonder whether they were going to do La Volta at any point, and was disappointed that they didn't. I noticed that the galliards were made up of plausible steps, but weren't necessarily the same on each side. And there was some line dance in which I commented to shalmestere "It's like a catalogue of every possible way to progress, done once each." And I was sorta wondering about the Ballo del Fiore thing.
I know of two period sources for the Rosti Boli tune, both monophonic (one in Ebreo or Domenico, I forget which, and the other in the Burgundian basse-dance repertoire), but the "arrangement" was in line with what we know about 15th-century ornamentation practices, and in line with lots of recordings by professional groups that have done more research than I have. I didn't have a problem with it. It was one 15th-century dance in an otherwise 16th-century show, in 16tth-century clothes, but one can imagine 16th-century courtiers occasionally doing an out-of-date dance because the King's mother likes it. Of course, they didn't do anything that looked like Caroso or Negri, either, more Arbeau. (I'm not familiar enough with 16th-century costume to know when in the 16th century they were aiming for.)
Ah here we go. Here's the artist's statement from the choreographer, emphasis mine:
The Dancing
For the dancing in this show we strove to keep as close as possible to what we know of choreographic practices under Francis I.
The scarcity of sources lead us to explore a variety of documents, form treatises on the subject to the eyewitness accounts of ambassadors of the time, not forgetting iconographic sources and descriptions of masquerades. We wished to bring out the multiplicity of court practices during that period, with the perpetuation of early repertoires, foreign influences, and the appearance of new fashions, new forms, new manners: moving towards what was to be known, much later, as the French style.
With the exception of just one dance taken from the repertoire and completely restored from information found in Renaissance treatises [they must mean Rostibulli] all the dances have been choreographed anew , using the steps, figures, and movements, but also the methods of composition and ornamentation of the Renaissance often based on geometrical or numerical relationships, and of course a fine concordance with the music. The various texts available and a wealth of untapped iconography revealed dancing that was much more inventive, virtuosic, dramatic, grotesque, or fanciful than we had imagined. We thus aimed to bring out the variety and complexity of those dances. In the different tableaux, we have explored a range of styles, from the most noble, measured, or subtle, to the most lively or demonstrative. Restoring the vitality of this "new" choreographic material finally encouraged us to restore its meaning and its spectacular dimensions too, and to go beyond a mere reconstruction of movements in order to bring to life the hearts and minds of that period.
AAAAAAAAAACH *spit*
That is some Mannschaft Pavane level bullshit.
P.S. I am beginning to suspect why is was and how it came that Ingrid Brainard was the irrascable terror she was.
They seem to be saying "all the dances have been choreographed anew" with pride rather than apology. It could be that they wanted to give the choreographer something to do, and felt that analyzing and synthesizing multiple conflicting musical and choreographic sources was insufficiently creative.
It also says, elsewhere in the notes, that the silk (!) for the costumes was sourced from a brocade company that has been in continuous business since the 16th century.
Perhaps this is me being partial, what with my fondness for Doulce Memoire, but it doesn't seem to me like this is a "they" here, but a "him". It looks to me like Denis et al are scrupulous reconstructors who do not do what the choreographer did, and would not have tolerated it if they understood - it sounds like he used points upward a heap of excuses as to why it was okay to get his Creative on and since they all sound plausible to non-dance-scholars, he got away with it.
I think Hazebroucq betrayed Doulce Memoire (and the BEMF), not that Doulce Memoire put him up to it. I think they delegated the job to him and trusted him not to do... exactly this. And he took advantage of their ignorance to supervise his work.
A pity, because he is a good dancer and has a brain. (I saw him at "Comic Italian dancing in the time of Handel and Rameau". Which referred to research he and Gloria Giordano had done, which he could speak about convincingly. I've known good dancers with less brain.) I wonder what would happen if you wrote to him.
I know of two period sources for the Rosti Boli tune, both monophonic (one in Ebreo or Domenico, I forget which, and the other in the Burgundian basse-dance repertoire), but the "arrangement" was in line with what we know about 15th-century ornamentation practices, and in line with lots of recordings by professional groups that have done more research than I have. I didn't have a problem with it.
I didn't have a problem with it either - it seemed in excellent style. I'm trying to figure out what the hell they were thinking.
And I have a hypothesis that Denis said, "Hey, let's do a program of 16th cen French dance music! Hey, we could get dancers." And that order of things has consequences.
I'm not sure how much you've wrestled this yourself: the fundamental conflict in the heart of early dance is that we have dance sources and we have music sources and they don't match. The dance sources often don't have much in the way of music - from the Brussels mss tenors to Orchesography's melodies - performance is either monophonic, polyphonic found in a music source, non-matching polyphonic, or modern arranged or improvised. The music sources, such as Susato's part books, which are thoroughly composed, not only don't have choreographies, they are for different repertoires than the dance books. The intersection of the set of extant choreographies and the set of extant thorough composed part music is small. In that set, often there is some problem with the part version of the music such that it doesn't match the dance (e.g. Bransle de Guerre in Phalese vs Arbeau). The set of choreographies and composed part music that match is, IIRC, Lorraine Alman and the Spanish Alman.
Squaring that circle is what I did for 11 years.
But I was in Carolingia, so it was, "Tibicen, we want to dance this: come up with some music".
It's looking like this was, "Hubert, we want to play music for some dances: come up with some dances."
So it's looking like the one place they did something actually authentic, it was when they did it the Carolingian way: start with the dance repertoire, and figure out how to do the music as periodly as possible.
The problem, it would seem to me, is that when you start with a strict adherance to the dance, and tell the early musicians to go figure it out, the early musicians have this whole community of practice and analytic language and, like, standards. If you do something dumb musically, the other early musicians with notice and say something like, "What are those inversion chords doing there? Aren't we in the 16th century?" (And also not play your arrangements, which is something we care about in the SCA.) There's just more people around who know what it's supposed to sound like, who will bust your chops if you do something too ungrounded.
But out in the mundane early music world, apparently nobody knows enough for early dance to realize what nonsense something like this is and halt it in its tracks. I can notice, "What's that mirror symmetry doing there? Aren't we in the 16th century?" and have the language to express that, but I spent my 20s in a living vital community of practice of early dance scholars and fans. But apparently nobody on this production was in a position to evaluate Hubert's work - the truth claims or decisions he was making.
no subject
I know of two period sources for the Rosti Boli tune, both monophonic (one in Ebreo or Domenico, I forget which, and the other in the Burgundian basse-dance repertoire), but the "arrangement" was in line with what we know about 15th-century ornamentation practices, and in line with lots of recordings by professional groups that have done more research than I have. I didn't have a problem with it. It was one 15th-century dance in an otherwise 16th-century show, in 16tth-century clothes, but one can imagine 16th-century courtiers occasionally doing an out-of-date dance because the King's mother likes it. Of course, they didn't do anything that looked like Caroso or Negri, either, more Arbeau. (I'm not familiar enough with 16th-century costume to know when in the 16th century they were aiming for.)
no subject
That is some Mannschaft Pavane level bullshit.
P.S. I am beginning to suspect why is was and how it came that Ingrid Brainard was the irrascable terror she was.
no subject
They seem to be saying "all the dances have been choreographed anew" with pride rather than apology. It could be that they wanted to give the choreographer something to do, and felt that analyzing and synthesizing multiple conflicting musical and choreographic sources was insufficiently creative.
no subject
It also says, elsewhere in the notes, that the silk (!) for the costumes was sourced from a brocade company that has been in continuous business since the 16th century.
Perhaps this is me being partial, what with my fondness for Doulce Memoire, but it doesn't seem to me like this is a "they" here, but a "him". It looks to me like Denis et al are scrupulous reconstructors who do not do what the choreographer did, and would not have tolerated it if they understood - it sounds like he used points upward a heap of excuses as to why it was okay to get his Creative on and since they all sound plausible to non-dance-scholars, he got away with it.
I think Hazebroucq betrayed Doulce Memoire (and the BEMF), not that Doulce Memoire put him up to it. I think they delegated the job to him and trusted him not to do... exactly this. And he took advantage of their ignorance to supervise his work.
no subject
no subject
I didn't have a problem with it either - it seemed in excellent style. I'm trying to figure out what the hell they were thinking.
And I have a hypothesis that Denis said, "Hey, let's do a program of 16th cen French dance music! Hey, we could get dancers." And that order of things has consequences.
I'm not sure how much you've wrestled this yourself: the fundamental conflict in the heart of early dance is that we have dance sources and we have music sources and they don't match. The dance sources often don't have much in the way of music - from the Brussels mss tenors to Orchesography's melodies - performance is either monophonic, polyphonic found in a music source, non-matching polyphonic, or modern arranged or improvised. The music sources, such as Susato's part books, which are thoroughly composed, not only don't have choreographies, they are for different repertoires than the dance books. The intersection of the set of extant choreographies and the set of extant thorough composed part music is small. In that set, often there is some problem with the part version of the music such that it doesn't match the dance (e.g. Bransle de Guerre in Phalese vs Arbeau). The set of choreographies and composed part music that match is, IIRC, Lorraine Alman and the Spanish Alman.
Squaring that circle is what I did for 11 years.
But I was in Carolingia, so it was, "Tibicen, we want to dance this: come up with some music".
It's looking like this was, "Hubert, we want to play music for some dances: come up with some dances."
So it's looking like the one place they did something actually authentic, it was when they did it the Carolingian way: start with the dance repertoire, and figure out how to do the music as periodly as possible.
The problem, it would seem to me, is that when you start with a strict adherance to the dance, and tell the early musicians to go figure it out, the early musicians have this whole community of practice and analytic language and, like, standards. If you do something dumb musically, the other early musicians with notice and say something like, "What are those inversion chords doing there? Aren't we in the 16th century?" (And also not play your arrangements, which is something we care about in the SCA.) There's just more people around who know what it's supposed to sound like, who will bust your chops if you do something too ungrounded.
But out in the mundane early music world, apparently nobody knows enough for early dance to realize what nonsense something like this is and halt it in its tracks. I can notice, "What's that mirror symmetry doing there? Aren't we in the 16th century?" and have the language to express that, but I spent my 20s in a living vital community of practice of early dance scholars and fans. But apparently nobody on this production was in a position to evaluate Hubert's work - the truth claims or decisions he was making.