Renaissance dance

We usually use the words Renaissance Dance to describe dance done in the SCA, rather than Medieval Dance. This is because we don't know very much about Medieval Dance at all. Although dance as an art form was well known in the middle ages, the first recorded dance instructions and choreography date from the middle of the 15th century.

There are many pictures depicting dancing in earlier times, but without any choreography or more than a vague idea of how these dances went, it is impossible to recreate them.

The earliest Renaissance Dances were those done in Burgundy and Italy in the mid 15th century to the early 16th century. These included basse danses (bassa danze) and balli.

Sources for 15th Century Italian Dance include the works of Domenico da Piacenza and his students Antonio Cornazano and Guglielmo Ebreo (Guglielmo the Jew).

Later renaissance dance became both more complex eg: 16th Century Italian Dance and more simple, eg: 16th Century French Dance.

Dance masters of the late 16th century include the Italians Fabritio Caroso and Cesare Negri as well as the Frenchmen Thoinot Arbeau and Antoine Arena.

Dance Styles

• Basse Dance
• Bassa Danza
• Ballo
• Pavanne
• Galliard/Tourdion
• Measure
• Allemande
• Branle
• Country Dance

Dance Sources

• Gresley Manuscript
• Il Papa
• Inns of Court Dances
• Orchesography
• Playford's Dancing Master
• 16th Century Italian Dance
  • Il Ballarino
  • Nobiltà di Dame
  • Le Gratie d'Amore

Dance Music

• Dance midi files
• modern music (and some stuff that you might not know is medieval) that you can do medieval dances to

Dance practices

• Melbourne / Shire of Krae Glas: Friday evenings, seasonal. Contact College of St Monica for details.
• Sydney / Barony of Rowany: Alternate Fridays, 7pm, Glebe Primary School (address in Folia Roani).
• Newcastle / Barony of Mordenvale: Alternate Mondays, 6:30pm. University of Newcastle. Contact: ???
• Pittsburgh, PA, USA / Barony-Marche of the Debatable Lands: Every Thursday, 8pm. Carnegie-Mellon University. Details here.
• Cambridge, MA, USA / Barony of Carolingia: Every Wednesday, 7:30pm, MIT. Information about practice
• Cleveland, OH, USA / Barony of the Cleftlands: Every Wednesday at our regular meeting and especially on the last Wednesday of the month.
• Akron, OH, USA / Marche of Gwyntarian: The last thursday of the month

Some good links

• Del's Dance Book
• Guild of the Silver Rondel's site - http://www.sca.org.au/rondel/
• The Rendance web site
• Atlantian A&S Links: Dance