Febus

Febus is a 15th Century Italian Dance which appears in seven different manuscripts. It is classified as a bassadanza.

Reconstruction

This dance is performed by three people. The original instructions call for one man and two women.

Steps used

• continentia left and right (CL and CR)
• sempio left and right (SL and SR)
• doppio left and right (DL and DR)
• riverentia (Rv)
• ripresa left and right (RpL and RpR)
• mezavolta right (MzvR)
• saltarello left and right (SlL, SlR)
• voltatonda left (VtL)

Choreography

The three dancers begin in a line, side by side facing up the hall, and holding hands. The man is standing in the centre.

The dancers perform a continentia left and then right. They then perform two sempi, one doppio left and a ripresa right. This sequence is performed again, however while the women perform the final ripresa the man performs a mezavolta to face down the hall.

1 CL, CR
2-3 SL, SR, DL
4 RpR

5 CL, CR
6-7 SL, SR, DL
8 RpR (women) - MzvR (man)

Everybody perfoms two dopi, so that the man moves away from the two women. Everybody perform a mezavolta to face each other again, and then perfome two sempi and two dopi, with the man passing between the two women. All perform a mezavolata right again, a ripresa left then right and a riverentia.

9-10 DL, DR
11-12 MzvR, SL, SR
13-14 DL, DR
15-16 MzvR, RpL
17-18 RpR, RvL

With the man passing between the women again, all perform 2 saltarelli. Next perform another mezavolta to face each other again, and perform three ripresa, left, right and left. Perform a voltatonda by doing a sempi right and sempio right and a sempio left turing in a full circle over your left shoulder, and then perform a ripresa right.

19-20 SlR, SlL
21-22 MzvR, RpL
23-24 RpR, RpL
25-27 VtL, RpR

To complete the dance everybody performs two sempi to come into a straight line. The women then perform a mezavolta right. Joing hands everybody perform a ripresa left, a ripresa right and a riverenita left.

28-29 SL, SR, women MzvR
30-31 RpL, RpR
32 RvL

Music

This dance is 31 bars long, and so theoretically any bassadanza music 31 bars long should be able to be used for this.

• A two part arrangement of music especially written for this dance in 2005