Medieval Dance

If you're looking for Medieval Dance then you're probably really in need of the article about Renaissance dance.

We don't know a whole lot about how dance was done in the Middle Ages, and there are no surviving examples of a Medieval Dance choreography. Some of the dance styles we know existed in the Middle Ages include the ronde, estampie, saltarello, piva and ductia, but apart from knowing a few of the steps we don't know how these dances were done.

The sparse visual and textual descriptions of 14th Century european dance describe a chain of people holding hands and moving in a forward direction following the leader who may be singing, or leading the singing of a song. A some interval of the dance the first two people in the line form an arch through which the other dancers pass. When, and exactly how such an arch movement occurs is unknown.

Some Medieval Dance Music survives to this day, and much of it has been catalogued by Timothy McGee in his book Medieval Instrumental Dances.

see also: middle eastern dance