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.

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.

Early Italian dancemasters include 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.

One of the world's main sources for Renaissance Dance is the rendance web site: http://www.rendance.org/

One of The Kingdom of Lochac's best sites is Del's Dance Book