Thesis Chapter 4: Dances and Low Dances

Dances and Low Dances

Some of the "jeux dansés" of the 12th century seem to foreshadow the couple dance that would come to occupy an important place in the history of dance in the 15th century. Although couple dancing existed before the 15th century, there is little evidence of it. Bass dancing seems to have made its appearance in Italy in the early 15th century. Dancing masters working for Italian princes wrote dance treatises in which they laid the foundations for a new form of court dance. A number of dance treatises appeared in France at the end of the 15th century, which were fairly precise but not always complete enough to enable us to reconstruct the dances they described. But by studying them, we can trace the characteristics of basse-danse and its evolution in France over the years. It is danced by two or three dancers according to precise and complex rules. But between the first treatises of the 15th century and the publication of Thoinot Arbeau's Orchésographie, at which point the dance disappeared, basse-danse evolved in both choreographic and musical terms.

Photo of Zyrkof Castle,