MEASURED DANCE

In measured ballet, the dance steps were devised to reflect the long and short durations of musical notes as well as the long and short syllables of the sung verse.

In the fifteenth century dance treatise, De Practica seu arte tripudii, Guglielmo Ebreo asserts that measure is one of the six principle elements of which dance is composed, and explains it as,

a sweet and measured accord between sound and rhythm, apportioned with judgment and skill, the nature of which can best be understood through the [playing] of a stringed or other instrument, tuned and tempered in such a way that its weak [beat] equals the strong; that is, the tenor is equal to the contratenor so that one tempo measures the same as the next. Therefore, the person who wishes to dance must regulate and gauge himself, and must so perfectly accord his movements with it and in such a way that his steps will be in perfect accord with the aforementioned tempo and measure and will be regulated by the measure. He must also understand and know which foot should move on the strong [beat] and which on the weak, bearing himself easily, his gestures in accord with the measure and music. [Measure] shows us the timing of passi sempii (simple steps) and passi doppli (double steps), and of all your other movements and actions which are fitting and necessary in the aforesaid art which, without measure, would be imperfect.

This definition of measured dancing and the importance placed on the harmonious relationship between dance and music remains in place throughout the Renaissance.

In Le Ballet de Cour en France, early twentienth century dance historian, Henri Prunieres, describes measured dancing as follows:

The dance was to obey the same principles [as measured verse and music]. Did not dancers already naturally regulate their steps by the cadence of the instruments? The rhythm of the Galliarde composed of six notes of equal value was simply translated [physically] by four steps of equal duration followed by a jump, coinciding with the pause, and a posture on the last note. The same rule applied to all dances, whether the tunes were played by instruments or sung by voices. Starting from the elementary principle of the equivalent duration of steps and notes, Baïf envisaged the possibility of translating plastically the most varied rhythms of Greek metre, and harmonising the steps and gestures of the dancers with the choruses which they were to sing. Thus would be realizes that admirable union of poetry, music and dancing which the Greeks had practised in their tragedies.

Unfortunately, the evidence attesting to the existence of danse mesurée in the sixteenth century is scant. According to James Miller, the term does not appear in any of the extant documents from Baïf's Academy. There is,however, a poem written by Baïf in 1571, in which he alludes to the Academy's plans to integrate dance with music mesurée (measured music):

Afterwards, I'll tell you how I am restoring not only the beautiful gentility of the ancients in songs and verses; but also how I am bringing their dance back into fashion; and I shall be much to the point in relating to you the production of a ballet which we are preparing, the steps of which have been arranged in such a way that the music shall go with it step by step and the poetry follow in a correct fashion.

Prunieres suggests that the Academy's interest in creating a form of measured dancing may have been influenced by the presence of Italian dancing masters Pompeo Diobono and Virgilio Bracesco at the Valois court and by the dance treatises of Fabritio Caroso,which include instructions for physically expressing Greek meters in social dance steps. Caroso published two volumes relating to late Renaissance dance: Il Ballarino (1581) and Nobilita di dame (1600).

(Click here to return to main text, Le Balet Comique de la Reine: An Analysis, Part II)