The basse danse, or "low dance", was a popular court dance in the 15th and early 16th centuries, especially at the Burgundian court. The word basse describes the nature of the dance, in which partners move quietly and gracefully in a slow gliding or walking motion without leaving the floor, while in livelier dances both feet left the floor in jumps or leaps. The basse danse was a precursor of the pavane as a dignified processional dance. [1] The term may apply to the dance or the music alone.
The earliest record of a basse danse is found in an Occitan poem of the 1320s by Raimon de Cornet, who notes that the joglars performed them.
The bassa danza is described in the dance treatise of Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro, in northern Italy towards the end of the 15th century, and by his friend Antonio Cornazzano, for whom it was the queen of all dance measures, low dance to be contrasted with the alta danza, the "high" or leaping dance called the saltarello . In Germany it became the Hofdantz. [2]
Thoinot Arbeau used the basse danse to explain his method of dance notation in his Orchésographie (1589). The dance was danced until 1725 but was extinguished soon after by the "high" dance technique of ballet. [3]
The general measure of the basse danse was elaborated into different named sequences of steps and movements. [2] The basic measure is counted in sixes but, like the later courante, often combines 6
4 and 3
2 time, using hemiola to divide the six as 3–3 or as 2–2–2. This rhythm matches the basic steps of the dance. Most basse danse music is in binary form with each section repeated. [4]
The basse danse was often followed by a tourdion, due to their contrasting tempi, and these were danced and composed in pairs en suite like the "pavane and galliard" and the "allemande and courante". [5] [6]
Early music consisted of songs based on a tenor cantus firmus and the length of the choreography was often derived from the verse of the chanson . In performance three or four instrumentalists would improvise the polyphony based on this tenor. In others multiple parts were written, though choice of instrumentation was left to the performers.
Most famous, perhaps, are the basses danses assembled in 1530 by Pierre Attaingnant in the "Attaingnant Dance Prints", which were for four voices, typically improvised upon by adding melodic embellishment (Attaingnant rarely wrote ornamentation, though he did in "Pavin of Albart", an embellishment on "Pavane 'Si je m'en vois'"). [7]
A treatise in the Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels[ full citation needed ] gives us information about the elements of basse danse and the choreography of specific examples. The basse danse is based upon four steps: pas simple, pas double, démarche (also known as the reprise) and branle.
The révérence, occurring typically before or after the choreography, is a bow or curtsy that takes place over the course of one measure.
Footnotes
Baroque dance is dance of the Baroque era, closely linked with Baroque music, theatre, and opera.
Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoire of movements, or by its historical period or place of origin.
The galliard was a form of Renaissance dance and music popular all over Europe in the 16th century. It is mentioned in dance manuals from England, Portugal, France, Spain, Germany, and Italy.
The pavane is a slow processional dance common in Europe during the 16th century (Renaissance).
Renaissance dances belong to the broad group of historical dances. During the Renaissance period, there was a distinction between country dances and court dances. Court dances required the dancers to be trained and were often for display and entertainment, whereas country dances could be attempted by anyone. At Court, the formal entertainment would often be followed by many hours of country dances which all present could join in. Dances described as country dances such as Chiarantana or Chiaranzana remained popular over a long period – over two centuries in the case of this dance. A Renaissance dance can be likened to a ball.
An allemande is a Renaissance and Baroque dance, and one of the most common instrumental dance styles in Baroque music, with examples by Couperin, Purcell, Bach and Handel. It is often the first movement of a Baroque suite of dances, paired with a subsequent courante, though it is sometimes preceded by an introduction or prelude.
Social dance is a category of dances that have a social function and context. Social dances are intended for participation rather than performance and can be led and followed with relative ease. They are often danced merely to socialise and for entertainment, though they may have ceremonial, competitive and erotic functions.
Historical dance is a term covering a wide variety of Western European-based dance types from the past as they are danced in the present. Today historical dances are danced as performance, for pleasure at themed balls or dance clubs, as historical reenactment, or for musicological or historical research.
The gavotte is a French dance, taking its name from a folk dance of the Gavot, the people of the Pays de Gap region of Dauphiné in the southeast of France, where the dance originated, according to one source. According to another reference, however, the word "gavotte" is a generic term for a variety of French folk dances, and most likely originated in Lower Brittany in the west, or possibly Provence in the southeast or the French Basque Country in the southwest of France. It is notated in 4
4 or 2
2 time and is usually of moderate tempo, though the folk dances also use meters such as 9
8 and 5
8.
This is an alphabetical index of articles related to dance.
An alta cappella or alta musica (Italian), haute musique (French) or just alta was a kind of town wind band found throughout continental Europe from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries, which typically consisted of shawms and slide trumpets or sackbuts. Waits is the British equivalent. These were not found anywhere outside of Europe.
Pierre Attaingnant was a French music publisher, active in Paris.
A branle, also bransle, brangle, brawl, brawle, brall(e), braul(e), brando, bran, or brantle, is a type of French dance popular from the early 16th century to the present, danced by couples in either a line or a circle. The term also refers to the music and the characteristic step of the dance.
Andrée Marlière is a Belgian ballet dancer and painter.
The tourdion is a lively dance, similar in nature to the galliard, and popular from the mid-15th to the late-16th centuries, first in the Burgundian court and then all over the French Kingdom. The dance was accompanied frequently by the basse danse, due to their contrasting tempi, and were danced alongside the pavane and galliard, and the allemande and courante, also in pairs.
Old measures, or simply measures, were a group of dances performed at ceremonial and festive occasions in Early Modern Britain. Some of the dances included in the measures were the pavane and the almain, and dances such as the galliard and the courante are also mentioned as accompanying or following the traditional measures.
Orpheus is a thirty-minute neoclassical ballet in three tableaux composed by Igor Stravinsky in collaboration with choreographer George Balanchine in Hollywood, California in 1947. The work was commissioned by the Ballet Society, which Balanchine founded together with Lincoln Kirstein and of which he was Artistic Director. Sets and costumes were created by Isamu Noguchi.
Moresca (Italian), morisca (Spanish), mourisca (Portuguese) or moresque, mauresque (French), also known in French as the danse des bouffons, is a 15th/16th century pantomime dance in which the executants wore Moorish costumes. One such is the concluding music of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo. One of the best examples of the moresca can be seen in Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 production of Romeo and Juliet, which has a scene with moresca characters and lavish, florid portrayal of the dance in the Capulet home.
The bourrée is a dance of French origin and the words and music that accompany it. The bourrée resembles the gavotte in that it is in double time and often has a dactylic rhythm. However, it is somewhat quicker, and its phrase starts with a quarter-bar anacrusis or "pick-up", whereas a gavotte has a half-bar anacrusis.
Dominique Dupuy is a French dancer and choreographer of modern dance. He is best known as a pioneer of modern dance in France. Additionally, he runs a choreographic centre as well as an annual dance festival in Provence.