From 1703 to 1717 more than ten dance treatises were published in central Germany, mostly in Leipzig. Gottfried Taubert's Rechtschaffener Tantzmeister (1717), at more than 1,200 pages, was the last and most encyclopedic work, covering the history, theory and practice of dance. In addition to containing information about the status and function of dance in a cultural, societal and moral context, together with a detailed manual of French dance technique (providing more details for the execution of a great many steps than any other German source), the treatise includes a translation into German of Raoul-Auger Feuillet's Chorégraphie (Paris, 1700). Taubert's descriptions differ, sometimes significantly, from those of Pierre Rameau and other authors. He offers ample and quite nuanced information for the various performance modes and ornaments of a step. The Rechtschaffener Tantzmeister is also an extremely rich example of cultural transfer between France and Germany, and an important source for both social and theatrical dancing as well as cultural practices in Leipzig. The constituency for German dance treatises and dancing masters in Leipzig was mostly bourgeois. The city of Leipzig, in contrast to the residential town of Dresden, was ruled by a city council and had its own urban elite of senators, university professors and tradesmen. Taubert (1670–1746) studied at the University of Leipzig and left in 1702 for Danzig, where he worked as a dancing master and published his Kurtzer Entwurff (Brief Sketch) in 1706. The text was an outline of his magnum opus, published after he had returned to Leipzig.
In September 2017 celebrations in Paris and Leipzig of the tricentennial of Taubert's Rechtschaffener Tantzmeister brought together the international historical dance community of dancers, musicians and scholars. Their aim was not only to investigate aspects of the treatise and the connections between French dance technique and German dancing masters who championed the French style, but also to highlight Taubert's importance for the transmission of dance in eighteenth-century Germany, Denmark, Austria and Russia.
Two long-term translation projects had already revived interest in Taubert's writings: a research and translation project centring on the treatise was initiated in Paris in 2005 by several members of ACRAS (Association pour un Centre de Recherche sur les Arts du Spectacle aux 17e et 18e siècles), including scholars Jean-Noël Laurenti and Marie-Thérèse Mourey and dancers Christine Bayle, Irène Ginger and Hubert Hazebroucq. And Tilden Russell's The Compleat Dancing Master: A Translation of Gottfried Taubert's Rechtschaffener Tantzmeister (1717) (New York: Peter Lang, 2012) was not only a brilliant feat, but also gave many researchers and practitioners not proficient in German access to Taubert's work.
In 2017 the ACRAS project finally led to an international baroque dance workshop combined with a conference at the CND (Centre National de la Danse) in Pantin, near Paris. The members of the scholarly committee (Laurenti, Mourey, Mickaël Bouffard and Raphaëlle Legrand) collaborated closely with the initiators and organizers (Ginger, Hazebroucq and Gerrit Berenike Heiter). Thanks to the support and involvement of Laurent Barré, director of the research and dance repertory department, together with Hélène Joly and Anne Lucas and their team from the pedagogical department, the workshop and the conference took place in a perfectly adapted professional environment. Taking part was an international group of baroque dancers representing several generations of performers. Laurenti (Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours) outlined the scope of the ACRAS research project at the Paris conference, and Ginger (L’Éventail, Paris) gave an account to the Leipzig audience, showing a video of the workshop.
In Leipzig, Hanna Walsdorf, director of the Emmy Noether research group Ritual Design for the Ballet Stage, partnered with Hazebroucq, Heiter and Christoph Koop to organize an international symposium at the Musikinstrumentenmuseum of the Universität Leipzig, also in September 2017, focusing on the themes of ‘Contexts, Readings, Practices’ in relation to Taubert's treatise. The advisory board consisted of Mourey, Russell, Josef Focht and Patrick Primavesi. Scholars from Germany, France, England, Poland, Austria, Norway, the Netherlands, Hungary, Russia, Switzerland and the United States responded to the call for papers.
During the CND workshop for professional dancers, instructors Hubert Hazebroucq (Les Corps Éloquents, Paris) and Irène Ginger demonstrated some of the possible variations of fundamental steps (élevé, demi-coupé, coupé, pas grave), the courante simple ‘an der Hand’ (with the hand) and ‘von der Hand’ (without the hand) and minuet variations. Giles Bennett (La Danza, Munich) presented a typology of baroque dance styles that took account of the context of the sources; aside from other findings, this typology revealed the Rechtschaffener Tantzmeister to be a fruitful source for earlier periods of dance. Taubert was the only author who provided an extensive description of the courante, a dance associated with the ritualized ball culture at the court of Versailles and a paramount example of the French dancing style, even as it was becoming obsolete in Taubert's time. In Paris Dmitry Filimonov (Golden Forests Early Dance School, Moscow) discussed the French courante and Taubert's version; in Leipzig, Éva Faragó (Szombathely, Hungary) presented a richly illustrated comparison of courante descriptions by French dancing masters ‘Fabies’ (Favier) and ‘Letemps’ (Letang), as transmitted by Taubert, in view of the longue durée of courante sources.
The simple minuet – with its multiple basic steps and their variations, its figures and their variants – takes up a large part of Taubert's treatise and was therefore at the heart of the CND workshop. Taubert highlights the execution of the minuet as it is explained in a number of other contemporary treatises, where some improvisations and variations remain implicit. For him, all kinds of steps can be included in specific parts of the minuet figure, for example the ‘Einkehren’ (turning inward). These improvisations allow step combinations of several bars’ duration. Thus the relationship between dance phrase and musical phrase can be very loose. Nevertheless, the cadence must be respected. Hazebroucq showed possible virtuosic step variations and demonstrated in both Paris and Leipzig that ‘caprice’, a notion used in connection with ‘la danse haute’ (the high dancing style used mainly in theatrical performances), was employed by Taubert to describe improvisation in the minuet. In fact, Taubert even uses steps that are usually employed for theatrical dance rather than social dance (‘variations hautes’; high variations), and he provides explanations for the ‘cabrioles’. This reveals the minuet's richness and virtuosity, oscillating between the ‘douceur’ of ‘danse basse’ (low dancing; or ‘belle danse’ according to German authors) and the opposite aesthetic of ‘la danse haute’. In her paper at Paris, Gerrit Berenike Heiter (Universität Wien and Universität Leipzig) focused on instructions for women concerning dance and their general behaviour. Although the male dancer could dance in a much more virtuosic way, including pirouettes and ‘cabrioles’, he had to adjust to the necessarily more modest demeanour of the female dancer, as advised by all dance treatises of this period.
Music, instruments and the relationship between music and dance were also central topics of the two events. The workshop at the CND was accompanied by violinist Emmanuel Resche, soloist with Les Arts Florissants, and several talks were dedicated to music and aspects of organology. Louis Delpech (Universität Heidelberg) presented the results of his archival research on the reception of French music in Saxony between 1690 and 1730, made possible by direct recruitments in France. Cyril Lachèze (Université Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne) addressed a question that occupied a prominent place at both conferences: how to realize the instructions of French dancing masters through bowings on the violin or kit (pochette). The bow maker Nelly Poidevin (Dinan) focused on the iconography of French violins and bows, as well as of violin players, comparing these images to German ones that are rare and difficult to interpret. The connection between the dancing master's bowings and the simultaneous execution of dance steps was demonstrated in a lecture-recital by violinist and dancer Mojca Gal (Schola Cantorum Basiliensis). In Leipzig Josef Focht, director of the Musikinstrumentenmuseum, showed several of the museum's kit violins, which were then played by Marianne Rônez-Kubitschek (Vienna). Rônez-Kubitschek also participated, together with dancers Hubert Hazebroucq and Irène Feste (Les Corps Éloquents, Paris), in a lecture-demonstration by Gabriele Busch-Salmen (Kirchzarten) that emphasized the interplay of accents between music and dance.
Interpreting dance manuals necessarily leads to questions about the lives of dancing masters, including their social status, working conditions and cultural environment. The two keynote lectures by Marie-Thérèse Mourey (Université Paris-Sorbonne) informed the audiences in Paris and Leipzig of the models, mediators and milieus of French dance in Germany at the beginning of the eighteenth century, contextualising them with regard to questions of culture, identity, theology and anthropology. However, the biographies of dancing masters remain to be fully investigated, as Uta Dorothea Sauer (Technische Universität Dresden) demonstrated through her Leipzig paper on the networks of Italian, English and French (and, one might add, German) dancing masters in German-speaking realms. At the same conference a paper by Martin Loeser (Universität Greifswald) revealed the sheer diversity of sources that may be used to reconstruct the career of a dancing master such as the Frenchman Charles Deshayes.
Further information on Taubert and his work has become available thanks to the initiative of Hanna Walsdorf (Universität Leipzig), following in the footsteps of Kurt Petermann. Her archival findings in Leipzig, Ronneburg, Altenburg, Dessau, Dresden, Zerbst and elsewhere have enabled her to revise Taubert's biography and refine our knowledge of his publications. Walsdorf presented her discoveries and reflected on the reception of Taubert's writings at the opening of the Leipzig conference. The connection of Taubert to the court in Zerbst and its rich musical life was discussed by Konstanze Musketa (Händel-Haus, Halle) in Leipzig. During his years in Zerbst (c1727–1746) Taubert drafted another treatise on dance, a second Kurtzer Entwurff (Zerbst, 1727), which Tatiana Shabalina recently discovered in the National Library in St Petersburg. There she also found a manuscript of another treatise in which Taubert refers to Johann Pasch as his teacher. An edition of this important document by Shabalina is in preparation and will surely provide new insights.
Several papers in Leipzig discussed the publication and dissemination of Taubert's writings. The genesis of Rechtschaffener Tantzmeister was investigated by Giles Bennett, who discussed Taubert's first Kurtzer Entwurff (Danzig, 1706) and the ‘Danzig’ and ‘Leipzig’ layers perceptible in the production of his 1717 magnum opus. Christoph Koop (Universität Leipzig) elucidated Taubert's choice of a publisher, Lanckeschens Erben, against the background of the leading German book market in Leipzig. Elizabeth Svarstad (Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet, Trondheim) called attention to a Danish translation, published in 1742, of the second Kurtzer Entwurff and how a copy of it travelled to Norway, where it is now held at the University Library in Trondheim. As discussed by Karin Fenböck (Vienna), Taubert's writings also had an echo in Vienna, notably in the form of a copy of Taubert's Feuillet translation made by the dancer Philipp Gumpenhuber in 1752.
In his keynote lecture for the Leipzig conference, Tilden Russell (New Haven, Connecticut) spoke about the process of theorizing in dance treatises, emphasizing the desire of authors not only to give practical dance instruction, but also to create a dance theory. In observing that the portion of Taubert's treatise dedicated to theatrical dance and ballet is astonishingly short, Gerrit Berenike Heiter questioned the extent to which the dancing master followed French models.
A particular concern of Taubert and his contemporaries was the description of normative social behaviour, what he called ‘Tanz in Prosa’, meaning polite behaviour and the graceful art of walking, standing, sitting and saluting. In Paris Mickaël Bouffard (Centre de musique baroque de Versailles) compared the descriptions of bowing for ladies and gentlemen by Taubert, Kellom Tomlinson and Pierre Rameau by translating them into Feuillet notation. In Leipzig Bouffard contrasted conservative views with ‘à la mode’ recommendations by Taubert. Irene Brandenburg (Universität Salzburg) also emphasized the importance of ‘well-mannered conduct’ at assemblies, referring to Taubert's descriptions of such gatherings.
In many assemblies or balls, contredanses, or country dances, were among the favourites of the attendees. Carola Finkel (Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main) investigated the reception of, sources for and discourses about English country dances in Germany, including a study of the Recüeil de Contre Dances by Ernest August Jayme, dancing master at the court of Wolfenbüttel. Rashid-Sascha Pegah (Research Center Sanssouci für Wissen und Gesellschaft, Potsdam) discussed the descriptions of balls by Taubert and Louis Bonin, dancing master at the Eisenach court and University of Jena, and contrasted their writings with accounts in other contemporary sources. At the time, questions of etiquette concerned not only bodily posture and manners, but also clothing, an aspect explored by Aleksandra Kajdanska (Uniwersytet Warszawski).
Bridging eighteenth-century dance publications, the reception of Taubert and twentieth-century dance research was a small exhibition at the CND, organised by the director of the media centre, Laurent Sebillotte, and (in the absence of the eminent dance notator Jacqueline Challet-Haas) co-presented by Irène Ginger. The exhibition included translations of Taubert's courante and minuet into Labanotation by Albrecht Knust and Gisela Reber, as well as correspondence between Gisela Reber and ethnologist and ‘belle dance’ reconstructor Francine Lancelot. The merit of Kurt Petermann's research and editorial project Documenta Choreologica – containing reprints of central German treatises, including Taubert's – and his work as director and collector for the Tanzarchiv Leipzig was outlined by the archive's current director, Patrick Primavesi (Universität Leipzig).
An exceptional treat in Leipzig was an evening performance of four historical dance miniatures with original choreographies in honour of Taubert. First Jutta Voss performed together with Mareike Greb and Julia Keller, members of her Ensemble Historischer Tanz Berlin (Universität der Künste Berlin). Next Klaus Abromeit (Berlin) performed with Polina Artemeva and Konstantin Chuvshev of the Angiolini Baroque Ballet of St Petersburg. The variety of French dance repertory was demonstrated by the dancers of Les Corps Éloquents of Paris, Hubert Hazebroucq and Irène Feste. Finally, the ensemble La Danza München (including dancers Maria-Theresia Mühlbacher, Marianne von Rauch, Birgit Boley and Yves Ytier) performed a combination of the ‘Ballet des Statues’ and the ‘Liebes-Ballett’, both mentioned by Taubert and choreographed by Jadwiga Nowaczek. The members of the Michaelis Consort of Leipzig (David Budai, Roberto de Franceschi, Lorenzo Gabriele, Felix Görg, Michael Spiecker, Arve Stavran and Uwe Ulbrich), who had already framed the opening speeches of the conference in Leipzig, accompanied the dancers with tunes by French composers and French-influenced German composers. It was a delightful evening, and the audience could easily distinguish and enjoy the different levels of dance as described by Taubert: from very low and modest to virtuosic and theatrical.
In conclusion, the important light shed on French dance technique by German treatises, and by the Rechtschaffener Tantzmeister in particular, helps us to reconstruct the dance of this period differently, including its relationship to music and social conventions. However, some minor discrepancies between German and French sources raise the question of whether these differences can be explained by particular German contexts and audiences or by the authors’ personal experiences and education. Minuet variations and improvisations were very attractive to dancers in the eighteenth century, and they therefore help explain the popularity of this dance, but their potential for the entertainment of participants has been rather underestimated. Another important field that invites further research is the lives of dancing masters, and not just those who wrote dance treatises. Investigations into the travels of musicians, dancers and other artists of the period, along with their networks and the resulting cultural exchanges, appear to have only just begun.
Since eighteenth-century dancers were for the most part proficient musicians, separating the study of dance and music is of little avail. It is to be hoped that the collaboration between dancers and musicians from that time can serve as an example for today's artists and scholars. Further progress in dance historiography is only to be achieved through interdisciplinary research and collaboration amongst theoreticians and practitioners. The events in Paris and Leipzig, celebrating the writings of Taubert and his contemporaries, set an example for the concord of theory and practice, of music and dance, and for a collaborative and international spirit in the early-dance and -music communities.
The programme of the Paris conference is available at www.cnd.fr/fr/program/133-journees-d-etude, and the Leipzig conference programme may be found at http://theaterwissenschaft.gko.uni-leipzig.de/index.php?id=294. A volume of proceedings, bringing together contributions from both conferences and edited by Hanna Walsdorf, Marie-Thérèse Mourey and Tilden Russell, is forthcoming from Frank & Timme.
