Dance Instructions

Includes a selection of steps used for dance reconstructions.

L'Orchesographie, by Thoinot Arbeau, is a dance treatise published in France in 1589. It is indispensable to those who are intested in dance of the Renaissance. This is the first multimedia manual combining text, images, and music to describe the dances accurately. (But it is in French.)

Notes on one of the most popular dance styles c. 1450-1500, occurring both as a separate dance style and as a tempo in the Italian repertoire .

Analysis, music, and instructions from a collection of dances and dance tunes found in what may be the earliest of the English dance records.

See also Performing Gresley Dances: the View from the Floor on re-enacting some of the dances from the manuscript.

This book is basically a how-to guide for a typical SCA dance class, or other renaissance dance class interested in learning the basic repertoire of the period. Rather than an exhaustive inventory of all dance forms from 1450–1650, the author has selected a sample from the repertoire of what he consider to be useful, interesting, and entertaining dances.

This project is a first-draft translation from Italian to English of Fabritio Caroso's 'Il Ballarino,' a dance manual published in Italy in 1581 -- a direct, word-for-word translation made using a transcription created by Lord Orlando de'Medici.

Instructio ns and reconstruc tions for SCA-period dances.

This book reconstructs the steps, choreographies, and music for two dozen renaissance dances (balli). It book is written to be both accessible to newcomers to this repertoire and informative to those already knowledgeable in this field. The authors strive to provide not only usable reconstructions but also an annotated trail of how decisions were made and what other options exist.

Includes complete dances with music (Esperans; Prenes on gre; Northumberland; Temperans) and dances with music but without descriptions (Eglamore; Ly bens distonys; Prenes a gard; Talbott) from an English manuscript c. 1500.

Summaries as an '' aide memoire&#3 9;' for Playford dances.

The Merri Pryanksters present the 1650 edition of the ''Dancing Master,'' complete with descriptions of the steps and a the music in modern musical notation.

The Dancing Master: Or, plain and easie Rules for the Dancing of Country Dances, with the Tune to each Dance, to be play'd on the Treble Violin. The second Edition, Enlarged and Corrected from many grosse Errors which were in the former Edition, London, Printed for John Playford at his shop in the Inner Temple near the Church Door. 1653.

This is a collection of cheat-sheets for Renaissance dancing as done in the SCA.

Over the last decade the amount of information available on the Internet regarding Renaissance dance has grown exponentially. In an effort to make the current wealth of information more easily accessible, I have begun compiling information and links in this database.

This project is primarily geared toward SCA use, so it will focus on dances and dance styles from before 1600. While I will link to conjectural reconstructions of period dances, I will not include original SCA choreographies.