Baroque Dance Notation
How do we know the choreography for Baroque Dances?
Luckily, several systems of dance notation were being developed in France during the 1680s and a limited number of ballroom, theatre, and country dances were preserved in publications and manuscripts. Compare the examples of the three notation systems shown side by side below and then proceed to the discussion of each. The Favier and Lorin notations are discussed briefly and the Feuillet notation in greater detail, as it was the most widely used.
Favier Notation
Lorin Notation
Feuillet Notation
Compare the notation for jeté in each system:
Favier Notation
jeté onto the right
Lorin Notation
jeté onto the left, then jeté onto the right
Feuillet Notation
jeté onto the right
Favier Notation
I. Favier Notation
In 1688, choreographer Jean Favier l'aîné notated an entire comic mascarade, Le Marriage de la Grosse Cathos, complete with singers, dancers, two actors, and an onstage oboe band. Instructions for deciphering the notation were not included in the mascarade manuscript and reading it remained illusive until scholars Rebecca Harris-Warrick and Carol Marsh realized the notation was discussed in an article on "Chorégraphie" in Diderot's Encyclopédie dating from the mid-1700s. Dancing manuals contemporary with the notation (1680s) are lacking, so we must speculate on the exact technique of the steps.
Read the example from top to bottom:
•title of dance
•top stave contains notes of the music
•dance type is indicated below music: Gigue
•middle stave contains location, use of right or left foot - d for droit (right) or g for gauche (left), and facing of the dancer who begins on stage left, notice that there are precise movements lined up under specific beats of the music
•bottom stave contains the same information for the dancer who begins on stage right
•and symbols below the staves indicate the movement.
•Not shown in the example: notation for arm movement, which is limited to use of the letter "m" for taking hands (mains) and use of the letter "b," presumably for use of the arms (bras) which is not described precisely
Not shown or readily apparent in the notation:
•obvious visual representation of path through space
•obvious visual representation of the steps/movements
Pro: Because movements are lined up directly under the music notes, dance rhythm can be notated very precisely. Also, because performers are assigned their own staves, dances for multiple dancers can be notated more easily than with Lorin or Feuillet notation which rely on mapping the spatial patterns in a diagram - the diagrams for multiple dancers could become very confusing.
Con: Reading Favier notation can be a tedious chore, as one must constantly move from stave to movement to decipher which foot performs an action for each beat and from stave to stave to understand spatial relationships between multiple dancers. Only after you have pieced together the movement beat by beat do you actually understand the larger sequence of movements within the measure of music and your path through space. The big picture is not quickly apparent.
Learn more about Favier Notation:
Musical Theatre at the Court of Louis XIV - Le Mariage de la Grosse Cathos by Rebecca Harris-Warrick and Carol G. Marsh and published by Cambridge University Press in 1994 contains a facsimile and an excellent analysis of Favier's notation.
Lorin Notation
Two manuscripts by André Lorin survive from the same time period, one from c.1685 and one dated 1688. Lorin notates country dances that he learned during a trip to England and writes that he has "improved" them with the addition of French steps. Lorin included a key to the step abbreviations in the c.1685 manuscript, but dancing manuals from this decade are lacking and so we must speculate on the exact technique of the steps he names in the key.
Read the example from top to bottom:
•dedicatee (Le Duc de Bourgogne) and title of dance (Menuet Anglois)
•music
•letters below the music representing the steps
•diagram below the music and steps shows the dancers' paths through space
•Not shown in the example: notation for arm movements, although symbols exist for showing when dancers are to take or let go of hands, to clap, and to doff one's hat
Not shown or readily apparent in the notation:
•progression through space according to the music measure
•specific step rhythms and timing with the music within a measure of music
Pro: Provides a record of English country dances brought to France and the French steps Lorin used in the dances. Useful as a comparison with Playford's versions of some of the same dances and with some that are notated almost twenty years later in 1706 by Feuillet in Recüeil de Contredances. Feuillet lists the steps being used in contredanses at that time in his introductory instructions.
Con: Lorin's system was used to notate contredanses, and therefore describe a limited step vocabulary. Progression through space according to timing measure by measure is rarely indicated - most of Lorin's spatial diagrams lack music measure marks. Precise information on step timing within a measure of music is lacking.
Learn more about Country Dance and Contredance:
•Playford, John. The Dancing Master. London: John Playford, 1651.
•Lorin, André. Livre de contredance présenté au roy [c. 1685], manuscript, access online at the Bibliothèque nationale de France; and Livre de la contredance du Roy (1688), manuscript, access online at the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
•Feuillet, Raoul-Auger. Recueil de Contredances. Paris: 1706; New York: Broude Brothers, 1968. Facsimile. Access online at Library of Congress. Translated by John Essex as For the Furthur [sic] Improvement of Dancing…Translated from the French of Monsr. Feuillet…by John Essex dancing master. London, 1710. Access online at Library of Congress.
Feuillet Notation
In 1700 Raoul-Auger Feuillet published a system of notating dances in a book titled Chorégraphie. It was translated into English by dancing master John Weaver in 1706: Orchesography. Pierre Beauchamps, the director of the Académie Royale de Danse and dancing master to the king until Jean-Baptiste Lully's death in 1687, filed a formal complaint in 1704 claiming that Feuillet and Lorin had been given credit for inventing dance notation when in fact he had done so earlier. He was unable to substantiate his claims, though, as he had failed to publish his work. Many dancing masters and music writers credited Beauchamps in print with the initial creation of a notation system for this style of dance. (Harris-Warrick and Marsh discuss this in their study of Favier's notation previously mentioned, pp. 84-85.) Scholar Régine Astier, currently working on a translation of the complaint documents, recently indicated to me in a private communication that it is unclear whether Beauchamps' system resembled any of the notations published later.
Read the example from top to bottom:
•dance rhythm type: bourée
•music for this figure or page of notation, important note: the music is always situated in the DOWNSTAGE position, in other words, the page of notation must always be held with the music situated DOWNSTAGE even when the dancer turns
•dance title: la Bacchante, and in this case, the choreographer is identified: Mr. Pecour
•measure marks: small lines across the floor path or tract indicate music bar lines and movement between two bar lines takes place in one measure of music; there are 8 measure marks on each dancer's floor path indicating 8 measures of movement in this figure (exactly coinciding with 8 measures of music across the top of the page)
•spatial path or tract for the two dancers with the steps notated measure by measure
•notation for the male dancer (left) and female dancer (right) in their beginning location and facing, each figure or page of the dance will show the beginning position of the dancers in space, in relation to each other, and their facings: in the example, the dancers begin upstage and are facing downstage
•notation symbols for arm movements (port de bras) were developed but rarely used on dance notations (Feuillet, p. 89; Weaver, p. 96)
•notation for symbols showing when dancers are to take or let go of hands are used
Not shown or readily apparent in the notation:
•port de bras or arm movement, except the taking and letting go of hands (see reference above concerning existence of notation for port de bras that was rarely used)
Pro: This system relays the most information of the three in a visual format that can be read quickly.
Con: Arm movements are not usually notated. It is difficult to notate multiple dancers.
Inventories of Feuillet Notations:
The Feuillet system was the most widely used of the three notation systems and over 300 theatrical and ballroom dances were recorded, providing courts all over Europe easy access to the most fashionable dances. The extant notations are meticulously catalogued in two publications:
•Lancelot, Francine. La Belle Dance: Catalogue Raisonné des Chorégraphies Françaises en Notation Feuillet. Paris: Van Dieren Éditeur, 1996.
•Little, Meredith Ellis and Carol G. Marsh. La Danse Noble: An Inventory of Dances and Sources. Williamstown, New York, Nabburg: Broude Brothers Ltd., 1992.