A leading force in the revival of 18th century ballet, challenging aesthetic conventions and bringing forgotten masterpieces to new audiences in what The Guardian has called “a whirlwind of desperately needed fresh air.”
Thank you to our dancers from over the years appearing in this collage: Thomas Baird, Michael Barriskill, Patricia Beaman, Brynt Beitman, Deda Christina Colonna, Justin Coates, Caroline Copeland, Seth Davis, Letizia Dradi, Sarah Edgar, Karen Eliot, Carly Fox Horton, Carlos Fittante, Jorge Fuentes, Junichi Fukuda, Stephanie Grover, Olsi Gjeci, Joy Havens, Timothy Kasper, Rachel List, Jason Melms, Hugh Murphy, Glenda Norcross, Valerie Shelton Tabor, Alexis Silver, Matthew Ting, Andrew Trego, Meggi Sweeney Smith, Catherine Turocy, Ani Udovicki, Seth Williams, Timothy Wilson, Gregory Youdan
I was asked by the International Conference link on Pierre Rameau this past December to speak about my history and relationship to his treatise (300th anniversary), The Dancing Master. Below is a copy of my comments at the roundtable:
Reflections on Pierre Rameau’s Influence on My Work as a Dancer and Choreographer 1971-2025
By Catherine Turocy
Artistic Director and Co-founder of The New York Baroque Dance Company
celebrating its 50th Anniversary in 2026-27
Learning Baroque technique was a trial by fire as Shirley Wynne crafted her choreography for the 1972 fully-staged premiere of Rameau’s La Naissance d’Osiris with Alan Curtis. I was among the eight dancers at Ohio State University performing in this groundbreaking collaboration. Many scholars today have read Shirley’s dissertation on “Complaisance” thinking this work represented her views of the baroque dance style. In reality, Shirley’s work was emotional and theatrical, quite the opposite of Wendy Hilton working at Juilliard, whose contribution was on comportment and the pure style of social dance. The early days of the historical dance revival in America were filled with bloody fights guided by Apollo and Dionysus. As scholars and performers struggled to define this new field, I knew I wanted to be a part of it. Focused more on our performances, Shirley did not teach us the sources systematically and I was obliged to study them on my own, but I did learn a lot from her example.
As a student at OSU, my understanding of how notation functioned was influenced by reading dances recorded in Labanotation and then writing my own dances in Labanotation as part of my training. Later, when I learned what was then called the “Feuillet system,” I already understood what notation could and could not relay.
In 1974 I reconstructed my first baroque dance for the Baroque Dance Ensemble. (This company was formed by Shirley in 1973 but then dissolved in 1975.) I read La Bretagne notated by Pierre Rameau and an older version notated by Feuillet. Confronted with 2 different versions, I learned a lot about questioning sources and the development of ideas.
My perspective in reading notation scores was as a dancer/choreographer. Considering my first commission as a choreographer at age seventeen was for musical theater, and I performed in a ballet company during my high school years, it is not surprising I considered notation from a performer’s perspective. While reading Rameau’s work, I compared step descriptions with choreographies I reconstructed. For me, it was important to take his work out of the book and to place it into the context of a choreographic phrase, much as individual music notes are not music until they are in a composition.
My history in studying Le Maître à Danser since co-founding The New York Baroque Dance Company with Ann Jacoby in 1976 involved studying the original work in French, reading the book again with Wendy Hilton and then Ana Yepes, reading parts of the book with Ken Pierce and then, most recently, reading through the book with NYBDC members during Covid. I have also compared translations of the work by John Essex in the 18th century and by Beaumont in the early 20th century and studied Rameau’s modifications to the Beauchamps/Feuillet system.
Le Maître à Danser, was not a means to an end but more of a window, opening to a vast study of hundreds of dance notations from the stage and court. Performing while learning was important to my process. I needed the pressure of performance combined with relating to the audience to test concepts of art theory, especially movement of the soul. I also needed a company of dancers, just as an orchestra and voices are required to study opera. Writings of René Descartes gave me a historical and scientific perspective on expression, passion and the soul. Writings from Abbé de Pure, Claude-François Ménestrier, Saint-Hubert and John Weaver aided my understanding of creating a ballet and the importance of its placement within an opera. Gottfried Taubert’s work stressed the systematic structure of ballet, helping me to connect ars combinatoria with Feuillet’s work. Treatises in acting, painting and architecture as related to sacred geometry were helpful. The Reverand Gilbert Austin’s Chironomia was a revelation, demonstrating how the entire declamatory body shifted, seemingly dancing from measure to measure. These studies created a larger context for my mission: to define dance theory, expression and performance practice of the Baroque. Over five decades of performing, choreographing and stage directing 100 operas and numerous plays, videos and ballets assisted my growth as an artist. The impact I made on historical dance practice through lecture/demonstrations at conferences of The Society of Dance History Scholars and the Dance Studies Association (both of which I was a founding member) included introducing the use of expressive dramatic gesture in dance reconstructions (1978), stressing the mask as a vital part of historical performance (1979), and using the work of the Reverend Gilbert Austin to demonstrate the movement of the body within a dramatic sphere (1985). Presently, I am working with Historical Movement Archive to develop a digitized archive for Baroque dance.
I am grateful to the researchers and practitioners (many in this room) who have conversed with me over technical and philosophical questions, especially the early pioneers Ingrid Brainard, Belinda Quirey and Shirley Wynne, the late Regine Astier, Rebecca Harris Warrick, Carol Marsh, Alan Jones, Ken Pierce, Françoise Dartois and Jennifer Nevile. I am also grateful to James Richman, my husband, for our collaborations which expanded my understanding of historical music theory and practice, drawing many parallels to dance.
Lessons from Rameau…
1. People often refer to Pierre Rameau as if he describes all of Baroque dance. However, Anthony L’Abbe, in the frontispiece of Essex’s translation, describes the book as addressing “genteel dancing.” Stage dancing is not included. Later in the preface of the original book, Rameau says: “Dance did not appear in all its lustre until the invention of Opera .” As Le Maître à Danser only covers social dance, we must look elsewhere for explaining theatrical step variations, theory and dramatic performance practices. Hence, Pierre Rameau is not my primary treatise. Instead, I read the Jesuit writings on creating opera-ballets because this is where dance was “in all its lustre.”
2. The title page of the Essex translation, The Dancing Master or the Whole Art and Mystery of Dancing Explained reminds us that the book was intended to “demystify” dance for the English public. The first intention of the book according to Essex is: “Treating of the proper positions and different attitudes for Men and Women from which all the steps are taken and performed…” The idea of moving from position to position in the feet, as well as in the attitudes of the body, immediately suggested to me a link to painting, sculpture and poetry where proportion and expression create beauty.
3. Page 5: Rameau begins to talk about step proportions and the proportion of one’s own body. This statement inspired me to explore proportion in art. In the 1980’s I began to study Leonardo DaVinci’s Vitruvian Man. This important connection to dance theory led me to inventing the concept of the “Baroque Bubble” which I use in teaching and coaching the Baroque dance style. The concept of the bubble is useful in explaining proportion, expression and psychological states of the mind.
4. Page 12: Rameau speaks of always moving through 1st position when bending in an upbeat for the next step. This principle is not addressed in the notation but was stressed in the 1970’s with Quirey, Hilton and Wynne. This practice organizes the legs and makes the dance more legible.
5. Chapter 17: Rameau discusses the order of the ball and appropriate behavior. The order of the ball reflects the order of society which reflects the divine order. This concept touches on the need to connect to the cosmography of the microcosm and for me stimulated discussions with Regine Astier in the 1980’s. Cosmography has since influenced my views on performance practice and creating dances.
6. Chapter 18: Rameau suggests a perfectly obvious action, to wear gloves in dancing. In our own time we rarely wear genteel gloves so this reminder is important. I have observed that gloves make the dancer more aware of the power of the port de bras. The audience, in turn, finds the arms more articulate. Wynne stressed wearing gloves in the 1970’s and I continue this practice.
7. Chapter 19: Rameau mentions the power of motion and how each joint works. His description of the instep is important to executing terre à terre movements crucial to the technique and style. This thought affected the lightness in my dancing and allowed a more subtle performance.
8. Chapter 22: I am disappointed Rameau gives no metaphysical description of the minuet, its history and why the S figure was changed to a Z. Taubert’s “lunar orbit,” “infinity figure” or using the figure “2”which contains aspects of the S and Z touches upon dance theory.
9. Page 96: Rameau states the cadence is the soul of dancing. The movement of the soul is often mentioned in art theory of the time. I am delighted Rameau linked the soul to the musical cadence but also sorry he did not spend more time discussing music.
10. Page 99 and page 199: Rameau speaks of the thumb not pressing against the forefinger. This is contrary to most theatrical dance iconography from the period and to dancing masters, Tomlinson and Taubert. Hence, why are some practitioners never touching when Rameau seems to be outnumbered on this issue? What is the symbolism of the fingers touching? In sacred gestures at the time (see statues in churches) one is joining the earth with the heavens, or the material world with the spiritual world. Art theory makes this connection with the divine and perhaps this is one of the ways it happens in dance.
11. Pages 146-7: While describing the gaillard step to the side, Rameau asks for a slight bend in the supporting ankle before perching high on the leg and then falling. This ankle release is not in the notation but is key to using the instep to give lightness and fluidity to dancing. Traditional dance maintains this sense of ballon in the ankle. As Rameau says, one must avoid looking stiff. Belinda Quirey (a student of Melusine Wood in the 1940’s) paid keen attention to the instep and ankle. She emphasized this action in my private class with her in 1980 .
12. Page 152: Rameau states that pirouettes performed on one leg with the other leg to the side should employ a jumping action to the relevé. In the 1970’s this principle was much in discussion with Wynne and Hilton not wanting to spring to the balls of the feet in a pirouette. By the 1980’s most dancers were jumping to the supporting leg.
13. Page 168: Rameau describes taking the side contretemps with both feet on the ground and springing up from 2nd position. However, the notation of this step does not show a clean second position. In the 1970’s many dancers sprung from one leg and not the second position and landed in a bent knee. In the 1980’s in a discussion with Ken Pierce, I was finally convinced that this interpretation could be a matter of practice which was not reflected in the notation. Tomlinson does not suggest the second position spring from two feet. On page 61 of his treatise, Tomlinson states that one bends the knee upon landing from the hop. In my own practice I choose to bend or not bend on the landing depending upon the music, the tempo and the intended expression of the step.
14. Page 187: Rameau talks about linking steps together. He suggests alternating the quick with the slow or the more active steps with those which emphasize gravity. This notion is linked to dance theory emphasizing variety and concepts in opposition, giving energy to the composition.
SECOND PART
15. Page 196: Rameau states arm positions are like the frame of a picture, emphasizing the dimensional use of the body so it does not look as flat as all the images in the book. One perceives the arms in relation to the core of the body and the arms become more expressive, creating a sculptural context for the body as it shifts through space. I believe the framing of the body is an important aspect of the style.
16. Second Part Chapter 7: Rameau emphasizes always moving the shoulders and head with the opposition of the arms. I see this explanation as supporting the aesthetic principle in art theory that the spiral is the line of beauty. The spiral of the body lives through the entire spine with the head and arms emerging from the spine. The body is not sectioned off into feet/arms/head but is one moving sculpture from head to toe.
17. Second Part Pages 247-8: Rameau is clear about accompanying a primary movement on one arm with a sympathetic smaller movement on the other arm. He says this happens every measure. In the 1970’s in America, Rameau’s description guided choreographers like Hilton, Wynne and myself in our creations. We always moved both arms in harmony to every measure. In today’s practice, some choreographers will hold the arms in one position over many measures or they will make an action with one arm and freeze the other arm in place. According to Rameau, no part of the body is isolated in stillness over a series of measures. Also, he never describes a position for the arms as being held behind the waist. In today’s practice it seems many dancers are working with isolation which is a modern concept in modern dance from the first half of the 20th century. Most noticeably the modern technique of Merce Cunningham (which I studied in college) works with isolated movements and space holds of body parts. François Raffinot of Ris et Danceries directed by Francine Lancelot studied Cunningham technique in NYC in the 1980’s. I often wonder if his reconstructions were influenced by the purity and precision of Cunningham technique which he then used in his Baroque creations. The aesthetic of Baroque dance embraces a more natural and integrated use of the body.
A General Observation: Pierre Rameau ends step descriptions with the dancer being on a lengthened knee and flat foot. In the 1950’s perhaps through the 1980’s, dancers were ending each measure with a bent knee. I remember Ken Pierce speaking to me in the 1980’s suggesting we needed to take another look at Rameau and other dancing masters. As a result, we re-read the masters and looked more closely at the notation. We came to the conclusion that it was time to change our interpretation and to end a measure with a lengthened knee and flat foot. This totally shifted the flow and poetry of the dance style.
*Please note that there were important artists and scholars working in Britain, Canada, Germany and France before the 1970’s but I did not work with them, so they are not included in this paper.
Thank you to the Colloque on Pierre Rameau for this invitation to speak of my experience and work. It is an honor and privilege to be with all of you today!
Il Ballo delle Ingrate with Catherine Turocy, Valerie S. Tabor, Glenda Norcross and Alexis Silver
Valerie Shelton Tabor (September 20, 1973- October 30, 2025)
I first met Valerie when she was a student at Southern Methodist University and I was the ad interim Chair of Dance (1995-96). I was drawn to her elegance and beautiful epaulement as well as her quick wit. The department was working on its spring concert and I mounted my choreography on four dancers to J.S. Bach’s French Suite #5. She was perfect for dancing the saraband with her refined technique and languid arms. I was eager to have her join The New York Baroque Dance Company at that time, but she decided to pursue a law degree.
We later connected when she wanted advice on starting a contemporary ballet company. I encouraged her to begin with a school before starting the company… the rest is history. In 2005, Lindsay DiGiuseppe Salih opened the school, Contemporary Ballet Dallas, in Lakewood with a goal of establishing a dance school of the highest caliber, offering various techniques, and in a positive environment to shape dancers as dancers and as individuals. Read More https://www.contemporaryballetdallas.com/about-dance-school
Valerie performed with our company and we collaborated on projects both in New York City and in Dallas. She was praised for her role as the Unicorn in Jean Philippe Rameau’s opera ballet, Zephyre, by The New York Times:
“There was a charming Unicorn dance for Valerie Sheldon Tabor, who crossed the stage in dainty prances while wearing a towering headpiece in the form of the mythical creature.” ( In the photo above dancer Alexis Silver offers the Unicorn an apple.) Full review: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/arts/dance/23baroque.html
Valerie also danced with passion in Monteverdi’s Il Ballo delle Ingrate (pictured at the top) performed with Ars Lyrica Houston and then the Dallas Bach Society. And in our last collaboration where she created a ballet based on the story of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de St. George, she was an inspired collaborator. https://artsandculturetx.com/music-milestones-dallas-bach-societys-spring-season/
Marcea Daiter, Catherine Turocy and Valerie S.Tabor, collaborators on the Bologne ballet
Valerie’s departure from this world just a few days ago is difficult to understand and she will be missed. Our sympathy goes out to her family and to the many dancers who worked with her and were moved by her artistry, determination and passion for life.
It is with great sorrow that we announce the passing of Sandra Noll Hammond on September 13, 2025. As a specialist in early ballet (only one of her areas of study) we were privileged to work with her. She was a guest for three summers at the NYBDC Santa Barbara Baroque Dance Workshop(link to video archive) as well as Historical Dance at Play. At the SBBDW she taught our students ballet technique ranging from the late 18th century into the early 19th century.
In 2013, as a gesture in gratitude, I set up a website for Sandra, hoping her students could help her post and write updates about her work. With the website Sandra would have an online presence… very much lacking for this brilliant artist whose career was more in the 20th century. We were, in fact , contacted by the Basque Cultural Institute asking to include a video of her work in their exhibit, “Soka,” focused on basque dance. The exhibit took place in Biarritz (2015-09-10 – 2015-10-11 – Northern Basque country – France) and traveled to Donostia – Southern Basque country (Spain) in February 2016. We believe it also traveled to Paris and Barcelona in 2017.
Sandra’s website also allowed for former students to get in touch with her and to share comments on the Website.
To learn more about the work of Sandra, Wickipedia has a lovely entry: Sandra Noll Hammond
The New York Baroque Dance Company and United Palace
On September 21, dress up and join us for a festive ball at the United Palace! This event will offer plenty of dancing, community, live music and fantastic costumes. Light refreshments will be provided.
The program will feature dances fom the Baroque to the Revolutionary era and the early days of the United States, including compositions by George F. Handel, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and African American composer Francis Johnson (1792-1844). All are welcome-dances will be taught at the ball, and even more can be learned at NYBDC workshops Classes.
Join in on the dance floor or enjoy as a spectator! Live music from the vituosic ensemble Twelfth Night, and led by David Belkovski for our special event.
Early Bird Tickets: $25 – Reserve online before September 12 BUY TICKETS
$30 – General Admission after September 12 BUY TICKETS
Time: 6:30-8:30pm on September 21
Location Address: United Palace Theater, 4140 Broadway at 175th St, New York, NY 10033
The Uptown Ball is the grand finale of Crackalackin, the United Palace’s celebration of Uptown arts. The Crackalackin concert is free and is 5-6:30. The ball follows from 6:30-8:30 with live music, dancing for all and dance demonstrations from the professional dancers of our company.
CLASSES- Prepare for the Ball
Would you like to learn some dances ahead of time? Join our two Saturday zoom classes on September 6 and September 13 or join our in-person dance workshop with Live Music taught at the Morris-Jumel Mansion on September 20th from 5:30 to 7pm. Admission is only $7! Classes
This project is made possible in part with funds from Creative Engagement, a regrant program supported by the funding agencies DCLA in partnership with the City Council and NYSCA with the support of the office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by LMCC. We are also grateful for the support of Medical Center Neighborhood Fund and the United Palace Theatre!
We have been in rehearsal all of April and now we are at the exciting part where the orchestra joins us in our preparations. Marie Anne Chiment finished with the costume fittings yesterday and she was joined by Morgan, her assistant and the wig designer, Carissa, who has a multi-colored punk wig for our lead character, Thalia, the Muse of Comedy.
Join us for the modern premiere of an opéra-ballet that broke the mold! This present-day retelling cleverly swaps the original muses’ debate over the qualities of comedy and tragedy for composers, librettists, and choreographers debating which of their art forms garners the best reviews!
Produced by Opera Lafayette, Dance Collaboraters: The New York Baroque Dance Company
Join us for the modern premiere of an opéra-ballet that broke the mold for its time by putting contemporary characters on stage.(Produced by Opera Lafayette, Ryan Brown Artistic Director)
True to its innovative roots, this present-day retelling cleverly swaps the original muses’ debate over the qualities of comedy and tragedy for composers, librettists, and choreographers debating which of their art forms garners the best reviews!
With renowned conductor Christophe Rousset on the podium and Catherine Turocy directing, this witty, joyful, female-centric tale will have you laughing and cheering until the end. Thalie promises to uphold Opera Lafayette’s reputation as “one of the most creatively game and artistically sound operations in the business.”(The Washington Post).
Thalie features a diverse and talented cast of American singers including Jonathan Woody (Opera Lafayette Artistic Associate), Angel Azzarra, Pascale Beaudin, Scott Brunscheen, Jean Bernard Cerin, Patrick Kilbride, Paulina Francisco, John Taylor Ward, and Ariana Wehr. The production also includes eight dancers led by choreographers Anuradha Nehru and Pragnya Thamire, Julian Donahue and Julia Bengtsson of the NYBDC, and Caroline Copeland, Associate Director of NYBDC.
UPCOMING PERFORMANCES The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Terrace Theater Washington, DC Friday, May 3, 2024, 7:30pm Saturday, May 4, 2024, 7:30pmPre-show discussion begins at 6:30pm both nights.&El
Museo del Barrio New York, NY Tuesday, May 7, 2024, 6:00pm Pre-show discussion begins at 5:00pm at El Café.
Online Event at 6pm Eastern time with discussion, photos and videos looking at their recent production of Charpentier’s Les Arts Florissants, soon to be released as a recording!
Turocy and Richman, speak out on their work together over 4 decades of producing Baroque opera, using their last collaboration as a catalyst to reveal their perspectives on the vitality, emotional depth and beauty to be experienced in performing this art today.
Sign up with Eventbrite to Register for this Free Event!
Over 200 people from across the country, Canada and even as far as South America attended the first Early Music Summit. We saw old friends and made new ones. The sense of community was inspiring and I felt honored to be a part of it.
I stayed in an Airbnb with Julia, her son Jesper and her dad, Bjorn. We soon realized why Warrenton Street earned the name of Shear Madness Alley, but somehow it seemed appropriate!
Among the many presentations the ones which meant the most to me as a producer/performer of historical dance are the following:
NAGAMO: A Case Study in Collaboration & Decolonization (Lecture-Performance) Presenters: Jacob Gramit, musica intima Artistic Manager and Lucy Smith
Revolving around Elizabethan choral music by Byrd, Tallis, and Gibbons, NAGAMO features the unique musical perspective of Andrew Balfour’s reimagining of these motets into Cree and Ojibway. The video footage showed the work in performance with a mixed audience of engaged First Nation people and the usual early music audience. The integrated programming included indigenous music and song.
I was reminded of The New York Baroque Dance Company collaboration with the Shinnecock Indians in 2009 at the CW Post Campus Long Island University.
From Gramit and Smith I became aware of how to take our own project deeper into the community and how necessary it is to be open to others joining the project. There own project was structured with an open end, allowing things to grow and change.
Touring Music’s Stories (special format presentation) Presenter: Bill Barclay, Artistic Director, Music Before 1800
Mr. Barclay gave a very clear and inspiring talk on how to create a music/theater production through collaboration. He also stressed the advantages of inviting artists from different fields into the sandbox to help develop the initial idea. Challenges of funding can be met with presenters agreeing to sharing costs of the production in exchange for being on the premiere tour of the work. Even if the funding is not released until the performance, the notion of promised money is a way to get other funders involved. There are so many fascinating stories in dance history waiting to be told, surely our field can do this!
Uniting through dance in the 18th Century (performance-workshop) Presenters: Julia Bengtsson, dancer/choreographer, and Patricía García Gil, fortepiano
Looking at the development of the minuet in a combined workshop and performance, the audience experienced a journey through time and space by listening, watching and ultimately moving to music dedicated to the minuet – which dominated the dance floor for almost a century and spread from France across Europe and to the colonies. Bengtsson and Garcia Gil are a great team and we all hope they go more deeply into this project so we can hear more from them on this important subject drawing much attention from the field.
Julia Bengtsson emphasizing the importance of musicians and dancers working together and collaborating on presentations and performances.
Building on Bach: Six New Suites for Solo Cello (lecture-performance) Presenter: Jessica Korotkin, cello
Inspired by the creative practices of the eighteenth-century performer-composer, Ms. Korotkin created six cello suites drawing on the music and compositional methods of Bach. This process helped her to expand her approach to historically informed performance practice through discovering the composer-performer within. As I listened to her speak, I thought of dance and how we automatically analyze period choreographies in order to choreograph new works in the Baroque style. But there is something for dancers to learn about the importance of theory in addition to the practical questions. Her passion for theory erupted into a creative experience for her which was evident in the new music. If historical dancers could go more deeply into theory I think we would feel something similar.
Concerts were of a very high level. I especially appreciated the Young Performers Festival held each day. The summit closed with EMA’s Annual Awards Ceremony & Emerging Artists Showcase [ES] Marie Nadeu-Tremblay, baroque violin was unforgettable. Please see her perform live whenever you can. The Fooles, 17th century chamber ensemble took us to another level! And Maryse Legault, historical clarinet, with Gili Loftus, fortepiano, astounded me with the beauty of their instruments and a soul-felt performance by Legault.
Catherine Turocy and Julia Bengtsson at the EMA Summit and representing The New York Baroque Dance Company. Both Catherine and Julia are members of EMA and on the Board.
In conclusion, for the historical dance community, I would like to quote Lynn Garafola from her book, Legacies of Twentieth-Century Dance: “ A deep current of anti-intellectualism runs throughout the dance world, a mistrust of scholarly analysis, of probing beyond the evident, of questioning the truthfulness of received wisdom.” (2005, viii) I believe this is true and I would like to ask our historical dance community to join the Early Music America Summit next year. I am sure you will experience a different kind of summit where the presenters are both theorists and practitioners and the excitement of the presence of history in today’s world is palpable.
September 29 at Moody Performance Hall at 7:30pm with The Dallas Bach Society Dancers of the NYBDC, Brynt Beitman, Junichi Fukuda (making a special appearance), Meggi Sweeney Smith, Alexis Silver and young dancer Lidiia Volkova will appear in the DBS opening program for the season, “Bach and the Dance.”
Pictured below are Caroline Copeland and Roberta Lara caught in action by Liz Schneider-Cohen in a lecture presentation of “Bach Figures” at the 92nd Street Y in NYC
What are the dances on the program?
Bach Figures, choreographed by Catherine Turocy to select movements from the Bach Cello Suites, the choreographer wishes to answer the question: Is Bach’s music meant to be danced? This newly conceived suite of dances reaches out to today’s audience by artfully matching the aesthetic theory behind Bach’s music with dance theory and practice of the same period.
Movement 1: Beginning with the Sarabande from Cello Suite #3 in C Major the dancer appears in practice clothes. As she listens to the opening bars of the sarabande she first allows the music to stir inside her before the dance emerges from the body into choreography. The “movement of the soul” was an essential concept embraced by art theory in Bach’s time. In dance, the sweet sounds of the music are heard and enter the soul which is stirred to such a degree that movement can no longer be contained and must escape through the body. Being dressed in contemporary clothing, the dancer’s movements are more visible, not being hidden by panniers and long skirts.
Culturally, the sarabande has Spanish origins. Arm movements from Spanish dance are echoed in the dancer’s movements.
Movement 2: The Prelude from Cello Suite #1 in G Major is an imaginative play with the Golden Ratio. In this solo, choreography for a female dancer highlights the turning point of the Golden Ratio in the music. Another convention from Bach which is also shared by the dance, is a play with spelling a name. Bach would sometimes, through musical composition, spell his own name. Dance choreographers would honor a personage by spelling out the name in the path or track of the dance. Not only could the audience perceive the spelling of the name being performed, but the notated dance would be an obvious graphic record. In this movement the dancer spells B-A-C-H through a punctuated path in space. The dancer is in full Baroque costume with flow of the skirt creating an after-image of the motion.
Movement 3: The Minuet from Cello Suite #1 in G Major for two women explores the melody and rhythm of the music while performing the common figures of the minuet. The dancers are in full Baroque costume. The audience is deeper into the meaning of the dance having experienced the sarabande and prelude.
Movement 4: The Gigue from Cello Suite #1 in G Major is playful , conversational, witty and uplifting. This duet for a man and woman reveals the dance behind the music. The dancers are in full Baroque costume. Flirtation can be a part of court dance and this next layer of social interaction sets the audience up for the expressive allemande.
Movement 5: The Allemande from Cello Suite #5 in C Minor was a dance common to the ballroom and closer to the tempo of a bourrée. However, Bach’s allemandes are not the happy quick dances of young lovers, but something else completely. In this dance the choreography is inspired by the complex pairing of arms as the two dancers intertwine and pause in various romantic dance poses. These poses are directly from the dance manuals during Bach’s time and reveal a silent and mysterious courtship of movement. The dancers are in full Baroque costume, reminding the audience of Dresden porcelains.
Movement 6: The Bouree from Cello Suite #3 in C Major is a solo male dance of improvisation. Fully schooled in the dance theory and practice of the 18th century, the dancer allows the music to move through his body as he spontaneously releases the music into movement. Drawing from both the comic and serious styles, the dance is always a delight! The dancer is in modern dress, allowing the audience to see the shaping of the body more clearly and demonstrating how the Baroque dance style can feel contemporary when seen in today’s fashion.
Movement 7: This last movement is not to music from Bach and is played on the modern piano. Composed by Scott Joiner, the composition is beautifully inspired by Bach and is titled, “Prelude.” Returning to the stage in modern dress, the Allemande couple repeats the Allemande, but it takes on a more modern meaning in a contemporary context. The contemporary music under the Baroque dance emphasizes different parts of the period movement and allows the audience to relate to the dance in their own way. The past is always present whether we can identify it or not. Aesthetic theory from Bach’s time can still move audiences today.
Bach Figures is designed by the choreographer to play with a time cycle, beginning in the present, delving into the fundamental Baroque and returning to the present. Today’s audience relishes the journey and gains a deeper understanding of Bach’s music.
Bach’s French Suite #5 for Harpsichord in G Major
Storyline: Two couples meet for a fun evening of dance. The sophisticated evening eventually bends toward a tipsy loure and leads to a gigue for all 4 dancers which culminates in a game of musical chairs and much laughter.
The opening Allemande is beautifully played by James Richman. The following Courante sets the stage with the arrival of the two couples in full Baroque costume. The Sarabande is a dance for a solo woman in the majestic style followed by the Gavotte, a solo for a man in a joyous but elegant court style. Next comes the Bourrée, a duet for a couple, happy and witty. The Loure is a solo for a man which involves a drinking challenge and is very virtuosic. The final dance is a rollicking Gigue, danced by all as a game of musical chairs.
The New York Baroque Dance Co. 
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