The New York Baroque Dance Co.

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 50^th 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 18^th century and by Beaumont in the early 20^th 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 1^st 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 2^nd 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 20^th 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!

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