Dance History

Dance: Manners Morals and Class. A Social History from the Renaissance to the Romantic Eras

‘Do not spit or blow your nose too much’ advises a 16th century dance treatise. From the mid-15th century onwards, descriptions of dances, their music, and expected behaviour and etiquette show the great importance of dance in people’s lives. The lecture continues through the baroque era to the emergence of the waltz, which swept all the old court dances away; though not without moral censure of the lax behaviour it was supposed to have engendered.

With digital slides and high quality recorded music.

A Dance Through Time: Images of Western Social Dancing from the Middle Ages to Modern Times

This lecture is based on Jeremy Barlow’s book of the same title, just published by the Bodleian Library, Oxford; for details of the book visit the Bodleian Bookshop

With digital slides.