Amsterdam Baroque dance conference
The Dutchman and the Honeybees:
an international Baroque dance symposium
The Amsterdam Conservatory
February 6-8, 2009
In the 18th century dancing was held in high esteem, and dancers buzzed about Europe and its colonies like giddy bees in a rich garden of summer sweets, inspiring, imitating and influencing each other both at home and abroad. London and Paris were the dancing hotspots of the age, but Amsterdam and The Hague were no strangers to Terpsichore’s charms. This conference will address the question: how did an international phenomenon like 18th-century dance, so strongly perfumed of the courts of Catholic France and Italy, manifest itself in the Dutch Republic, a Protestant nation that had but narrowly escaped the recent and relentless aggressions of Louis XIV?
On Friday, February 6th the opening session’s papers will first examine the interaction between French, Spanish and Italian dancers, before winging its way across the ocean to Brazil just in time for carnival. Back in the foggy North, the frustrations of a Huguenot exile attempting to sell French culture to the Dutch Republic will come into focus. The day will end in dancing, with a Baroque dance workshop for beginners of all ages led by performer/teacher Irène Ginger, followed by an informal wine and dance session.
Saturday February 7th will be dedicated to Dutch themes. Adult and juvenile dancing within the Republic will be reviewed, as well as the way ‘Dutch’ characters were danced by foreign choreographers: not only will English representations of Dutchmen on the stage be dissected, but Lambranzi’s choreographic instructions for a dance entitled Dutch Skipper and his Wife will be reconstructed especially for this symposium. Three papers on the links , through the House of Orange, between the Dutch and English, with particular attention paid to how that relationship manifested itself on the dance-floor and at the London opera, will lead to a workshop on Irish set dancing, just for fun, to twirl the cobwebs away. This second day will end with an evening music and dance performance in which conference participants, students and conservatory faculty will participate.
On Sunday February 8th three presentations will be devoted to practice-based work being done in Holland at the moment. A new production by the Nederlands Historisch Dans- en Theaterensemble, an interactive installation created especially for the symposium and current research into the performative perimeters of Baroque dance will all find a platform just before the conference closes with a lecture/performance by faculty and students of the Theaterschool Amsterdam.
This symposium will involve not only scholars and performers specialized in historical dance, but also historians and musicologists from North and South America, England and continental Europe. The faculty and students of both the Amsterdam Conservatory and the dance department of the Theaterschool Amsterdam will enliven the proceedings with their performances, while open workshops will make dancing accessible and enjoyable for all conference participants.
Last update: Sunday, October 12, 2008