Ability to Enjoy Medieval Interpretive

¶ … ability to enjoy medieval interpretive dance often requires extensive preparation. While medieval interpretive dance need not have an intellectual appeal, it can not be fully understood without these previous experiences that have deepened the capacity to interpret the dance intelligently. While limited and fragmentary, there are sources for the understanding of dance in the European Middle Ages, including paintings and illuminations, scattered text allusions. The first detailed details of medieval dance date from late in the medieval period that is 1450 in Italy after the start of the Renaissance (Diehl and Donnelly 111).

There are virtually no documented dance steps that survive from any earlier that 1400. There is dance music that survives from earlier, but no one knows what steps were danced to it or the speed at which the music was played (ibid 111)..

In general, there were several forms of medieval dances. These included the balade or balata, or in other words, a generic dance that was usually in lines. Then there was the rondeau, rotta, rondellus, or rond (round dance). In addition, there was the virelai (which comes from virer, i.e. To wring). This was a dance with a wring movement. Finally, there was the carola, karol, querole. This was a dance in a circle ("Shoshone").

The medieval dance scene is of course not able to be separated from medieval music. Late in the twelfth century there emerged a whole new system of harmony. Prior to this time, music was only homophonic (one melody at a time only). At Notre Dame Cathedral in 1170 C.E., a mass was celebrated that was polyphonic (two or more melodies at the same time). With the introduction of polyphony, new possibilities for both secular and religious musical compositions (and by extension dance) were opened.

Because of the influence of the church on medieval dance via music was not just indirect. Images of the dance macabre with the dancing skeletons it therefore had a direct influence on the evolution of medieval dance. So, the experiential tool kit for medieval dance must include some knowledge of the development of polyphonic music.

The prime function of lyric was to accompany dance. Churchmen many times attacked the practice of dance songs in the worship service as heretical. For instance, Gnostic churches loved dance in the religious service as a way to self-discovery and self-wisdom. The widespread condemnation of the practice would indicate how unstoppable it was and how popular it was. For this reason, we can readily explain why it was tolerated (Patterson 96).

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