Anno Domini (introduction)

martinemussies | May 08, 2009 | 0

From the 29th of April to the 2nd of May, a very interesting festival was organised in St. Petersburg, Russia: "Anno Domini" - all about European historical dance, both court and traditional. The objective of Anno Domini was to re-introduce social dance, the legacy which was lost during wars and revolutions. It is not disco, sport or classical ballet, but a beautiful kind of art, which in its time anyone could practice, a special language, endless source of gracefulness, joy and flirt.

First of all, dance is celebration. People danced to celebrate and to express their emotions: joy, sorrow, reverence, tenderness or worship. "Anno Domini" gave a revival to these kinds of dance - both gala and playful, finical and common. Everyone can dance, if he or she wants to. And yes, we all wanted, of course!

The skills of participants of the festival were different: someone devoted many years of hard work to historical dance, while someone saw these dances for the first time just a couple of weeks ago. But the teachers were happy to work with anyone. And everyone liked it a lot! Which is no wonder, of course... not too many things give the same strength of emotions as is experienced by people galloping in farandole on a forest glade, dancing together not for an audience, but just for themselves, because they want to jump, skip and turn! (By the way, the verb "dance" is derived from the words like jump, skip or turn in different languages.)

Of course, during the times since the beginning of our age till 20th century people danced different dances. A ball room of Rococo age is different from chilling-through medieval castle as the dances of these ages are different from each other. Rural dances from Brueghel's pictures were much simpler than complicated acrobatic dances of jugglers and moresquers of that time.

The teachers of Anno Domini introduced different genres at the festival: court dances of Renaissance that nobility would dance for pleasure, and complicated compositions which were performed by skilled court dancers in Renaissance. With the same pleasure we learned easy branles of 16th century and Chesary Negri's waltzes, all-European country dances and "elite" minuets of 18th century.

But that was not all... also 20th century dance had a place in "Anno Domini". Julia Lobun taught us all about the cakewalk - with some hilarious moments - and more traditional African American forms and dance which originated among slaves in the Southern United States.

Guest teachers were Lieven Baert and Barbara Sparti, who taught some very beautiful and interesting XV- and XVI-century dances. And everything was organized by Nastasya Belaya and the School of Historical Dance at SPbSU "Villanella".

Stay tuned for more details about the "Anno Domini" festival in St.Petersburg, Russia! :-)

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Ballet, Ballroom, Enthusiast, Summer Study, festival, historical dance (all tags)