DANC 021. Performance in Early Modern Europe

(Cross-listed as THEA 011B , CPLT 021 )
How do we define performance in early modern Europe? This course explores multi-genre traditions through forms including court ballet, comedy-ballet, opera, bourgeois drama, and ballet d’action in order to raise questions that are equally relevant for us today: How do we study something that is fleeting? What is the relationship between “text” and performance? This course explores the hybrid genres of dance, mime, music, and drama from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in order to analyze their present relevance as “art.” Artists and theorists studied will include Angiolini, Diderot, Noverre, Molière, Garrick, Goldoni, Sulzer, Weaver, and others, with a view on developing a transnational understanding of theater and dance in France, Germany, Italy, and England. Special attention will be paid to cross-casting (drag) and Orientalism.

A version of this course has been offered in the past as a First-Year Seminar, Dance 002. If you have taken Dance 002, you are not able to enroll in DANC 021.

This course fulfills a requirement for Dance majors and minors.
Open to all students.
Humanities.
Writing course.
1 credit.
Eligible for GLBL-paired, FRST
Fall 2025. Sabee.
Catalog chapter: Dance
Department website: Dance Department

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