Dance Rehearsal Practices in Early Modern Court Spectacles

Abstract

While a thorough understanding of pre-production processes for early modern court spectacles is probably now not possible, there is enough surviving documentation from Italian, English, and French courts to shed light on important characteristics of the dance rehearsal process. We know the importance placed on dance rehearsals, the length of the rehearsal period, when dancers started practising onstage, whether costumes were worn for any rehearsals, and whether the rehearsals were private or public events or somewhere in between. Often the dance performers included members of the elite who placed their attendance at rehearsals ahead of other state duties. Yet the dynamics of rehearsals with elite dancers and non-elite singers and musicians in early modern Europe could not have been what is normally found in rehearsals today.