The sacred and ritual aspect of the dance in the English court Masque

Abstract

The purpose of the article: to outline the stages of the formation of the Sacred Dance and its possible types, to determine the sacred-ritual meaning of the Sacred Dance, to investigate the theme of staging the Sacred Dance in the English court Masque in the first half of the XVIIth century. The research methodology assumes the unity of such methodological approaches as the system-historical and comparative methods of analysis. The systemic-historical method made it possible to consider the stages of formation, flourishing and the period of the actual prohibition of the sacred dance. The comparative method helped to reveal the similarity of the connected dance-labyrinth with the dance-labyrinth in the English court Masque. Scientific novelty lies in an attempt to comprehend the sacred and ritual significance of the Sacred Dance, for the first time the Sacred Dance (labyrinth dance) is considered within the framework of the musical and theatrical performance of the English court Masque. Conclusions. In the early Christian period, the sacred dance was viewed as an act of ritualized worship of God, an act of manifesting immeasurable love for God. In different historical periods, famous philosophers, historians, playwrights, and poets saw in dance the highest meaning of Divine Love. The peculiarity of the dance performance in the court Masque allowed the invited guests to get in touch with the specifics of the existence of the royal English court. The nature of the dance, as a part of the English court Masque, is cosmopolitan based on the sacred-ritual discourse. The laws of harmony, Higher order and Reason, the Christian meaning of which was revealed through dance in the main part of the Masque, represented the English monarch as the center of the Universe.