Dance and Cultural Memory Interpreting Fin de Siècle Performances of "Olde England" / Theresa Jill Buckland
.-- Edinburgh: : Edinburgh University Press, , 2013
38 p.
Dance Research -- Vol. 31, núm. 1, Summer 2013, p. 29 - 66
RESUMEN: In late Victorian and Edwardian England, these existed in performance and in popular historical imagination, a cultural memory of the nation´s ancient dances. This national repertoire had largely been constructued through nineteenth-century romantic imagery of "olde" and "merrie" England and appeared across a wide variety of genres and contexts. Alongside the morris, country and maypole dances were courtly dances such as the minuet and gavotte which were fashionable at costume balls, salons and on the stage. These dances were also taught to children of the middle and lower classes as a means of embodying what were regarded as earlier more civised ways of moving and social interaction, as well as celebrating and engedering a vision of England as happy and communal. This article explores this fascination with England´s so called ancient dances, in particular, the Victorian rococo minuet, as a historically and socially situated menifestation of cultural memory. It raises issues of danceand nationalism, the transmission of fashionable dances across country and class, the recycling of dance imagery and practice, and the trend towards authentication in the revival of dances popular consumption.