Early Dance.

Videocassettes on dance of the past fall into two categories: those that use a few examples of particular dances to re-create the people and places of the time and its social and political scene, and those that set out to instruct viewers in the actual dances of a period and only sketch in its historical setting. Early Dance, two videos produced by Isa Partsch Bergsohn and directed by Hal Bergsohn and distributed by Princeton Book Company, ($39.95 each), fall into the former category.

The Bergsohns' first video, From the Greeks to the Renaissance, is described as A concise history of dance, from the tragedies and comedies of the early Greek theater to the English masques in the court of Elizabeth I, using engravings, prints, and paintings with accompanying music and narration. It includes the origins of the four foot positions and reverence. Dancers Angene Feves and Charles Perrier, dressed in period costumes, demonstrate the pavan, galliard, saltarello canarie, and volta." The emphasis is very much on the history of theater, on both stage space and what took place on it. Also discussed are Lorenzo de' Medici's influence as a patron of the arts, the Renaissance spectacles, and Domenico da Ferrara's important prerequisites for dance - a sense of time, manner (bodily attitude), memory for the steps, and awareness of the dance space. Feves and Perrier demonstrate a pavane and sciolto from Fabrito Caroso's book, Il Balarino (1581), with a relaxed familiarity not usually associated with the noble pavane (Perrier begins with a warm kiss to his lady's cheek, as though no one is watching). Hal Bergsohn's camera work rewardingly blends full-figure shots with details of footwork.

The historical survey covers Catherine de Medicis's elaborate court entertainments, the Ballet des Polonais and Ballet Comique de la Reine. If one is speaking about the familiar ballet terms of today, the producers' statement, "The French terms of ballet we owe to Arbeau who notated the music and dance vocabulary," is misleading. Though only slightly changed from the last century, these terms are markedly different from those used in Arbeau's Orchesography. I was glad to find an errata slip with the videocassette correcting some of the text statements, including the Arbeau references. There is much pictorial coverage of the popular theater in the sixteenth century, of the development of the English court masque and the masks and exaggerated disguises used by the nobles to "escape" from court strictures. The introduction of three-dimensional perspective, the proscenium stage, and the spectacular effects produced by intricate new. stage machinery are all depicted through contemporary prints. This video concludes with performances of the saltarello, the canarie, with its stamping, clapping, and kicking steps, the volta, and galliard.

Part 2 of Early Dance features the baroque era. The enclosed notes state that this video "demonstrates the gradual development of dance from the burlesque entertainments of the French court of Louis XIII to the theatrical art form during the reign of Louis XIV. It illustrates the ballets in which the young Louis XIV performed and recreates the image of Versailles and the elaborate theatrical spectacles performed there." Moliere and Lully's Bourgeois Gentilhomme is cited as an example of the uniting of music, dance, and theater. Paige Whitley-Bauguess and Thomas Baird demonstrate dances from the period.

A wealth of iconography illustrates Louis XIII's enjoyment of pageantry; Cardinal Richelieu's support of dance and drama; the popularity of commedia dell'arte figures and its bizarre, grotesque Italian players; Louis XIV's roles as Autumn, the Sun King, and Apollo; and the popular entertainment of the horse ballets. Louis XIV's development of Versailles from a hunting lodge to a magnificent palace with extraordinary formal gardens, fountains, lakes, and vistas is also well documented.

There seems to be confusion between the Academie Royale de Danse, which Louis XIV established in 1661, and the Paris Opera. The two academies remained quite distinct until the former faded away a few years before the Revolution. The formal title of the Opera throughout the Old Regime was the Academie Royale de Musique." The occasional use of the name "Academie de la Musique et de Dance" in recent times is unofficial.

Another questionable section relates to the statement that the choreographer Pierre Beauchamps (1636-1705) was concerned with movements that would make the king look good. To illustrate how the figures of court dance became clearly defined spatially, a male dancer is shown performing the balletic directions (alignments), such as croise devant, ecarte, efface. An attempt is made to link these poses to illustrations of the period; the positions shown, however, are not only inexact but are of such demicaractere performers as Auguste Vestris. Also, these movements do not appear in the dances of the time; they were not codified as performed until a century later.

The dance notation system first published by Feuillet in 1700 makes a visually attractive background to the superimposed live performance of a man's solo, well danced by Baird. A fairly long variation, La Folie d'Espagne pour Femme, follows and subsequently Pecour's Passacaille from Lully's opera Persee (1682) for a man and a woman, but arranged as a solo. Whitley-Bauguess's performance in a mask - no mention is made of the social importance of wearing a mask - displays an elegance, ease, and nobility that are not easy to acquire.

A wider range of dances would have been welcome, even as excerpts (the dances in Part 2, particularly, are rather long); one could also carp about the occasional picture that does not illustrate the narration. There is, however, much valuable information in these videos, as well as overgenerous iconography.