Rendance Bibliography: B

Barker, E. Phillips. "Master Thoinot's Fancy." Music and Letters 11 (1930): 383.
Ian Engle: Introduction to Arbeau when Beaumont was the only version available in English.

Barlow, Jeremy, ed. The Complete Country Dance Tunes From Playford's Dancing Master. London: Faber Music, Ltd., 1985.
Cover blurb: This book brings together, for the first time under one cover, 535 tunes and their variants from the eighteen original editions of The Dancing Master. It provides a fund of musical material for performers, whether folk musicians or baroque instrumentalists, and for class and instrumental music teachers. It is also an invaluable reference book for anyone interested in the history of English music.

Barron, Marshall. Early Playford For Early Instruments. Privately published, 1987.
Justin du Coeur: Marshall Barron is a fiddler who has been teaching English Country dance with the CDSS for many years. These books are collections of her arrangements of melodies from the first edition of Playford. They are invariably danceable, and generally fairly pleasant to listen to; Marshall is quite explicit in her desire to see people use these arrangements to promote more reconstruction of Playford. I have heard a rumor that a third volume has been published but have not seen it yet.

Bianchi, Dante.

"Tre maestri Di Danza Alla Corte Di Francesco Sforza." ASL 89 (1962): 290-299.

"Un Tratto Inedito Di Domenico Da Piacenza." La Bibliofilia 65 (1963): 109.
Ian Engle: Bad transcription of the ms.
Bloch, Stephen (SCA pseud. Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib; et al). "Music For "La Regina"." The Letter of Dance, no. 8.
Justin du Coeur: Music for the dance from issue #7, reconstructed from BL Add. ms. 29987, ff 62v-63r. Alternate reconstructions also provided, available upon request from the Letter. Reconstruction confirmed against traditional reconstruction sent by Eloise of Coulter.

Bohme, Franz Magnas. Geschichte Des Tanzes in Deutschland. Beitrag Zur Deutschen Sitten-, Litteratur- Und Musikgeschichte. Nach Den Quellen Zum Erstenmal Bearbeitet Und Mit Alten Tanzliedern Und Musikproben. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hartel, 1886.
2 v. 27 cm

Boice, Meredith (SCA pseud. Mara Tudora Kolarova).

"Back Seat Drivers." The Letter of Dance, no. 6 (1990).
Justin du Coeur: An editorial, previously published in another Renaissance newsletter, Saltatio, giving advice on how to not disrupt dance practices.
Online version

"The Quadran's Purpose?" The Letter of Dance, no. 14 (1992): 16.
Justin du Coeur: A brief guess at how the Quadran Pavan might have been used in period.
Bonnet, Jacques. Histoire Generale De La Danse, Sacree Et Prophane. Bibliotheca Musica Bononiensis. Sezione III ; N. 82. Bologna: Forni, 1972.
xl, 269 p. ; 23 cm

Bonnet, Jacques and Pierre Bourdelot. Histoire Generale De La Danse Sacree Et Profane. Avec Un Supplement De L'histoire De La Musique Et Le Parallele De La Peinture Et De La Poesie. Paris: 1723; reprint, Geneve: Slatkine Reprints, 1969.
ii, xl, 274 p. 20 cm

Bowles, Edmund A. La Pratique Musicale Au Moyen Age [Musical Performance in the Late Middle Ages]. Translated by Claude Chauvel. Geneva (?): Minkoff & Lattès, 1983. ISBN: 2-8266-0811-8.
Dennis Sherman: One of Minkoff's Musical Iconography series, this is a collection of plates, many, perhaps most, in color. The focus of the book is the practice of music, but the musicians are playing for dancing in many of the plates, documenting a wide variety of instrumentation for dance music. The plates may also be of some use in interpreting dance steps.

Brainard, Ingrid G.

"Bassedance, Bassedanza, and Ballo in the Fifteenth Century." Dance History Research: 64.

Three Court Dances of the Early Renaissance. New York: Dance Notation Bureau Press, 1977.
ix, 23 p. : ill., music ; 28 cm

"The Role of the Dancing Master in Fifteenth Century Courtly Society." Fifteenth Century Studies 2 (1979): 21.

"Modes, Manners, Movement: The Interaction of Dance and Dress From the Late Middle Ages to the Renaissance." In Proceedings of the Sixth annual conference of the Society of Dance History Scholars, 17- 36. Milwaukee, WI: Dance History Scholars, 1983.

"Court Dances of the 15th Century." In Proceedings of the Sixth annual conference of the Society of Dance History Scholars, 177. Milwaukee, WI: Dance History Scholars, 1983.
Lizbeth Langston: Introduction to a performance.

"The Art of Courtly Dancing in Transition: Nurnberg, Germ. Nat. Mus. MS. 8842, a Hitherto Unknown German Source." In Crossroads of Medieval Civilization: The City of Regensburg and Its Intellectual Milieu, eds. Edelgard E. Dubruck and Karl Heinz Goller. Michigan : Michigan Consortium for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 1984.

"Translating Cornazano." Dance Chronicle 7, no. 1 (1984): 107-114.
Andrew Draskoy: A review of the Inglehearn and Forsyth translation, pointing out the shortcomings of the translation and providing most of the supplementary information necessary to work with the translation. Together with Mazzi and Marrocco provides enough information to work with Cornazano, although a facsimile of the entire original would be useful.

"Mesura Et Arte Del Danzare: The Guglielmo Ebreo Conference At Pesaro." Dance Chronicle 11, no. 1 (1988): 116-121.
Andrew Draskoy: A review of the conference and an associated exhibition catalogue

The Art of Courtly Dancing in the Early Renaissance. Privately printed, 1989.
Del (D.Elson): This book contains a study on the 15th century dances, considered one of the best. Available from the author.
Brissenden, Alan. "Shakespeare and the Dance"Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1981.
Andrew Draskoy: Gives all the references to dance in Shakespeare and discusses the role of dance in these and other plays of the period. Includes plates of iconography, esp. from England. Much of the analysis relating to specific dances is, in my opinion, debatable, but there is much useful background material here.

Brooks, Lynn Matluck.

The Dances of the Processions of Seville in Spain's Golden Age. Teatro Del Siglo De Oro. Estudios De Literatura., no. 4. Kassel, 1988.
vi, 411 p. : ill. ; 24 cm

"Cosmic Imagery in the Religious Dances of Seville's Golden Age." In Proceedings of the Fourteenth annual conference of the Society of Dance History Scholars, 82-94. Riverside: Dance History Scholars, 1991.
Busch, Carolann. "The Dances of Battistino : Five Italian Renaissance Duets From the Sixteenth Century." Master's Thesis (UCLA-1984), UCLA, 1984.
Abstract: Sixteenth century court dance has been preserved in Fabrito M. Caroso's Italian manual Il Ballarino (1581). Within the Caroso work, twelve dances are attributed to a Messer Battistino. Five of these dances, all duets, are the focus of this thesis. These dances were chosen as typical of Battistino's work and, to the author, the most interesting choreographies. The dances are: "Contentezza d'Amore," "Rustica Amorosa," "Lucretia Favorita," "Bassa Toscana," and "Barriera Balletto." This study documents the process of reconstructing these dances from an original dance manual, and some comparative remarks. In recreating these dances, Il Ballarino is the primary and only source used for the dance directions and music. The step descriptions and some stylistic remarks on execution and etiquette are found in the first section of the book. In realizing dances of any given era, it is important to follow those step rules and instructions found within the same manual as the dances themselves. Each of the dances described will be followed by a discussion of the text which will examine the various areas of interpretation. The dancer cue sheet, floor plan and lute transcription are provided as aids for further reconstructions of these works by other interested parties.

Annotated Bibliography of Renaissance Dance ||||| last updated: 3/21/96
© 1993, Dennis R. Sherman ||||| Web version changes/suggestions to Nathan Kronenfeld