Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg
Renaissance Dance and Rhetoric

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Blacksmith dance Lambranzi
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The relationship between rhetoric (rhetoric tacens: muette rhetoric) and dance involves two aspects of rhetoric. One aspect is how rhetoric in dance, as well as music, theatre design, architecture, art, etc., supported the state. How did rhetoric support the social stratification in Renaissance society: Royalty and noble aristocrats, guilds (see image above: blacksmiths were in guilds) and peasants? This aspect includes the ideology used by the aristocracy to set themselves apart from the rest of society: views expressed in Castiglione's book about courtier life and manners. This aristocratic behavior (the 'social code' found in 'courtesy books') was an integral part of dance. Some might even say that the ability to dance well defined an aristocrat, and 'dancing well' was displayed not only in dance, but in one's behavior while dancing. Dance was an integral aspect of courtier behavior: aristocratic "gestures". The social aspect of rhetoric is discussed in greater detail later.
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However, there is yet another major area in the rhetoric of dance, and that focuses upon how the principles of rhetoric were implemented in dance. What are these rhetorical "gestures" found in dance? How the views of Quintilian, Cicero, etc., were implemented in dance shall now be discussed.
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Rhetoric was viewed as an oration composed of basic components (as an aid to memory). A long oration had a beginning, middle, and end; or, to use the vocabulary of the Baroque, the components of an oration were the "proposition", the "intrigue", and the "denouement" (Bernard Lamy). However, rhetorical analysis further decomposed the parts of an oration. Thus the components of the "proposition" (beginning) are the "exordium" and the "narration". The "intrigue" was composed of the "confirmation" and the "confutation". The "denouement" (end) was summarized by a winding-up component called the "peroration". Thus elaborating and developing an oration, rhetorical figures could be used to enhance beauty (persuasion). Thus we finaly obtain the following structure of an oration: "Exordium", "narration", "confirmation", "confutation", and the "peroration".1
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We find Lully's menuet from Psyché, using the poetry of Corneille: "Is it not wise not to fall in love when one is young?" is identified as the "proposition", with repetition as "Is one wise?" as the "exordium". The music (and dance steps) match the repeated words. The "intrigue" ("proposition") being: "Is one wise not to love?" and "Let's hurry and enjoy today's pleasures." Repetition such as "unceasing hurry", while Lully's music is suited to quick leaps (the reader might suggest accompanying dance steps). The "denouement" is a strong cadence by Lully, to accompany Corneille's "Youth has the sense to enjoy love's charms." A bow, and nod of the head by dancers might be a very proper sign of agreement. Similarly, Lully's music and the associated choreography by Pécour for "La passacaille de Persée" has the same five-part rhetorical structure. 2

The rhetorical structure of dance.

Three parts: Proposition [1]; Intrigue [2]; Denouement [3]
Five parts: Proposition (exordium [1], narration [2]); Intrigue (confirmation [3], confutation [4]); Denouement (Peroration [5])

The intensity rises, peaks, then falls, with the peak taking place during the middle (intrigue).

The paper, "The passacaille in Lully's Armide" has also been examined and found to have the same five-part rhetorical structure of Lamy.3

Schwartz Table 1

A subclass of dances, called "imitative" dances because they imitated the repeated motions found in certain occupations, also had repetitions as a kind of rhetorical symmetry. Furthermore, the repeated motions acted as silent rhetorical gestures. Thus, dances of blacksmiths, boatmen, drunkards, fighting, people falling asleep, etc. 4

Each step in dance corresponded to a word, or an syllable. Thus, as with speech, each step/word could be viewed as a gesture, also taking part in the meter (of text, poetry, speech, music, and dance). Thus just as dance steps were supported by music, the dance, text, music, and poetry had a rhetorical aspect. For additional information, click here.

An analysis of the dancers' foot steps, in the paper "The passacaille in Lully's Armide", has also found a great deal of symmetry or repitition: another aspect of rhetoric.5, 6

Symmetric foot steps

Dances can use special sequences or componds of steps, which are similar to rhetorical "figures". These ornaments of dance function in a similar way to how ornaments are used in music, also similar to how ornaments are used in spoken or written works. A list of a few of these ornaments will be found of interest.7
  1. baloné sur le cou de pied
  2. caprioles
  3. caprioles battus
  4. chassé
  5. chassé de côté
  6. contratempi battuti
  7. demi-chassé
  8. demi-jeté
  9. forlanes (repeated phrases of 2 bars)
  10. gorgugliè
  11. les pied en l'air
  12. les jambes étendues (distese)
  13. les jambes repliées (ritirate)
  14. pas coupé
  15. pas de bourrée
  16. pas de courante
  17. pas de galliarde
  18. pas de menuet
  19. pas de rigaudon
  20. pas de sissone
  21. pas elevé
  22. pas plié
  23. pas ronde
  24. pas tombé
  25. pas tortillé
  26. plié après avoir marché
  27. petite ronde de jambe sauté
  28. pirouettes
  29. pirouettes en dehors
  30. poser la pointe du pied
  31. ronde de jambe
  32. sauté et retombé sur la lambe qui marche
  33. salto tondo sottoal corpo
  34. Tordichamp in aria salata
  35. Etc. (many more)

There is a further relationship between rhetoric and dance. Namely, dance "motion" also was understood as "emotion".8 Taking the view that syllable length is not synonymous with poetic scansion, rather that it means short and long syllables "of declamation" (as used in French oratory). Thus any syllable must be forced to be made long despite the inadequacies of musical notation. To be pointed: the "rhetorical" length of a syllable overrides the musical notes that correspond to it within a musical bar. Thus, during performance, the notes (and syllables) must forced to be the proper rhetorical length.

The shorter a French rhythmic unit, the more intense it is perceived (rhetorically). Short units are employed in exclamations and commands. Three-syllable units are perceived as balanced and calm. Units of four or more syllables are perceived as "fluid", or as being "hasty or emotional".9

During the exordium, the dance steps should be of balanced phrasing, motion 'equal and slow rhythm'. During the narration, increasingly longer units (syllables), shifting to three-syllable units, as the dance emotions heighten (even using quavers notes that are of short duration). Hand and torso movements become restricted, dance steps blur into glides (glissandi). During confirmation (proof), rhetorical figures (dance figures – ornaments, or compound steps, etc.) appear, mimes (hand gestures) appear, increasing appearance of quavers, accidentals (jetés, tombés), increasing right and left movements, momentary rests. During peroration, angry, spiteful, tender, and kind gestures along with rotation of torso, arm waving, rolling-eye gestures. 10 Lascivious gestures.11

A major change has now taken place in the relationship between dance and music in relation to classical views of performative rhetoric: rhetoric mutte, or rhetoric tacens. Gennaro Magri, the great dancer, criticized because of his participation in grotteschi (as opposed to serio) uses the phrase "the gesture leg"12. Classical rhetoricians such as Quintilian have emphasized "gesture" in rhetoric. Gestures such as use of hands, eyes, facial expressions. However, in dance, gestures are greatly expanded to the toe, the half-toe (demi-pointe) ball-of foot, foot, leg, arm, wrist, hand and fingers, torso, head, eyes, neck, shoulders. Magri refers to the hip joint (weight shifting of balance), exaggerated facial expressions (attitudini sforzate), etc. Thus "gestures" as now used greatly exceed the gestures of Quintilian.

We find " ... [Gasparo] Angiolini claimed danse pantomime ... as the most expressive [form of dance]...". 13 This very broadly opens up the entire area of gesture as rhetoric muette! Gesture may now be combined with acting, and dancers explicitly and consciously emphasize pantomime in dance in any way desired to express the appropriate emotions or attitudini, including clothing as well as cosmetics as a form of rhetoric muette. We should take note, however, that while examining dance patterns on the stage or theatre floor extends rhetoric muette to two-dimensional languages, pantomime includes three-dimensional gestures. Thus rhetoric muette is now extended to three dimensional linguistic analysis. However, there is more!

"... Magri and Weaver saw grotesque dancing as particularly expressive...", but Angiolini claimed "danse pantomime" based upon serious dancing as the most expressive. 14

Magri was attacked by the aristocrats. Aristocratic society favord the dance serio that emphasized heroic characters (aristocrats, of course), not the dance grotteschi (or Commedia dell'Arte).
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"Whoever is capable of being a serio gives everything of himself to that genre. The Grottesco will concentrate on his specialty and does not put on buskins. The mezzo carattere puts all his efforts there: the gavottine, the tempi brillanti are always his constant exercise; and thus they are all done to perfection." 15
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The use of the term "buskins" (chopines) is significant, as buskins are worn by aristrocrats in dance serio. Why is this significant? Now costume as an aspect of rhetoric tacens is highlighted, and also because rhetoric tacens is now explicitly embracing class distinctions.
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"That is, the seri should not be valued more highly than the grotteschi simply because the heroes played by the former enjoy higher social or aesthetic rank than the shepherds or artisans depicted by the latter." 15
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The political nature implied by dance grotteschi vs dance serio extends even further! The dance grotteschi also extends to regional (oltramontani), national, and international distinctions, as well as specific dance forms (carré) and occupations. Thus the appearance of conquered peoples including Moors (L'Union per la Peregrina Marherita Reale e Celeste, 1660), Incas, Persians, Ottomans, and Indians (Ballet de la Douairière de Billebahaute, 1626). Turquerie and Chinoiserie became common place in ballet and theatre. 16
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"Writing of the grotesque dancer, Weaver added, 'His Perfection is to become what he performs; to be capable of representing all manner of Passions, which Passions have all their peculiar Gestures; and that those Gestures be just, distinguishing and agreeable in all Parts, Body, Head, Arms and Legs." From grotesque dancing, Weaver derived scenical dancing, which he described as 'a faint Imitation of the Roman Pantomimes, and differs from the Grotesque, in that the last only represents Persons, Passions, and Manners; and the former explains whole Stories by Action,' thus adding a narrative to expressive dancing." 17 Thus Grotesque does passions with gestures, while pantomime includes both passions and actions. The gestures of action (dance) and gestures of pantomime are expressive enough to constitute a "narrative of gestures". 18
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Gestures capable of expressing a narrative of passions include such passions as anger, shame, indignation, threats, fear, reconcilitation, submission, foregiveness, astonishment, in the view of Ferrère, and are expressed along with Feuillet notation and music, with accompanying drawings of pantomime gestures (Figure 9.2). 19
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Thus "Music is essential to pantomimes; it is the music that speaks, we [dancers] only gesture...". 20
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An example is provided of two performers, performing simultaneously. While one does pantomime (doesn't dance), the other dances (doesn't do pantomime). Thus a simultaneous narrative of passions. 21
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Ferrère's dance floor patterns are at the same time, very imaginative. 22

1 "Dance Rhythms of the French Baroque: A Handbook for Performance", by Betty Bang Mather, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana, 1987, pp. 87-89
2 Ibid., pp. 119-125
3 "The passacaille in Lully's Armide: phrase structure in the choreography and the music", by Judith L. Schwartz, Early Music, vol. XXVI, No. 2, May 1998, 300-320, p. 302
4 "Dance, Spectacle, and the Body Politick, 1250-1750", Nevile, Jennifer (Ed.), Indiana Univ. Press, Bloomington, Indiana, 2008, p. 198.
5 Ibid., p. 308
6 "Audible rhetoric and mute rhetoric: the 17th-century French sarabande", Patricia Ranum, Early Music, vol. 14 (1), pp. 28-30
Ranum finds the same divisions of rhetoric apply to baroque dance (sarabande): Exordium, Narration, Confirmation, Confutation, and Peroration.
7 "Dance and Music of Court and Theater: Selected Writings of Wendy Hilton", Pendragon Press, Stuyvesant, New York, 1997
8 "Audible rhetoric and mute rhetoric: the 17th-century French sarabande", Patricia Ranum, Early Music, vol. 14 (1), p. 22, see footnote #2, p. 36.
9 Ibid., p. 27.
10 Ibid., pp. 28-30.
11 Ibid., p. 24: The view held at this time by Jesuits was expressed as follows: "The sarabande is a passionate dance that originated with the Moors of Grenada and that the Spanish Inquisition outlawed because it deemed it capable of arousing tender passions, captivating the heart with eyes, and disturbing the tranquility of the mind."
12 "The Grotesque Dancer on the Eighteenth-Century Stage: Gennaro Magri and His World", Harris-Warrick, Rebecca; Brown, Bruce Alan; (Eds.), Univ. Wisconsin Press, 2005, pp. 130-133
13 Ibid., p. 202
14 "Critica Musica", Knowles, John; (Ed.), Gordon and Breach, 1996, "The Speaking Body: Gaspero Angiolini's Rhétorique Muette and the Ballet d'Action in the Eighteenth Century", pp. 15-56, and "The Grotesque Dancer on the Eighteenth-Century Stage: Gennaro Magri and His World", Harris-Warrick, Rebecca; Brown, Bruce Alan; (Eds.), Univ. Wisconsin Press, 2005, p. 202
15 "The Grotesque Dancer on the Eighteenth-Century Stage: Gennaro Magri and His World", Harris-Warrick, Rebecca; Brown, Bruce Alan; (Eds.), Univ. Wisconsin Press, 2005, p. 163
16 Ibid., p. 168
17 Ibid., p. 212
18 Ibid., p. 214, 216
19 Ibid., pp. 221-224, and p. 237 (figure)
20 Ibid., footnote #36, p. 261
21 Ibid., Table 9.4, p. 262
22 Ibid., Figure 9.4 a. (colimaçon, or snail), p. 275

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