Renesansni i barokni plesovi: Rekonstrukcija i plesne radionice
Renaissance and Baroque Dances: Reconstruction and Dance Workshops

Summary/Abstract: The numerous dance manual publications dating from the Renaissance and Baroque eras testify to the exceptional importance of the art of dance during those eras. From as early as the 15th century, they noted the history of dance, conduct while dancing and the style and technique of dancing. They contained information on the performance of individual steps, their combinations and the structure of the complete choreographies, as well as instructions on exemplary behaviour on the dance podium and outside it. The representatives of the dance art were court dance masters, erudites of high reputation and dance theoreticians, who also wrote dance manuals. There are no known domestic dance manuals in existence from those eras that would have contained descriptions of dance structures, although there is no question that certain European Renaissance and Baroque dances were present in the Dubrovnik Republic region. By attending a series of dance workshops, which have been held for many years in Varazdin, Dubrovnik and Zagreb, largely those associated with the Aestas Musica international summer school of Baroque music and dance in Varazdin, along with my personal interest in the history of dance, I have been endeavouring to detect the traces and role they have left in Croatia today. After introductory examination of the phenomena of historical workshops and their reconstruction work, and a review of the historical backdrop and broader social context of the emergence and viability of historical dances, I shall try to analyse the role of the reconstruction of historical dances in the dance workshops.

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