We tend to think of “baroque dance” as a product of the early 18th century, since the main sources of information date from that period. This is true both of the treatises and of the individual dances, However, English music books from before 1700 reveal a flourishing “French Dancing” scene in England. In particular, John Playford’s book Apollo’s Banquet contained “the tunes of the most usual and newest French-Dances used at court and in Dancing-Schools”. Many of these tunes consist of two or more connected sections in different metres, indicating a specific composed dance rather than a generic dance form. Such dances are lost to us, for want of an accepted notation system at the time. Some privately recorded examples will be heard during this presentation.
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Ian Cutts, violinist and dancer, has made several recordings for the Historical Dance Society, notably a recording of all English ball dances surviving in notation 1700-1740.