The first known recorded dance choreographies appeared in Italy in the mid-15th century, dances composed by Domenico da Piacenza and Guglielmo Ebreo for performance by the aristocracy. These choreographers wanted to create a form of dance that had principles and rules for dancing, based on an aesthetic, philosophical and scientific foundation, these being the requirements for a liberal art. I shall be discussing two of these principles: firstly body shading, now known as ombreggiare, and secondly fantasmata, which “necessitates that at each tempo, one appears to have seen Medusa’s head…and be of stone…”
My belief is that the oppositional style of body shading used by most performers of 15th century dance in Europe today was not what was described by the 15th century choreographers. Instead, a sidewards movement, descended from the classical contrapposto posture, is what was intended. This is a movement style that may seem foreign to people today, yet it is amply illustrated in the iconography of the period.
Fantasmata, on the other hand, with its notion of suspension followed by momentum, describes a kind of punctuation and phrasing of dance steps that should be a feature of dance style of any period.
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Barbara Segal is a performer, teacher and historian of dance from the 15th-19th century. She is director of Chalemie, a group specialising in early dance and music theatre. She has performed and taught throughout Europe, the Baltic States, Russia, the USA and Australia. She has toured for the Early Music Network and the British Council, and she has taught historical dance at the Royal Academy of Dance for their BA (Hons) degree in Ballet Education. She organises and teaches at the Chalemie Summer School each year, and she taught and performed for fourteen years at the Cracovia Court Dance Festival in Poland. Currently she is organiser of the Early Dance Circle Biennial Conferences and has edited the Proceedings for the past twelve years. Barbara gives lectures on early dance and allied topics for both academic institutions and other interested groups, and she has trained singers in baroque gesture. In 2018 the Early Dance Circle presented Barbara with the Peggy Dixon Award for Outstanding Services to Early Dance. She holds a PhD from London University.