Tracing the legacies of medieval dance: Historical, critical, and artistic approaches

As I began to write this introduction to ‘Legacies of Medieval Dance’ in the fall of 2022, renowned ballet choreographer Alexei Ratmansky had just staged a new production of the nineteenth-century ballet Giselle (Harss 2022).¹ The entire cast was comprised of Ukrainian refugees. Ratmansky was born in St. Petersburg and lived in Ukraine for several years as a principal dancer of the Ukrainian National Ballet. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2022, Ratmansky was in Moscow working on a new production with the Bolshoi Ballet. He left immediately, as much of his and his wife’s family reside in Kyiv (Harss 2022). Since then, he has been an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin’s regime.

Ratmansky had a specific reason for staging Giselle with Ukrainian dancers. Unlike many other full-length ballets in the Western canon, it has no relationship with imperial or Soviet Russia, Russian composers, or Russian choreographers. (Incidentally, Giselle, which first premiered in Paris in 1841, takes place in the Rhineland during the medieval period). This performance was close to Ratmansky’s heart, as Kyiv had become especially vulnerable and dangerous since Russia’s invasion. As Ratmansky commented, ‘art is a mirror of reality… it can help people live through difficult times and heal wounds’ (cited in Jessop 2022).

The Ukrainian Giselle was extraordinary in many ways, as it demonstrated how dance could empower marginalized and oppressed communities. This production did not equate Western classical dance with ‘highbrow’ aesthetics, technical mastery, or elite entertainment. Rather, Ratmansky’s Giselle exemplified how, in the era of war, dancing bodies could collectively generate hope, resilience, and solidarity. Some sixty Ukrainian dancers from this production recently formed The United Ukrainian Ballet and are currently based in The Hague. In February 2023, they performed Giselle at the Kennedy Center (Blair 2023). In June 2023, the company brought the production to Costa Mesa, California, which I had the pleasure of witnessing.

Broadly construed, the concept of solidarity that Ratmansky and the refugee dancers embody resonates with recent interventions in medieval studies. Literary scholar Seeta Chaganti suggests that a commitment to solidarity can transform medieval studies into a collaborative, liberatory project. As she writes, ‘[scholars are] participating in coalitional networks… to achieve goals of justice and liberation beyond the field’ (2022, 123).² Moreover, in her contribution to this special issue, Chaganti identifies parallels between premodern dance and contemporary activism, thereby articulating the potential stakes of premodern dance studies. In this sense, the study of premodern dance not only enriches medieval studies; it can help us comprehend and strategize our contemporary moment in remarkable ways.

Despite the profound value of dance for academia and beyond, historically, it has been the least theorized of the arts. In her book Legacies of Twentieth-Century Dance, dance historian Lynn Garafola writes:

A deep current of anti-intellectualism runs throughout the dance world, a mistrust of scholarly analysis, of probing beyond the evident, of questioning the truthfulness of received wisdom. (2005, viii)

According to Garafola, dancers and dance critics have tried to protect their art from over-theorization. But scholars—and particularly those who have been shaped by occidental, post-Enlightenment frameworks—have also resisted applying their critical methods to dance. Perhaps because of its inherent physicality and ephemerality, dance can be easily dismissed as the least cerebral of the arts. When Garafola published her book in 2005, her words were especially relevant to the dearth of medieval dance scholarship. Although select studies on medieval dance began to emerge in the 1980s and 1990s, they were typically broad compilations of texts and images with little critical inquiry or analytical rigor. Dance was, therefore, far behind other concurrent intellectual developments that had enlivened art-historical, literary, and performance studies.

A breakthrough occurred in 2000 when historian Alessandro Arcangeli published his monograph entitled Davide o Salomè? Il Dibattito Europeo sulla Danza nella Prima Età Moderna (David or Salome? The European Debate on Dance in the Early Modern Era). Here Arcangeli marshalled an abundance of unpublished texts concerning dance from medieval and early modern Europe. Perhaps more importantly, he focused on the processes of debate and negotiation that determined whether dance constituted a sacrilegious or acceptable act. Thus, Arcangeli convincingly portrayed premodern dance as a complex phenomenon that is worthy of serious scholarly study (2005).

Following Arcangeli, several important studies on medieval dance appeared in the 2010s. Art historian Elina Gertsman demonstrated the polysemous nature of late medieval dance imagery. Specifically, Gertsman examined the danse macabre or ‘Dance of Death’ iconographic tradition, in which visual and literary representations of dance came to signify acts of dying in a post-plague society (2010; see also Chaganti 2012 and Buttà 2014). Nicoletta Isar produced the first book-length study on Byzantine dance (2011). Historian Gregor Rohmann investigated the philosophical and spiritual underpinnings of choreomania (dance mania), the phenomenon of involuntary, incessant movements that afflicted countless medieval subjects (2013). Seeta Chaganti emerged as the first scholar to expose medieval dance to critical theory (2018). Most recently, medievalists, including myself, Philip Knäble, Laura Hellsten, and Lynneth Miller Renberg, have highlighted the complex relationship between medieval dance and religion (Dickason 2021; Knäble 2016; Hellsten 2021; Renberg 2022; see also Renberg and Phillis 2021).

To a perhaps even greater degree than music, drama, or the visual arts, medieval dance is difficult to resurrect and define, which in turn makes it difficult to study. Medievalists researching dance have a very different source base from their modernist counterparts. Dance notation, or the system of graphic symbols and notes that record choreography, did not exist in Europe until the fifteenth century.³ In this way, the problem of ‘intrinsic absence,’ something inherent to the aftermath of any live performance, is magnified in premodern materials (Franko and Richards 2000, 1). The various terms that performance studies and dance studies have ascribed to dance—ephemeral, evanescent, vanishing, disappearing—imply an irretrievable loss, and may ultimately work to support the anti-intellectual and apolitical approaches to dance history that Garafola criticized. Confronting the challenge of pastness, the historian becomes, as Mark Franko and Annette Richards articulate, a ‘prosthesis’ for past performance by engaging archival and theoretical methods (2000, 1). For Franko, a sophisticated methodology that acknowledges and wrestles with the complexities of ephemerality—most notably the Derridean concept of the trace—can advance dance studies (1995, 206).⁴

This new valorisation of ephemerality has prompted scholars and artists to rethink the modern practice of choreography. According to dance studies scholar André Lepecki, from the sixteenth century onwards, choreographic regimes diminished dancers’ sense of empowerment and expressive agency: ‘dance, once it falls prey to a powerful apparatus of capture called “choreography,” loses many of its possibilities of becoming. Which is to say that dance loses its powers (pouissance) as it is submitted to the power (pouvoir) of the choreographic’ (2007, 122). If we juxtapose Lepecki’s statement with dance in premodernity, the layers of nuance, meaning, and subversion that medieval dance evoked are cast in relief. As I have written elsewhere:

Dance in the Middle Ages was an all-encompassing activity that spanned the full spectrum of human experience. It could be a physical, outward display of one’s love and reverence for God and the saints… With the mystics, dance could be a private, imagined, or invisible sensation of approaching divinity. Through this kind of dancing, religious practitioners came to know God. Placed within a religious context, interiorized and privatized dancing subverts the modern conception that dance is an inherently visual art form performed before spectators on the proscenium stage. Medieval representations of dance in heaven, with the circulation of cosmic and angelic bodies, extended dancing into the context of nonhuman entities. Poetry and rhetoric relied on dance metaphors to express the inexpressible. In a secular setting, dance also served different functions. As a ritual of courtship, it offered a means of socialization between the sexes. As a leisurely pastime that required regular training, it exhibited and naturalized class difference. Appearing across secular and sacred spheres, medieval dance helped shape religious identity, social stratification, and human intention. (Dickason 2021, 4)

The penetration of dance into nearly all aspects of medieval society and culture warrants more scholarly attention. Some of the most hallowed religious authorities, including Augustine of Hippo, Bernard of Clairvaux, Bonaventure, and Mechthild von Magdeburg, discoursed on dance. Given the various contexts and sources in which dance appears, it can offer rich contributions to the historical study of art and architecture, literature, music, and drama. Emerging scholarship, particularly that of Lev Kapitaikin, broadens our perspective by showcasing the sophisticated and heterogenous history of medieval dance in Middle Eastern and Islamic contexts (Kapitaikin forthcoming).⁵

This special issue of postmedieval, ‘Legacies of Medieval Dance,’ informs medieval dance scholarship with interdisciplinary frameworks. The authors engage a variety of historical, critical, and artistic approaches, including critical race theory, (post)colonial studies, game theory, queer studies, reception studies, auto-ethnography, and choreographic reenactment.⁶ Several contributions not only interrogate the significance of dance in the Middle Ages, but also contemplate the lasting traces of medieval dance history within cross-cultural encounters, modern novels, ballet, and beyond. The collection also works to decentre Western Europe, revealing the racialized and colonial legacies of medieval dance. Indeed, rather than focusing exclusively on Western Europe and Christianity, certain authors examine premodern dance within Byzantium, Iberia, the Middle East, the Americas, the African diaspora, Islam, Judaism, and Native American religions. This is also a particularly interdisciplinary collection of articles. Together, this international group of contributors represents the fields of religious studies, theology, art history, history, literature, musicology, performance studies, and dance studies. We trust that ‘Legacies of Medieval Dance’ will be of interest not only to medievalists but to non-specialists who are drawn to the transformative power of dance.

The first two articles in this collection revolve around issues of power, politics, and resistance. These authors reveal the stakes of premodern dance in the Middle Ages and today. Seeta Chaganti’s contribution imbues medieval dance studies with a sense of urgency and provocation. She juxtaposes the study of premodern dance with the enactment of abolition (as opposed to reform), and in particular the dismantling of racist institutions and carceral structures. In this way, medieval dance emblematizes an inherent revolt against the status quo. Tamara McCarty’s contribution turns to issues of hegemony and the law in the context of medieval and early modern Jewish dance. Jewish dance, McCarty argues, constituted a site of legislative control and played a crucial role in shaping Jewish-Christian relations. In premodern Germany, Jewish dance provoked antisemitic responses, yet, as McCarty suggests, its roots in the Hebrew Bible imbued Jewish dance with stories of survival and resilience.

The following two contributions generate new perspectives on choreographing the sacred.⁷ While medievalists may not be able to reconstruct the precise movements enacted in religious rituals, clues to the sacred significance of dance are embedded in the visual arts and theological texts. Bissera Pentcheva illuminates the representation and codification of Christian dance in sculpture, reliquaries, manuscript illustrations, and chant. In these artefacts, she uncovers traces of the ‘chiastic step,’ i.e., a dynamic symbol of inspiriting, which marks the descension of the Holy Spirit into the dancer’s body. Laura Hellsten employs key insights from theology to comprehend the contemplative impetus of late antique and medieval Christian dance. In an era that preceded epidermal (i.e., colour-based) racism, she also analyses the implementation of emerging theories of race in premodern Christian theological discourses. Here Hellsten offers musings on the relationship between movement and ‘divine darkness.’

The subsequent cluster of articles reconceives the connection between medieval dance, music, and lyric. Traditional scholarship often reduces this relationship to a simplistic symbiosis. Musicologist Mary Caldwell, however, investigates the more obscure phenomenon of dancing in silence. Her case studies of medieval choreomania (dance mania) and mystical dance demonstrate a more complex partnership between sound and movement, which opens up new avenues of sensory experience. Caldwell also connects medieval performance to experiments in contemporary dance. Turning to musical elements, refrains, and strophic structure in medieval Iberian/Andalusí lyric, K. Meira Goldberg reflects on the possible traces of premodern performance within the practice of flamenco. In doing so, she proffers an innovative perspective on the Islamicate texture of postmedieval dance. Nicoletta Isar’s offering takes us to twentieth-century Paris, where the premiere of Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), a ballet choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky and composed by Igor Stravinsky, caused a riot. While many of Le Sacre’s musical and choreographic elements are decidedly modern, Isar unveils their deep connection to religious concepts, rhythmic structures, and symbolic gestures in premodern drama and dance rituals, particularly those of ancient Greece and Byzantium.

In addition to its sacral and ritualistic connotations, medieval dance was aligned with secular forms of recreation, pastime, and leisure. Studying dance in the Middle Ages alongside notions of play and games can yield exciting insights, as the following two articles show. Invoking contemporary game theory, Clinton Morrison, Jr. analyses motifs of play, games, and secular dances in Middle English literature. He underscores how ludic elements in medieval texts help shape literary narratives and complicate human relationships. My own contribution compares medieval toys (especially Christ dolls) to the Nutcracker doll from The Nutcracker ballet (1892). Juxtaposing medieval play and a postmedieval dance production, I recast this beloved ballet as a remnant of nineteenth-century medievalism.

The subsequent two contributions reorient the exploration of dance and medievalism from the perspectives of gender and sexuality. Lynneth Miller Renberg examines how medieval dance—and especially its feminization—influenced Baptist British missionaries in nineteenth-century Jamaica. As she argues, in this part of the African diaspora, medieval theologies of lay dance became intertwined with gender, conversion, colonization, and race. James Miller also looks to the modern period and its re-imaginings of medieval dance. His comparative study of Christopher Isherwood’s writings and Dante’s Commedia highlights the queer postmedieval reception of medieval dance, as well as its associations with the aesthetic of camp, the atomic bomb, and the death of God.

The next two articles resituate premodern dance studies within the context of colonization in the Americas. VK Preston explores the relationship between dance and colonization in present-day Canada. As the author argues, the kleptocene (i.e., the notion that Western civilization was founded upon the plundering of land and resources) was already well established in the Middle Ages, and hence colonial endeavours are an enduring feature of Western undertakings. Preston’s central argument is that dance writing in the colonial Americas constituted a kinesthetic colonial archive (and, in this sense, has much in common with medieval travel literature). Lindsey Drury turns to the American Southwest to assess the Matachines (an Indigenous dance form) and its alleged medieval origins. A key figure for Drury is the German art historian Aby Warburg, who reportedly observed these dances. Her excavation highlights the fraught relationship between dance, indigeneity, colonialism, and the making of art history.

The final two contributions offer creative approaches to the contemporary practice of medieval dance. Rebecca Straple-Sovers writes from the perspective of an artist-scholar, combining medieval studies with an auto-ethnographic approach to dance-making. She details her choreographic process behind a recent modern dance performance in which she and her collaborators reimagined the spirituality of Hildegard von Bingen. The last article is a transcribed interview with Charlotte Ewart, a specialist in medieval and Renaissance choreography and dance performance. Ewart discusses her passion for medieval European dance and makes important distinctions between reconstruction, reenactment, and reimagining. Her artistic work demonstrates how dance performance heightens our awareness of the complexities of medieval society and culture.

By underscoring the slippage between past and present, these contributions complicate the sharp divide between ‘the archive’ and ‘the repertoire.’ Performance studies scholar Diana Taylor (2003) distinguishes between the perdurant nature of the archive (texts, buildings, bones) and the ephemeral nature of the repertoire (embodied practice and experiential knowledge in the form of spoken word, dance, ritual, etc.). As she explains, historical performances are testaments to the past, yet they do not record the past in the same way that written sources do (Taylor 2003, 19–22). Unlike archival documents, the repertoire is a corporeal, multi-generational repository of actions that exists independently of recorded material. Taylor studies repertoire from the perspective of Indigenous Americans’ reactions to European colonization. Indigenous performance crafts cultural memory and identity and passes down histories of trauma and resistance through the generations.

Although Taylor’s study is situated within the postcolonial Americas, her findings are relevant to the Middle Ages, and especially to premodern dance. Medieval dance constitutes an embodied practice that gave form to the premodern imaginary and communicated repositories of cultural memory (see the contributions of Goldberg, Pentcheva, Caldwell, Morrison, Renberg). Moreover, since dancing in the Middle Ages often provoked controversy, there is copious evidence that it could signify acts of subversion and resistance (see the contributions of Chaganti, McCarty, Hellsten). The transhistorical and transcultural afterlives of medieval dance reveal its attractive and disturbing sides. Indeed, modern appropriations of medieval dance are inextricably linked to childhood innocence, sacrifice, self-transcendence, colonial experiments, and even lethal weapons (see the contributions of Dickason, Isar, Straple-Sovers, Ewart, Preston, Drury, Miller). As both archaic archive and enduring legacy, medieval dance continues to haunt us in enchanting and unsettling ways by transmitting knowledge, conflicts, and values through the ages.