Title: For the furthur improvement of dancing, A treatis of chorography or ye art of dancing country dances after a new character
Description: This is a translation of Raoul-Auger Feuillet's treatise Recueil de contredances mises ... (Paris, 1706), by English dance, dancing master, and writer John Essex. Through the use of diagrams, the manual gives descriptions of floor patterns and motions for the feet and arms, indicates how the dance corresponds to the music, and provides rules for performance of English country dances, known in France as the contredanse (also spelled contredance). Diagrams and music for ten dances are given. Performed as a series of figures by a column of men facing a column of women, the English country dance was one of the most popular ballroom dances during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Subjects: Country-dance, Country-dances, Dance Instruction and Technical Manuals, Dance notation, Early works to 1800, Handbooks, manuals, Music for Dance, Notation for Dance, Country-dances (Music), Country dancing
Time periods: 17th century