BELL RINGER 10/8 I know that I (Mrs. B) had told you that we would

start presentations today, but I have OCTI training that I… honestly… forgot about until last Friday.

Mrs. James will take you through Dance and Drama for the Renaissance (last page of notes.)

We will start presentations TOMORROW! BE READY!!!! We have a lot to get through before Fall Break!

EARLY RENAISSANCE DANCE

DANCE Theatre dance

The visual and geometric characteristics of dance as we know it today are firmly rooted in the developments of the early Renaissance

Dance moved from social to theatrical

The Italians began to create patterns in body movements

Increasing concern for “rules” and conventionalized vocabulary

DANCE Concern for perfection, for individual

expression, dignity, and grace, created a vocabulary for dance steps and a choreography of dance patterns and designs

Courtly surroundings added refinement and restraint

The dancing master assumed greater importance and control

DANCE Dance became something to watch rather

than something to do

Important milestone: Guglielmo Ebreo of Pesaro wrote one of the first compilations of dance description and theory

As he tried to record this complex and visually oriented activity, he stressed memory as the most essential ingredients of the dancer’s art

DANCE Guglielmo’s work was a clear record of

formal dance

Dance was an art of grace and beauty

Made dance fully acceptable from an aesthetic standpoint – dance became an art form

RENAISSANCE PERFORMANCE DANCE

DANCE European indoor court entertainments

often took the form of “dinner ballets”

Involved interludes between meal courses

Characters corresponded to the dishes served in the meal Poseidon, god of the sea, would accompany

the fish course

DANCE Courtly dancing became more and

more professional

Skilled professionals performed on a raised stage hall, joined by members of the court

Dancing technique improved, and more complicated rhythms were introduced

DANCE – CATHERINE DE’ MEDICI Great Granddaughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent

Married to a Frenchman Captured to convince Pope Leo not to come back to Italy

Ignites Formal Ballet – Catherine de’ Medici More in the Baroque Period

Loved spectacle and presented lavish entertainments Some of which nearly bankrupted the French treasury

Le Ballet de Polonais (the “Polish Ballet”) Renaissance scenic devices overwhelmed the audience with fountains and

aquatic machines Over 10,000 spectators 3.5 million francs (A LOT!)

RENAISSANCE DRAMA

RENAISSANCE DRAMA Renaissance drama in Italy tended to not reflect the

discordant political cloak-and-dagger atmosphere of its surroundings

Italian playwrights chose mostly to write tender, sentimental, pastoral comedies, in a graceful, witty, and polished style

The drama was theatre of the aristocracy, produced with elaborate trappings and usually at court Sometimes in public squares under courtly sponsorship

RENAISSANCE DRAMA No permanent theatres existed at the

time

RENAISSANCE DRAMA Important development: painted scenery

The discovery of mechanical perspective found its way into the theatre in the sixteenth century

The visual effect of falsified perspective “tricks” is based on mechanical principles

From a point slightly upstage of the actual playing area, the scenery gets smaller and smaller to an imaginary vanishing point Induces a sense of great depth when, in reality, the set recedes

only a few feet

RENAISSANCE DRAMA

RENAISSANCE DRAMA The actors were restricted to a narrow playing

area adjacent to the full-size downstage wings

If the actors had moved upstage, they would have towered over the buildings

Stage settings became more and more elaborate, and a new “opening” usually brought an audience to see not a new play, but, rather, the new accomplishments of the set designer

RENAISSANCE DRAMA The most significant change in the theatre of

this era was a move to enclose the dramatic action within a “picture frame” or proscenium stage

The audience sat on only one side of the stage and watched the action through a rectangular or arched opening

“Picture frame stage”

RENAISSANCE DRAMA

COMMEDIA DELL-ARTE Developed parallel to the traditions of the regular

theatre, and enjoyed tremendous popular support

Featured the actor rather than the script

Identified by 4 characteristics: Improvisation Use of Stock Characters Use of mime and pantomime Traveled in companies

COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE Improvisation

Fully fledged productions had plots and subplots

However, dialogue was completely improvised within the plot outline or scenario

Mostly comic

Acting style appears to have been natural, though the actors needed good entrance and exit lines as well as repartee

COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE Whose Line is It Anyway Example

Improvisation

The scene: “The Millionaire Show as 1930s Gangsters”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJfnDo6ijbk

COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE Use of stock characters:

Young lovers, old fathers, injured soldiers, and comic servants

All wore stock costumes

Actors portraying these roles required great skill, physical dexterity, and timing, since a large part of the humor was visual

Actors also had to dance, sing, and perform acrobatics

Somersaulting without spilling a glass of wine brought down the house

COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE Whose Line Is It Anyway Example

Characters News Anchor Game Show Host Drill Sergeant (Surprise!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfwfXXCV9XE

COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE Use of mime and pantomime

All characters, except the lovers and the serving maid wore masks

Attitudes were communicated through gestures

COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE Whose Line is it Anyway Example

Pantomime

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx_oh6LM6zU

COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE Traveled in companies

Each member of the company played the same role over and over again – never changed parts

Practice was so pervasive that actors often lost their own identities

Many actors even changed their original names to those of the stage personages they portrayed

COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE 1550-1650ish, troupes of commedia actors

traveled throughout Europe

Their influence and popularity were tremendous, but commedia remained an Italian form, although its characters and situations found their way into the theatre of other nations

By the end of the 1600s, commedia dell’arte had disappeared (for now)

COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE Commedia dell’arte introduced women

into the theatre as equals

Women’s roles were as important as, and often more important than, those of men

Women, no longer boys, played the female parts