A Renaissance dance and its derivates (workshop with Josef Berger)
WORKSHOP CANCELLED, perhaps next time…

In this workshop, you will learn a catchy dance tune from the 16th century, some variations from late-Renaissance lute sources, and some younger versions of this tune as it has developed through time. You will also learn how to dance it!

After having been first published in a French dance treatise of 1589, versions of this tune can be found in French and Italian lute manuscripts and there is also some evidence that this tune has reached Sweden: There is one version in the anonymous fiddler manuscript of Växjö (spelmanshandskrift Växjö). The dance is also listed together with other popular dances in a Swedish wedding poem from 1662.

There exist also several song versions of this tune in multiple languages, since this tune has been used for a number of songs throughout its history; even the Swedish poet Carl Michael Bellman has apparently used the melody for three of his songs. (I can provide various historical lyrics in Swedish, English, German, Dutch, and many in French; it wouldn’t surprise me if there exist even more lyrics in other languages somewhere on this planet…)

Versions of this tune have been popular throughout the centuries, and due to the folk revival of the 1970s, the tune has re-entered popular dance repertoire in the bal folk scene. You may thus use this dance tune in a folk setting or as just you like it.