4/7/2026 - Week 13 / Meeting 23: Baroque & Rococo / Minuet & Contradanza

 

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Unit: Baroque & Rococo

Theme: Minuet & Contradanza

Introduction

The Baroque is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. Rococo, less commonly Roccoco, also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding. In dance, the spirit of Rococo is present in its depiction of the curving lines of the hoop-supported skirts, the delicate lace and flower.

 

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Learning Objectives

•  Understand the main characteristics of the Baroque
• Explain relationship between the Baroque, Rococo  and the Renaissance
  
•  Gain an awareness of the pre-clasic aspect of these dances
• Experience dancing the contradanza 
  

 

 III

Main Lesson

 

1

 The Baroque

General Notes

The Baroque is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1740s.

In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including the Iberian Peninsula it continued, together with new styles, until the first decade of the 19th century. 

It followed Renaissance art and Mannerism and preceded the Rococo (in the past often referred to as "late Baroque") and Neoclassical styles. 

It was encouraged by the Catholic Church as a means to counter the simplicity and austerity of Protestant architecture, art, and music, though Lutheran Baroque art developed in parts of Europe as well (Heal 2011).

 

The Baroque style used contrast, movement, exuberant detail, deep colour, grandeur, and surprise to achieve a sense of awe. 

The style began at the start of the 17th century in Rome, then spread rapidly to France, northern Italy, Spain, and Portugal, then to Austria, southern Germany, and Russia. 

By the 1730s, it had evolved into an even more flamboyant style, called rocaille or Rococo, which appeared in France and Central Europe until the mid to late 18th century.

 This flamboyant style also influenced the way the upper class dressed.

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The pockets / min 3:10

In the decorative arts, the style employs plentiful and intricate ornamentation. 

The departure from Renaissance classicism has its own ways in each country. But a general feature is that everywhere the starting point is the ornamental elements introduced by the Renaissance. 

The classical repertoire is crowded, dense, overlapping, loaded, in order to provoke shock effects. 

 Video on Baroque Dance

 

 Sources: 

Heal, Bridget (1 December 2011). "'Better Papist than Calvinist': Art and Identity in Later Lutheran Germany". German History. German History Society. 29 (4): 584–609.

 

 Question 1

Which would you say is the main characteristic of the Baroque?

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 Difference between Baroque and Renaissance Dance

Pag. 10 & 11

 

 Question 2

What is the differnece between Baroque and Renaissance Dances?

Question 3

Why would you considered Renaissance and Baroque pre-classic dances?

 

 

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 5

Rococo

General Notes

Rococo, less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colors, sculpted molding, and trompe-l'œil frescoes to create surprise and the illusion of motion and drama.

 

Under Kings Louis XIV and Louis XV, France led western Europe into the age of the Rococo in the arts. 

 

The Rococo began as a movement toward simplicity and naturalness, a reaction against the stilted mannerisms and preciousness to which the earlier Baroque art was considered to have degenerated. 

 

It was a great age of and for dancing, with the minuet the symbol of its emphasis on civilized movement. 

 

This formal dance, the perfect execution of which was almost a science in itself, reflected the Rococo idea of naturalness. 

 

The statement that “the dance has now come to the highest point of its perfection” by the composer Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764) suggested how conscious the French were of the great strides dance had made. 

 

That this was particularly the case in France was confirmed by the English poet and essayist Soame Jenyns (1704–87) in his lines “None will sure presume to rival France, / Whether she forms or executes the dance.” None, however, excelled the estimation of his profession by the dancing master in Molière’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1670).

 

  Question 4

What is the relationship between Baroque and Rococo?

Source: 

https://www.britannica.com/art/Western-dance/During-the-17th-18th-and-19th-centuries

 

 Examples / Aristocracy

 

Pride and Prejudice / Dance scene

https://youtu.be/z9SXvUdM_iw?si=qXdsdroNvZ9q6P7E

Sense and Sensibility

https://youtu.be/Q1wh6khS71k?si=9KT69z3BcglCnMDy

Age of Innocence

https://youtu.be/I3Mx8OSlNYM?si=ZZ5CKkSdIntcJnWt

 

8:40 - 15:07

 

Emma

https://youtu.be/x-nLGCkpPWQ?si=XNtXfXxC6dUJs9Ld

Examples / Peasantry

55:26

IV

A Note to Remember

 

 Baroque dance is the conventional name given to the style of dancing that had its origins during the seventeenth century and dominated the eighteenth century until the French Revolution. Louis XIV was a major influence in its development and promotion.

 

 

V

 Case Studies

 

 

 1

 

Contradanza

General Notes 

 

Contradanza is the Spanish and Spanish-American version of the contradanse, which was an internationally popular style of music and dance in the 18th century, derived from the English country dance and adopted at the court of France.

 

In Cuba during the 19th century, it became an important genre, the first written music to be rhythmically based on an African rhythm pattern and the first Cuban dance to gain international popularity, the progenitor of danzón, mambo and cha-cha-cha, with a characteristic "habanera rhythm" and sung lyrics.

 

Outside Cuba, the Cuban contradanza became known as the habanera – the dance of Havana – and that name was adopted in Cuba itself subsequent to its international popularity in the later 19th century, though it was never so called by the people who created it

 

The most conventional consensus in regard to the origin of this popular Cuban genre was established by novelist Alejo Carpentier, in his book from 1946, La Música en Cuba. In the book, he proposes a theory that signals the French contredance, supposedly introduced in Cuba by French immigrants fleeing the Haitian Revolution (1791–1803), as the prototype for the creation of the creolized Cuban Contradanza.

 

However, according to other important Cuban musicologists, such as Zoila Lapique and Natalio Galan, it is quite likely that the Contradanza had been introduced to Havana directly from Spain, France or England several decades earlier.

 

Bizet included a habanera in his opera Carmen, derived from Yradier's "El Arreglito".

 

 

 

 

 Cecilia Valdes

The movie

 https://youtu.be/zc_c5eV4hXM?si=TdUmGePQYYQybNZk

 8:12 

Nancy Morejon's poem "Black Woman"

https://youtu.be/u6fsKGGwZLg?si=ehOl1UuW0xIeWHRv

 

 

Question 5

 

What is Carpentier's theory about the origin of cantradanza?

 

 Question 6

What was the function of dance in the society of this historic period? 

 

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Tumba Francesa

General Notes

 

Tumba francesa is a secular Afro-Cuban genre of dance, song, and drumming that emerged in Oriente, Cuba. It was introduced by slaves from the French colony of Saint-Domingue whose owners resettled in Cuba's eastern regions following the slave rebellion during the 1790s.

 

 The genre flourished in the late 19th century with the establishment of sociedades de tumba francesa (tumba francesa societies), of which only three survive. 

 

Tumbas francesas can be traced back to the late 18th century when the Haitian Revolution triggered the migration of French colonists from Saint-Domingue, bringing their slaves to the Oriente Province of Cuba. 

 

By the late 19th century, following the abolition of slavery in 1886, tumba francesa societies became established in this region, especially in Santiago de Cuba and Guantánamo. 

 

Their establishment was in many ways similar to the old African cabildos. Performers identify tumba francesa as French-Haitian, acknowledging it as a product of Haiti which now resides in Cuba. 

 

By the second half of the 20th century, tumbas francesas were still performed in eastern Cuba, especially the toque masón. Other toques however are only played in the context cultural associations. 

 

Three tumba francesa societies survive at the moment: La Caridad de Oriente (originally La Fayette) in Santiago de Cuba; Bejuco in Sagua de Tánamo, Holguín; and Santa Catalina de Riccis (originally La Pompadour) in Guantánamo.

 

 

 

Question 7

What is the most important aspect of tumba francesa? Explain

 

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Activity

Students learn the steps of the contradanza.

 

 

VII 

 

Glossary

 

 

VIII

 

Journaling

 

 

IX

 

Sources

 

 Heal, Bridget (1 December 2011). "'Better Papist than Calvinist': Art and Identity in Later Lutheran Germany". German History. German History Society. 29 (4): 584–609.

 

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Students' Work