New Choreographic and Musical Handwritten Sources for the Study of Social Dance in Italy Between the End of the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries

Abstract

The study presents two unknown manuscript sources (the Contraddanze per la lezzione delle LL. AA. RR. l'Arciduchi and Per Le loro Eccellenze Corsini N.° 12 Contradanze by Pietro Nieri, c. 1775-90), which offers the opportunity to reconsider, also on the basis of known sources, the diffusion and the practice in Italy of the contraddanza and the taice, characterized by French, but also Austrian and German influences. The contraddanza is found in Italy in the two types, anglaise (countrydance longways) and française (en carré); the taice is a new dance introducing a new closer contact between dancers, until then typically popular. Both are signs of the development of “natural” and playful sensibilities, and of the new forms of sociality and relations between sexes.