Dancing was a favorite pastime in the Renaissance. Dancing was an elegent form of exercise and
an expected social skill for the noble. (Franko, 37) There were basically two types of social dances in the
Renaissance. The first type were simple dances that were performed by an unlimited
number of people. These dances were usually performed in cirles or lines. The second type were
more complex dances that required a dancing master and practice. These complex dances were usually
performed for an audience. The important part of the 16th century dance was the footwork. The bulky clothing of
the Renaisssance limited the upper body movement, both in men and women. Women wore corsets at this time, and
the men's clothing had tight lacing on the upper body.
The Renaissance produced three improtant dance masters who wrote a
treatises on dancing: Thoinot Arbeau, Cesare Negri, and Fabritio Caroso. All three wrote detailed
explanations of the different kinds of dances and how they were to be performed. All three treatises
describe similar dances and steps, which shows that the court dances throughout Europe at that time
were international.
Dancing in the Renaissance also brought about some new instrumental compositions
written primarily for dancing. The dance music of the Renaissance
was written for instruments such as the sackbutt, lute, viol, pipe and the tabor.Some of the music was still improvised, but a good portion of
the dance pieces were published in collections by Pierre Attaingnant.
The following pages examine some of the main aspects of Renaissance Dance.