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Chatham Baroque                                                                                                      

Five instrumentalists and Two Dancers:
Andrew Fouts, baroque violin, Patricia Halverson, viola da gamba, Scott Pauley, theorbo and baroque guitar, with guests Julie Andrijeski, baroque violin, Daniel Mallon, percussion and Baroque Dancers
Paige Whitley-Baugess & Thomas Baird

Chatham Baroque began performing Spanish and Latin American dance music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in 1996 after Scott Pauley had spent time in Spain and on an NEH fellowship at the University of Texas at Austin. Using original sources, such as guitar, keyboard, and harp music as a point of departure, all the members of Chatham Baroque have since been involved in creating new arrangements of this repertoire for the ensemble. With a good amount of musical knowledge but only a few descriptions of the dances at hand, the musicians of Chatham Baroque attempted to capture the character of the dances in musical arrangements, using instruments that would have been available at the time in Spain, the New World, and on the trade routes.

A collaboration in 2002 with historical dancers Paige Whitley-Baugess and Thomas Baird shed new light on Spanish baroque music and dance. Chatham Baroque’s arrangements were combined with newly-reconstructed dance choreographies, using historical descriptions and actual dance steps described in recently-discovered Spanish dance manuals. Unlike the surviving French choreographies, which describe in considerable detail the exact movements and steps of the dancers, the surviving Spanish descriptions of dance are less precise, and therefore open to more than one possible interpretation. To be sure, this collaboration between musicians and dancers has been a two way street. In seeing the dancers recreate the steps and choreographies, the musicians have been inspired to better play the music, and likewise, by hearing the music performed on original instruments, the dancers’ choreographies and movements have been enlivened.

Danzas y Bailes

There were two prevailing dance styles in Spain during the 17th and 18th centuries. Danzas were elegant, dignified dances of the nobility mainly Italianate in nature with few arm movements and very little bending of the knees. Bailes, on the other hand, were “wild” dances of the lower classes often accompanied by exuberant arm and foot gestures. Invented by so-called “agents of idleness” (musicians, poets, actors, and the like) and often accompanied by suggestive lyrics, these bailes were often described as lewd, lascivious and indecent. Not surprising in the land of the Inquisition, clergy and leading political figures frequently attempted to ban bailes…to no avail.

The overall style of Spanish dance from the 17th century seems to have more in common with the earlier Italian Renaissance style of dance than with the French Baroque style that fully emerged by the turn of the 18th century. Spain’s political relationships with these two countries—Spain’s dominance of much of Italy during the early 17th century and France’s subsequent influence over Spain into the following century—surely played a role in the development of Spanish taste. Yet the Spanish developed their own distinct dances and styles as can be seen in manuals and descriptions of their danzas and bailes. The dances performed in tonight’s program have been reconstructed from written descriptions found in a manuscript Libro de danzar by Juan Antonio Jaque, thought to be recorded during the last quarter of the 17th century. The style and steps are reconstructed from Discursos sobre el arte del dançado by Juan de Esquivel Navarro, published in Seville in 1642 (a draft of her translation was graciously shown to us by Lynn Matluck Brooks prior to its publication in 2003); and from Arte de danzar a la francesa by Pablo Minguet published several times from 1758 to1764.

Two sets of dances, with intervening musical interludes, beautifully illustrate the contrasting dance styles the Spaniards variably adopted, transformed, and disseminated throughout Europe. The first set blends Italian and Spanish styles in festive noble danzas. Later, Spanish bailes make their way into the theater in the Jácara featuring the characters Escarramán and La Méndez.

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