Dancers, Dancing Masters, and Spectators: John Weaver's Pantomime and the Codification of Dance
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2014
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Haverford College. Department of History
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Thesis
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eng
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Dark Archive until 2020-12-20, afterwards Haverford users only.
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Abstract
John Weaver, an early-eighteenth century dancing master, sought to professionalize dance and raise its status by severing its dependence on words. He published scholarly texts on pantomimic dance, a style of dance with no spoken word, and worked to elevated dance to a respected art. Weaver's contributions to dance developed ballet into its own art form in the late eighteenth century in London. Dance was freed from dependence on spoken words, written text and theatrical effects. It became an independent, professional and respectable art form. The dancing master, position of a dancer and spectator was reshaped from a leisurely activity into a professionalized art. The dancing master acquired and applied a knowledge of the human body and its movements to educate his dancers. For the professional dancer, one received training and education from a reputable dancing master. Weaver's pantomimic choreography, alongside these treatises, distinguished the amateur, who performed in court dancing, from the professional dancer, one who was a paid member of a theater company. This separation gave the audience a new role as critics of the performance. In my thesis I use John Weaver's scholarly texts, An Essay Towards An History of Dancing, Anatomical and Mechanical Lectures and The Loves of Mars and Venus; A Dramatick entertainment of Dancing, Attempted in Imitation of the Pantomimes of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, to argue that Weaver sought to professionalize dance in the early eighteenth century in London.