(For those reading this after its original posting date: this was posted on APRIL FOOL'S DAY. You may thereby deduce that it is an extended joke, not serious dance history!)
I always say I'm not really an eighteenth-century person, meaning that as a dance historian, I don't do a lot of research and reconstruction of eighteenth century dance forms. Well...except for French contredanses (cotillions in England and America)...and late eighteenth century country dances...and sometimes early eighteenth century country dances...and maybe a bit of allemande...
Ahem.
I do, however, pay attention to interesting material that I come across, even if it's not quite in my area of interest. And recently, in the course of my research, I came across a remarkable source that not only makes me completely rethink several style points for this period of dance but also reveals a heretofore unsuspected roots of more recent social dances.
Classical music fans (and quite a lot of casual listeners) will of course be familiar with the "Alla turca" third movement of Piano Sonata No. 11 (1784) by the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), shown at left. The movement is also known as the "Rondo alla Turca", "Turkish Rondo", or "Turkish March". You can listen to it here.
In a truly astonishing research twist, I have discovered that, as was quite common for eighteenth century dance tunes (many of which were rooted in popular songs), the piece had lyrics. And, remarkably, there is surviving video of the song and dance performed together by Mozart himself!
Cutting straight to the exciting part: see the video below of Mozart singing the traditional lyrics and performing the dance with two as-yet-unidentified companions:
In the absence of any specific name for this dance, I will simple refer to it in typical modern style as "Rondo alla Turca", with the caveat that, as with many historical dances, that is the name of the tune but not necessarily the dance; conflating the two is modern practice that does not work for every period of history or type of dance. (See here and here for some of my many discussions of this topic...)
Scholars of eighteenth-century dance will of course be able to perform a more detailed and knowledgeable analysis of the steps, here are few notes on some elements of the performance and dance:
- the overall lack of turnout of the feet; this is particularly painful in the pas de bourée ("one small grapevine") early on in the dance
- the very casual performance of what I would classify these as demi-coupé steps to the left and right (both slowly and more quickly) at the beginning
- the style of the single or double assemblé steps, somewhat misleadingly termed "hop"; this may be a German-English translation problem, as with John Essex's arguable reference to them as "a small Jump upon both feet" in his For the further improvement of dancing : A treatise of chorography, or the art of dancing country dances after a new character... (1710), an English translation of Raoul-Auger Feuillet’s 1706 treatise Recüeil de contredances mises en chorégraphie...
- the very unusual port de bras, or carriage of the arms, which, while something I am far from expert on, appears to be non-standard, to say the least
- Clapping is a legitimate element in period dance, but a five-clap sequence is unusual; presumably it would ne notated similarly to the symbols for the three-clap sequence, as shown in Essex, but with five little lines instead of three to indicate the number of claps:
- While I am not aware of any specific notation for snapping the fingers or its use in eighteenth-century dance, there are specific notations for other hand movements such as beckoning and threatening, so this seems likely to be merely an omission in the treatises of period dancing masters. Similarly, the strikes with the hand to the cheek and to the toe of the foot seem within the range of legitimate practice for the era, if perhaps more in keeping with some sort of character dance for the stage. (This of course suggests the question of whether this dance was intended to be social or whether it was more for theatrical performance; perhaps further analysis by scholars will enlighten us.)
Since I am really not well-qualified to further analyze the eighteenth-century elements of the dance, let alone venture to annotate it in Feuillet notation, let me move toward more familiar, and equally earthshaking, research ground:
This dance is quite notable for its use of what are normally considered twentieth dance movements over a century earlier than previously documented. The "cool move" involving the knees opening and closing and the hands shifting back and forth is clearly the "Bee's Knees" movement of the 1920s Charleston. This is not terribly shocking, as the Charleston clearly had it roots in much earlier dances. For example, the "Heel Toe" or "Happy Feet" movement of the Charleston is similarly found as the ripresa minuita described in Cesare Negri’s Le Gratie d’Amore (1602).
More exotic is the reference to the "Cha Cha", which became popular as a Latin social dance in the 1950s. However, close analysis of the Cha Cha suggests that it is simply a variant on the classic slow-slow-quick-quick-slow rhythm found in everything from the pavane (single-single-double) to the passo-passo-seguito ordinario sequences found in sixteenth century Italian dance. It is just performed with more back-and-forth motion rather than straight-line travel. I'm sure that could be put in terms of eighteenth-century steps as well. The basic ballroom tango step follows the same ancient rhythm.
As to the twerking, while I can find no specific evidence of this in sources before 1900, I have already discussed its appearance in the Edwardian era. It is not altogether far-fetched to assume that in the ages of exploration and colonization, some version of it made its way to Europe earlier than was previously known.
Finally, and most interestingly, there is the appearance of "Rondo alla Turca" in a highly-evolved but still recognizable form in twenty-first century America. It's unclear whether this is a true, unbroken living tradition dance with a continuous performance tradition in some form all the way back to the 1780s (as is the case with American contra dance in some regions) or whether it is a revival engendered by one William Perry, Jr. (1965-2023). With Perry's recent death, and the unknown fate of his personal papers, we will perhaps never know for certain, but I invite you to first review the video above and then listen closely to Perry's singing of what is clearly a variation of "Rondo alla Turca" set to more recent music (dated convincingly by scholars to 2000) and watch the dance performed by various groups of dancers in the video below. The common elements will be quite clear! This version has spread widely over the past quarter-century and has attained historical significance of its own among people with no knowledge of its history. I hope through this post to raise awareness of its classical roots and encourage further scholarly attention to its eighteenth-century origins, its connection with Mozart, exactly how it evolved to its modern form in the 216-year gap between the two videos, and its continuing evolution over the last quarter-century.
(Edited 4/2/2025 to add: the hilarious "Mozart Presents" video is by Brandon Lambert, the lead dancer in the video, who is an accomplished tenor and theater performer as well as a songwriter and playwright. Follow him on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok for more funny music videos!)
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