(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!
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