Link to Longy School of Music home page.
Instructor: Ken Pierce
An intensive workshop in early dance, with emphasis on baroque dance but also including a daily late-renaissance dance class. Intended for experienced dancers with a serious interest in early dance, the workshop will include classes in technique, repertoire, and dance notation, with opportunities for independent projects and performance. The early dance workshop will run concurrently with the International Baroque Institute at Longy (IBIL), allowing the possibility of joint performances with IBIL students. Dancers are welcome to attend IBIL lectures and performances as the schedule allows.
To complement the year’s IBIL theme, “The Venice-Dresden Connection”, the 2009 workshop will include dances by Venetian dancing masters, including Gaetano Grossatesta and Gregorio Lambranzi. If time permits, we may also look at French dances from Venetian-themed stage works.
Schedule Outline (tentative):
The daily schedule is intended to correspond to the IBIL schedule to the extent possible, to allow for interaction between dancers and musicians. Note the different schedule for Saturday.
Sunday, July 26
Monday-Friday, July 27 - 31
Saturday, August 1
Workshop Details
This course is for students with a serious interest in early dance, and especially baroque dance. No prior experience with early dance or with dance notation is required, but some dance background is essential. Classes may be split into separate groups to accommodate students’ interests and abilities.
Each day will begin with baroque dance technique: a thorough warmup, followed by work on basic and more complicated steps and step patterns in duple, triple, and compound meter, with practice in the use of arms with steps. The morning technique classes will incorporate examples from common baroque dance types -- bourrée, gavotte, sarabande, gigue, menuet, etc. -- with attention to the relationship between dance and music.
After lunch, there will be a class on late-renaissance Italian dance, offered as a break from, and a contrast to, the day’s baroque dance sessions. The class will include a brief warmup and work on typical steps and step sequences from the Italian repertory, and may include rehearsal for a performance with IBIL students.
The remainder of the afternoon will focus on baroque dance repertory. The final session of the afternoon will be devoted to notation-reading and other topics related to baroque dance reconstruction. The schedule may be adjusted to allow time for independent practice or rehearsal.
Classes will meet in Longy’s newly-renovated Rey-Waldstein building. Students will be able to supplement their class work with study in Longy’s Bakalar Library, which houses the Margaret Daniels Girard and the Ingrid Brainard collections of dance materials.
About the Instructor
Ken Pierce trained in ballet and modern dance, studying on scholarship at both the American Ballet Theatre School and the Merce Cunningham studio. He has specialized in early dance -- especially, late-Renaissance and Baroque dance -- for over twenty years, as choreographer, reconstructor, performer, and teacher. Companies he has performed with include the Court Dance Company of New York, the New York Baroque Dance Company, Ris et Danceries (Paris), Danse Baroque Toronto, and the baroque dance trio Hémiole (Paris), of which he was a co-founder. He directs his own company, the Ken Pierce Baroque Dance Company, for which he has choreographed or reconstructed dances for performances with Tafelmusik, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Concerto Copenhagen, The King’s Noyse, Handel & Haydn Society, and the Boston Early Music Festival. Recent choreographies include dances for Les Élémens, Les Festes d’Hébé, Tirsi e Clori, and les Festes de l’Amour et de Bacchus; his choreographic credits also include King Arthur at the Boston Early Music Festival, and such twentieth-century premières as Le Carnavale Mascarade; Les Plaisirs de Versailles, with Ex Machina Baroque Opera Ensemble; the masque Oberon, at Case Western Reserve University; and le Mariage de la Grosse Cathos at the Amherst Early Music Festival. He was assistant choreographer for Quelques pas graves de Baptiste, Francine Lancelot’s baroque-style piece for the Paris Opera Ballet, whose cast included Rudolph Nureyev. Mr. Pierce has taught at summer dance and music workshops in the U.S. and abroad. He directs the early dance program at Longy.
Location
The Longy School of Music is located in Cambridge’s Harvard Square area, a short walk from restaurants, libraries, shops, bookstores, theatres, museums, and parks. Public transportation allows easy access to downtown Boston.
Housing
For information about housing, please contact Karen Burciaga, whose contact information is below.
Tuition and Registration
Tuition for the workshop is $310. By permission of the instructor, students may register for the baroque portion or the renaissance portion only. To register, or for additional information about registration, please contact:
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Karen Burciaga, Assistant Registrar Longy School of Music One Follen Street Cambridge, MA 02139 617-876-0956, ext. 1532 karen.burciaga@longy.edu |
For Further Information
For further information about the Early Dance Workshop, please contact the instructor, Ken Pierce, in care of the Longy School of Music or by e-mail at kpierce@mit.edu.
Please note that schedules and other program details outlined above are tentative, and subject to modification.