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The gaucho - 'a beggar on horseback' whose dance music was the strumming of a guitar and the jingling of his spurs - was the civiliser of the pampa. His presence, more than anything else, led to the creation of the essentially Argentine folk dance, for while the folk culture of the northern provinces is shared with Chile, Peru and Bolivia, the dances of the plains, the Chacareras and Escondidos, are Argentina's own exclusive property. And they...

Mexico's heritage of folk dance is rich in music and costume. Centuries ago the people were encouraged by the friars to dramatise religious teaching by dancing to the beat of drums and the rattle of gourds. Today their folk music has developed from primitive percussion to a blend of Spanish and native cultures. It may be strummed on an instrument made from the shell of an armadillo or played on the more orthodox guitar, but whatever the instru...

The Finnish national epic, Kalevala, tells how Kyllikki makes her lover Lemminkainen promise that he will never go to war again, but he makes a condition himself: But thyself on oath must pledge thee, Not to wander to the village, Whether for the love of dancing, Or to loiter in the pathways. This love of dancing is still strong in the Finnish blood, and seven hundred years of foreign rule have done nothing to suppress its national char...

Clogs and baggy trousers, wide checked skirts and white caps - is not this our picture when we think of Dutch folk dances? But this costume belongs only to one dance and one part of the country, even there the women are coming to prefer 'a pleated black skirt which gives a slim and even elegant outline'. And who would suspect the sober Dutch of such a dance as the Cramignon, a chain dance that winds 'in and out of the houses and inns of the vi...

When Serge Diaghilev decided to produce for his 1921 London season a revival of Petipa's 'Sleeping Beauty', he turned to the great Russian designer Léon Bakst to provide the scenery and costumes. In the incredibly short time of just six weeks Bakst produced several hundred costume designs and scenery for all four acts. To avoid confusion with English pantomimes, Diaghilev changed the name of the ballet to 'The Sleeping Princess'. Although th...

This is a detailed history of ballet in Russia (with particular reference to St. Petersburg) from its origin to the third quarter of the 19th century. The groundwork of historical data is enlivened with notes on the different dancers, extracts from contemporary accounts of their appearances, the casts of important first performances, the stories of many of the ballets produced, and so on. We learn of the birth of interest in the Theatre...

In the early years of the twentieth century, two dancers at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburgh, the brothers Nikolai and Sergei Legat, produced a series of (mostly) affectionate caricatures of their fellow artists. The caricatures were initially printed individually, but later collected in folders containing varied numbers of the prints, the maximum number recorded being 94.All 94 of these prints, taken from a rare surviving complete set...

This book collects together Cornish recipes, many of them now forgotten, from the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. The recipes were brought together by the Cornwall Federation of Women's Institutes, and were first published in 1929. The recipes range from the comforting to the bizarre to the dangerous to the downright illegal, but together they form a fascinating record of Cornish domestic life over two centuries.

Sir Frederick Ashton (1904 - 1988) remains one of the great figures of twentieth-century ballet, whose place in British ballet is comparable to Balanchine's in America. Ashton's choreographic career began in 1926, when his first ballet was presented as part of a London revue. In this book, David Vaughan traces that entire career, during which Ashton became first a leading dancer and choreographer, and later Director of the Royal Ballet. Asht...

This endearing and extremely comical author has already bull-dozed his way through his war career - To Sea in a Sieve ("Easily the funniest autobiography of the year" NANCY SPAIN) - and his early family life- Bulls in the Meadows ("An enchanting book" JOHN CONNELL). Now the Bull charges with the same engaging hilarity through his acting career - on stage, screen and 'telly'. It is not, as the author is at pains to point out, a success story ...

The anonymous book here reproduced can probably claim to be the first printed book extant which is devoted to the art, or pastime, of dancing.This reprint is of the now extremely rare 1936 copy which itself was a reproduction of the unique original, now in the possession of the Royal College of Physicians of London, bequested to them by Henry Pierrepoint, first Marquis of Dorchester, who died in 1680. This edition includes a translation of the...

The enthusiasm with which Scottish gatherings all over the world welcome the strains of a Reel tune or a stately Strathspey is no less marked today than it was in the eighteenth century, when an English visitor to an Edinburgh ballroom noted, 'The moment one of these tunes is played, up they start, and you would imagine they had been bit by a tarantula.' Some of the dwindling antique treasure of music and dance is now being recovered, includin...

Constant Lambert's witty and provocative study of classical music in the early part of the twentieth-century was first published in 1934. In his introduction the author wrote 'This book makes no attempt to be an ordnance survey of modern music or a study of modern composers as individual artists. Avoiding both the pigeon-hole and the blackboard I have tried to trace a connecting line between the apparently diverse and contradictory manifestati...

Poland, birthplace of Polonaise and Mazurka, possesses a passionate love of music and dancing which has survived the ravages of many foreign invaders, from Genghis Khan and his dreaded Tartars down to more recent oppressions.There are many and varied steps to be found in the national dances of Poland, and this book contains the notations and music of four original and exciting dances - including the 'Goralski', a brigand dance from the mountai...

The great variety of folk dances found in Yugoslavia is the result of various factors, the peoples having lived under many different and social conditions. South and East were mainly exposed to Turkish influences, West and North to those of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, while Dalmatia and the Adriatic Islands were open to prolonged Italian influence.In this book, illustrated by four colour plates, are detailed descriptions of four typical peasa...

The charm of the folk dances of Rumania derives, to a large extent, from many strange and ancient peasant customs, including shades of 'bacchic frenzy', and the still practised initiation ordeals connected with the ritual Calusari dance. Superstition and magic are evidence of the supposed presence of fairies in this amazing dancing rite, and there seems to have been a curious custom in which a group of young men sold themselves to the devil an...

The dances of the French Pyrenees express a multitude of influences in their colourful variety. At the eastern end the French side is influenced by Spanish Catalonia, at the western end the famous Basque dances show some slight influence from their Spanish-Basque brothers, even in the centre, under the high and inaccessible peaks, dances are coloured by influence from across the frontier, so that everywhere traditions are Pyrenean rather than ...

Descendants of the Vikings, children of Norse legend born beneath the grey twilight of the midnight sun, the people of Norway live in a country of fjords, mountains, lakes and forests, their background here wild and terrible, there still and brooding. Their folk songs and dances are as varied as the scenery of their native land, and as attractive as their colourful national costumes.In this book four dances are fully described with their music...

Standing at the crossroads of Europe, the bridge between east and west, Czechoslovakia combines in its folk dances and traditions the colourful wildness of the east with the more sophisticated gaiety of the west. To the lover of traditional peasant art this country has long been a treasure-house of stored delight, for those who now perforce stay at home, the author of this book has distilled the essence of a lifetime's study in a work of rare ...

After a beribboned cock has been presented to the Mayor of certain Walloon towns the hapless bird is decapitated and the people dance around it - a strange, ritual ceremony, its analogue known also in the Pyrenees and in Spain. This and many another ancient custom has been kept alive throughout southern and eastern Belgium by the people's great love of dancing - on the place, on platforms and in cafes. In Flanders, too, traditional dancing liv...