Traces of Court Dance in the Fifteenth Century: Historiography and the Work of Memory

The chapter by Alessandro Pontremoli follows two main lines: the historiographical discourse on fifteenth-century texts by dancing masters as repositories of an active memory, and the work of memory in the international phenomenon of the so-called early dance. He narrates his experience since the 1980s as a dancer and artistic director of a “historical dance” company, illustrating how it has enriched his historiographical work. Over the years, the practice of comparing historical narratives, as well as reconstructing steps, styles, and visions, has generated a collective memory that is continuously enriched by new insights. According to him, fifteenth-century treatises allow the contemporary scholar and dancer to reenact the corporeality of the members of the Italian courts through embodiment, weaving together mnestic traces and imagination. Pontremoli demonstrates that both choreographic past and contemporary practices invent their own forms of remembrance, thus contributing to the construction of their history and that of the era they represent. Today, this memory can rightly be considered both as a heritage and a form of know-how, requiring continuous, renewed, and revitalised transmission.