A Marriage of Dance and Art; Love, Seduction and Courtship in the Renaissance
Siân Walters describing the story of Griselda in The Story of Griselda, Part 1: Marriage, c 1494, by the Master of the Story of Griselda (active c1490-1500), (c) the National Gallery, London, photo (c) Carole Edrich
Months ago, when the Metamorphosis: Titian exhibition still had a while to go, Ms Hedgehog and I decided to go to a guided lecture-tour on dance in Renaissance paintings.
It was one of those spur-of-the-moment decisions that turned out very well. As well as being fascinating in its own right, our guide Siân Walters (an art historian in the education department) mentioned a future talk, “A marriage of Dance and Art; Love, Seduction and Courtship in the Renaissance” which was to take place shortly before Valentines Day. I successfully pitched the idea of a preview to Dance Today and the feature was published last month.
Even though Darren Royston of Nonesuch was unable to attend, the research was an absolute dream. I was granted the exciting privilege of out-of-hours access, during which I took photos of some of the art and talked to Siân about what had been planned. While I’d have liked to have skipped and danced around the beautiful empty halls (empty, that is, apart from priceless works of Renaissance art and that wonderfully clear, crisp, soft clean light) but curbed the impulse in the hope that I’ll be allowed back in the future.
The event I previewed is at the National Gallery at 6.30pm tonight (Feb 8th, 2013). Involving actual live recreations of the dance, authentic music (researched by Darren) and Siân’s extensive expertise it’ll be a fantastic experience.
I’ll be there. It’d be great to see you there too.
Click here for the pdf of the Dance Today Feature, (c) Carole Edrich 2013 and Dance Today
If you can’t get to the lecture don’t miss the exhibition which, Mum tells me, has already had rave reviews.