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Art and nature join'd : Hester Santlow and the development of dancing on the London stage, 1700-1737

Goff, Moira (2000) Art and nature join'd : Hester Santlow and the development of dancing on the London stage, 1700-1737. Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) thesis, University of Kent. (doi:10.22024/UniKent/01.02.86199) (KAR id:86199)

Abstract

The thesis deals with the dancing career of the English dancer-actress Hester Santlow (ci 690-1773), from her debut in 1706 to her retirement from the stage in 1733, with particular reference to her influence on the development of dancing on the London stage through her repertoire of entr'acte dances and her work with the dancing-masters John Weaver, John Thurmond, and Roger. The early eighteenth century was a significant period for the development of dancing. On the London stage, new forms and genres of entr'acte dances were introduced as well as two new afterpiece genres, the 'dramatic entertainments of dancing' of John Weaver (the first independent theatre works to tell a story through dance and mime alone with no spoken or sung text) and pantomimes. The thesis focusses on Santlow's repertoire of entr'acte dances, those of her dances recorded in Beauchamp-Feuillet notation, and her dancing roles in both 'dramatic entertainments of dancing' and pantomimes. In order to analyse and interpret her entr'acte and notated dances, the style and technique of early eighteenth-century dancing is reviewed, and the forms and genres of dancing on the London stage in the early 1700s are defined. For the assessment of her aflerpiece roles, Santlow's own career as an actress and the careers of several of her contemporaries, in particular the dancers and dancingmasters with whom she worked most closely, are investigated. The thesis argues that Hester Santlow made a significant contribution to the developments in dancing on the London stage during the course of her career, and that the most important of these developments, the 'dramatic entertainments of dancing' of John Weaver, could not have been produced for the London stage without her.

Item Type: Thesis (Doctor of Philosophy (PhD))
DOI/Identification number: 10.22024/UniKent/01.02.86199
Additional information: This thesis has been digitised by EThOS, the British Library digitisation service, for purposes of preservation and dissemination. It was uploaded to KAR on 09 February 2021 in order to hold its content and record within University of Kent systems. It is available Open Access using a Creative Commons Attribution, Non-commercial, No Derivatives (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) licence so that the thesis and its author, can benefit from opportunities for increased readership and citation. This was done in line with University of Kent policies (https://www.kent.ac.uk/is/strategy/docs/Kent%20Open%20Access%20policy.pdf). If you feel that your rights are compromised by open access to this thesis, or if you would like more information about its availability, please contact us at ResearchSupport@kent.ac.uk and we will seriously consider your claim under the terms of our Take-Down Policy (https://www.kent.ac.uk/is/regulations/library/kar-take-down-policy.html).
Uncontrolled keywords: Entr'acte dances; Eighteenth century dance
Subjects: M Music and Books on Music > ML Literature on music
P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General)
A General Works > AZ History of Scholarship. The Humanities
C Auxiliary Sciences of History > CB History of civilization
D History General and Old World > D History (General)
L Education > LA History of education
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of Arts
SWORD Depositor: SWORD Copy
Depositing User: SWORD Copy
Date Deposited: 29 Oct 2019 16:34 UTC
Last Modified: 10 Dec 2022 11:43 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/86199 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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