COLLOQUE

12th Oxford Dance Symposium, New College, Oxford, UK
16-17 April 2010

Celebrating Jean-Georges Noverre 1727-1810: his world, and beyond

Organised by Michael Burden and Jennifer Thorp

The 12th Oxford Dance Symposium examines aspects of the life and works of the French-Swiss choreographer and dance writer Jean-Georges Noverre, his contemporaries and successors, his detractors and his champions. Trained in Paris by the great Louis Dupré, Noverre went on to work in the opera houses of Paris, Lyons, Strasburg, Stuttgart, Vienna, Milan, and London, taught such future stars as Gaetan Vestris, Jean Dauberval, and Charles Didelot, and crossed swords with several more including his former pupils Gardel and Dauberval. Noverre’s claims to be an innovator and reformer in many aspects of dance have lasted virtually unchallenged until recent times.
This conference brings together an international group of scholars and practitioners to look at his work in England, Europe and beyond, to present new evidence about his life, to examine some of the works he created for the theatre, and to place his importance as a choreographer within the larger picture of theatrical dance history.

Keynote Speaker: Kathleen Kuzmick Hansell, ‘Noverre in Milan: a turning point’

Papers include
Alain Borderie, ‘Jean-Georges Noverre, the closing years in Saint-Germain-en-Laye’
Bruce Alan Brown, ‘Musical sources for ballets by Noverre in the Schwarenberg family archive at ÄŒeský Krumlov’
Michael Burden, ‘The ballets of François Hippolyte Barthélemon’
Michael Lorenz, ‘Jean-Georges Noverre and his Family: new biographical research’
Edward Nye, ‘Noverre in the history of mime’
Anna Karin Ståhle, ‘The job application of J.G. Noverre to Gustav III in Sweden’
Jennifer Thorp, ‘Better to be a genuine Pierrot than a false Pyrrhus’: Ange Goudar and the ballets of Jean-Georges Noverre’
Catherine Turocy, ‘Noverre’s Les Petits Riens’
Lito Tsitsou, ‘The aesthetic and political premises of Noverre’s Action Ballet’