The Preferred Pas de Menuet

Extract

The recurrence of an uncomplicated step pattern made it possible for 18th-century ladies and gentlemen of varying abilities to perform the Minuet. In 1762, Giovanni-Andrea Gallini, director of dances at the Royal Theatre in the Haymarket, London, said that the success of the Minuet stemmed in part from “the possibility of dancing it to so many different airs, though the steps are invariable.” Thirty-seven years earlier the dancing master Pierre Rameau describes the emergence of a simplified version of the pas de Menuet that replaced a more demanding step. Eighteen-century European dancing masters, such as Charles Pauli, repeatedly describe the Minuet step as natural, plain and unaffected—a step that is “perfect” for performance. Because the Minuet steps were successful and widely performed, dancing masters taught its established steps, not steps based on their own whims or creations. An analysis of a wide range of 18th-century manuals reveals that a preferred version of the Minuet step emerged in the literature and remained relatively unchanged to near the end of the century.