Video Clips of
Wendy Hilton
Dancer, Teacher, Scholar
author of Dance of Court & Theater:
The French Noble Style 1690-1725

 

These clips are taken from a grainy, scratchy B&W
television production from the early 1970s:
French Dance of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
It is still the best record of Hilton’s graceful dancing and has been
excerpted and organized here for educational purposes.

 

Demonstrating individual steps or actions
Réverence (bow) for a woman
pas de Bourrée
Assemblé
Arm motions to accompany the steps

 

Demonstrating a particular step unit
pas de Rigaudon
pas de Galliard

 

Demonstrating characteristic step patterns
Walking steps in duple time
Walking steps in triple time
Springing steps
Mixed steps in duple time
Mixed steps in triple time
Steps with Beats (pas battus)
Minuet steps

 

Demonstrating choreographed dances
Gigue pour Mlle. Subligny
Canaries (Gigue)
L’Allemande (N.B. this is the only choreographed Allemande from the era, but its music is unlike most written Allemandes: it’s more like a Bourrée or Rigaudon. It’s also a couple dance and Hilton dances only the woman’s part)
Sarabande pour femme
Sarabande pour femme (performed without costume)