Dancing Shakespeare

This monograph is the first history of ballets based on William Shakespeare’s works from the birth of ballet as an independent art form in the eighteenth century to the present. It focuses on two main questions: “How can Shakespeare be danced?”, and “How can dance shed new light on Shakespeare?”

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Dancing Shakespeare is the first history of ballets based on William Shakespeare’s works from the birth of the dramatic story ballet in the eighteenth century to the present. It focuses on two main questions: "How can Shakespeare be danced?" and "How can dance shed new light on Shakespeare?"

The book explores how librettists and choreographers have transposed Shakespeare’s complex storylines, multifaceted protagonists, rhetoric and humour into non-verbal means of expression, often going beyond the texts in order to comment on them or use them as raw material for their own creative purposes.

One aim of the monograph is to demonstrate that the study of wordless performances allows us to gain a deeper understanding of Shakespeare’s texts. It argues that ballets based on Shakespeare’s works direct the audience’s attention to the "bare bones" of the plays: their situations, their characters, and the evolution of both. Moreover, they reveal and develop the "choreographies" that are written into the texts and highlight the importance of movements and gestures as signifiers in Shakespeare’s plays.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars of literature, dance, and music, as well as to an international readership of lovers of Shakespeare, ballet, and the arts.