Open Access"Danzare per Fantasmata", or the Embodiment of the Immaterial in Fifteenth-century Italian Dance Discourse
Author(s) -
Alessandro Arcangeli
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
revista de poética medieval/revista de poética medieval
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2660-891X
pISSN - 1137-8905
DOI - 10.37536/rpm.2017.31.0.58477
Subject(s) - fifteenth , dance , art , relation (database) , aesthetics , the renaissance , relevance (law) , space (punctuation) , expression (computer science) , visual arts , literature , perception , key (lock) , art history , philosophy , classics , linguistics , epistemology , law , computer science , computer security , database , political science , programming language
Within Italian fifteenth-century texts on court dancing we encounter the fairly elusive expression «danzare per fantasmata». It has been connected with the powers of the imagination and the techniques of memory, in relation to both the performers and their audiences. It seems suggestive of some ghost-like experience. It is introduced in the key source, Domenico da Piacenza, with extraordinary images, suggestive of a moment of absolute stillness, soon followed by a swift flight. The relevance of this stylistic category on Renaissance dance aesthetics has undergone recent re-evaluation; so would deserve its implications for the time and space perceptions of dancers and onlookers alike.