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EADH Online Lecture Series, 2026
Dance Histories
29th January:
Dance & The Scottish Town in the Age of the Enlightenment by Professor Bob Harris (University of Oxford)
Dancing in Burns’s Time by Alan Macpherson (RSCDS Archive)
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After the Union of 1707, many Scottish towns seemed slow to change. By the mid‑eighteenth century, however, a new energy began to reshape everyday life. From the 1780s onwards, towns across Scotland experienced rapid cultural transformation, seen not only in new buildings and growing trade, but in the rise of dance assemblies, subscription concerts, and other social gatherings that brought communities together. Dancing masters appeared in many places, teaching fashionable steps and helping townspeople participate in a wider British culture of sociability and refinement.
This was not simply a matter of adopting English customs, but of creating a shared British culture with a distinctly Scottish voice. By highlighting these cultural shifts, and by focusing on smaller towns often overlooked beside Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen, this study reveals how Scotland’s provincial communities embraced modernity and contributed to the wider story of urban change across the British Isles in the long eighteenth century. This talk will look especially at the cultural change in provincial Scottish towns, focusing on its dance‑associated manifestations.​
Event schedule:
• 18:30–19:00 — Prof Bob Harris, Dance & The Scottish Town in the Age of the Enlightenment
• 19:00–19:15 — Q&A
• 19:15–19:30 — Alan Macpherson, Dancing in Burns’s Time: Rare Sources from the RSCDS Collection
• 19:30–19:45 — Q&A​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
Bob Harris is Harry Pitt Fellow in History and Professor of British History at Worcester College, Oxford. He specialises in eighteenth and early nineteenth century British and Irish history, especially political, social and urban history. His current research focuses on the fortunes of Scots in Britain, especially in London, and the making of ‘North Britain’, c.1707-1870. He continues to think and write about gambling, risk and speculation in eighteenth-century Britain and its overseas empire. His publications include several books including Politics and the Nation: Britain in the Mid Eighteenth Century, The Scottish People and the French Revolution, and, co-authored with Professor Charles McKean, The Scottish Town in the Age of the Enlightenment 1740-1820. Published by Edinburgh University Press in August 2014, the last of these was selected by the Saltire Society as the Scottish Book of the Year for 2014, Scotland's most prestigious literary prize. His latest book, published by Cambridge University Press in March 2022, is Gambling in Britain in the Long Eighteenth Century.
Alan Macpherson has served as the Honorary Archivist of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society (RSCDS) since the early 2000s, and he continues in the role today. He oversees cataloguing, preservation, and public access to the RSCDS Archive, which includes manuscripts, photographs, programmes, and memorabilia documenting Scottish country dance history. In his presentation Alan introduces some familiar and rare sources from the archive collection documenting some of the earliest evidence of country dance practice in Scotland.
12th March (18.30-19.30):
Questioning exceptional contexts: writing and working as a female dancer/choreographer in the early 19th Century by Bruno Ligore (Université Côte d’Azur)
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Until recent years, dance historiography has largely traced a succession of male choreographers from the ballet de cour to the 20th century, when women finally appeared to assume leading roles. Sociocultural and gender-based approaches now broaden the scope of inquiry to include everyday practices and underrepresented contexts, revealing the impact of women’s contributions that have long been obscured in macrohistory. In Napoleonic Italy, Maria De Caro (ca. 1770/1775 – after 1806) and Giovanna Campilli (ca. 1778 – after 1828) composed ballets and authored libretti: yet their work has been omitted from standard dance histories. Although the number of ballets composed by women is small compared to that of their male colleagues, quantitative disparity cannot justify the exclusion of female creativity from historical narratives.
De Caro’s and Campilli’s careers resonate, moreover, with the writing and organizational skills of other female dancers, such as Emilie Collomb (1768 – 1840) and Marie Taglioni (1804 – 1884). This paper will be the occasion to share findings and hints that shed light on their work strategies, and to consider how ballet masters and female mistresses did not play by the same rules and, paradoxically, seemed to work in the same physical space without living in the same milieu.
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Event schedule:
• 18:30–19:15 — Bruno Ligore, Questioning Exceptional Contexts
• 19:150–19:30 — Q&A
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Bruno Ligore (https://brunoligore.com/) is a PhD candidate in Dance Studies at the Université Côte d’Azur. From 2019 to 2025, he worked as library assistant in the Réserve des livres rares of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. He holds a BA degree in contemporary dance from the Accademia Nazionale di Danza of Rome, an MA degree in dance research from Université Paris 8, and a State Diploma in ballet teaching from the Centre National de la Danse. His research focuses on corporeality related to Antiquity between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Western European countries, as well as related notational practices. He edited Marie Taglioni’s Souvenirs (2017), co-edited Times of Change: Artistic Perspectives and Cultural Crossings in Nineteenth-Century Dance (2022), and edited Filippo Taglioni padre del ballo romantico (2023). He is currently co-editing with Pauline Chevalier Faire image: noter et dessiner la danse au début du XIXe siècle à partir du fonds André Jean Jacques Deshayes (forthcoming).
9th July (18.30-19.30):
Five Decades of Artistry and Innovation with The New York Baroque Dance Company by Catherine Turocy
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Join Catherine Turocy as she takes you through her journey of 50 years in historical dance. This presentation will be in 5 parts, looking at threads of interest developed through time:
'The Dancers and their influence on creation/re-creation' where she discusses embodiment of 18th-century ideals, 'Productions: Theory and Practice' where she discusses how the idiosyncrasies and paradoxes between these two frameworks were managed, 'Turning points in research' where she discusses advocating her performance ideals and navigating challenging opinions from academics and critics, 'Teaching/Mentoring' and her ongoing contribution towards education, and 'Into the Future' where she proposes a conversation with contemporary audiences whilst maintaining roots in the past.
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Event schedule:
• 18:30–19:15 — Catherine Turocy, 50 Years of the NYBDC
• 19:150–19:30 — Q&A
Catherine Turocy (https://nybaroquedance.org/people/directors/catherine-turocy/) is internationally recognized as one of the leading choreographers and stage directors specializing in Baroque dance. In 1976, she co-founded the New York Baroque Dance Company with Ann Jacoby, establishing a cornerstone institution for the revival and performance of 17th- and 18th-century dance. Under her direction, the company has staged over 300 dances and 100 opera-ballets, including major works by Rameau, Lully, and Handel.
Turocy studied historical dance under Shirley Wynne at Ohio State University and has since become a central figure in the global early music and dance community. She has worked extensively with period ensembles such as Concert Royal and has been a frequent collaborator at the Handel Festival in Göttingen, Germany, where she contributed for over a decade.
Her reconstructions are known for their scholarly rigor and theatrical vitality, blending archival research with expressive performance. In recognition of her contributions, she was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Republic, and received the Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Best Re-staging and Reconstruction in 2018 for Le Temple de la Gloire.
Turocy continues to teach, lecture, and choreograph internationally, mentoring new generations of dancers and researchers. Her work bridges academic inquiry and public engagement, making historical dance accessible, vibrant, and relevant.