Treatise on Dance

By Carlo Blasis

Infuse your attitudes, arabesques and groups with feeling and expression. The position which dancers specifically refer to as the attitude is the loveliest and most difficult of execution in dancing. In my opinion it is an adaptation of the much admired pose of the celebrated Mercury of Bologna. A dancer who can dispose himself well in the attitude will be outstanding and give proof that he has acquired a knowledge requisite to his art. Nothing is more graceful than those charming positions we call arabesques, which have been inspired by the bas-reliefs of antiquity and fragments of Greek painting, as well as by the delightful frescoes from Raphael’s drawings in the loggias of the Vatican. Dancers should learn to portray these spirited and lovely effects of sculpture and painting in their own art.

Carlo Blasis, An Elementary Treatise upon the  Theory and Practice of the Art of Dancing tr. by Mary Stewart Evans, 1968 (1st. ed. 1820)

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