Clark, Maribeth. "Embodied Heritage: English Country Dance in Austen Screen Adaptations."

Clark, Maribeth. "Embodied Heritage: English Country Dance in Austen Screen Adaptations." In Musicology and Dance: Historical and Critical Perspectives, edited by Davinia Caddy and Maribeth Clark, 259-279. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2020.


Abstract:
Addressing recent screen productions of Jane Austen’s 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice (dir. Langton, BBC1, 1995; dir. Wright, 2005), and 1815 novel Emma (dir. Lawrence, ITV, 1996; dir. McGrath, 1996), Maribeth Clark explores the function of music, dance, drama and visuals in specific danced divertissements. She focuses on choreographed versions of social dance scenes set to the late-seventeenth-century music of Henry Purcell and his contemporaries up to the late eighteenth century. Her chapter describes an impulse towards unity and congruence, towards the establishment of a stable repertoire, a conservative tradition – a canon that builds on the work of those involved in the twentieth-century English country dance revival.