Clegg, Roger. "“When the Play Is Done, You Shall Have a Jig or Dance of All Treads”: Danced Endings on Shakespeare’s Stage."

Clegg, Roger. "“When the Play Is Done, You Shall Have a Jig or Dance of All Treads”: Danced Endings on Shakespeare’s Stage." In The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Dance, edited by Lynsey McCulloch and Brandon Shaw, 83-106. New York, NY, United States of America: Oxford University Press, 2019.


Abstract:
Anyone familiar with the works of Shakespeare will know that some of his comedies end in a dance, and anyone visiting Shakespeare’s Globe today is likely to witness the company return to the stage after the play to perform a dance. By surveying and appraising the evidence relating to dance as a conclusion to the theatrical event—whether featured at the close of the drama, or as a dance following the play, or as part of a comic musical afterpiece, or “jig”—the chapter explores its tradition, form, function, and significance, then and now.