Daye, Anne. "“The Revellers Are Entering”: Shakespeare and Masquing Practice in Tudor and Stuart England."

Daye, Anne. "“The Revellers Are Entering”: Shakespeare and Masquing Practice in Tudor and Stuart England." In The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Dance, edited by Lynsey McCulloch and Brandon Shaw. New York, NY, United States of America: Oxford University Press, 2019.


Abstract:
This chapter addresses Shakespeare’s incorporation of the court masque genre into his plays for the public stage, from the perspective of a dance historian. During Shakespeare’s active work with the company of players, he embraced the Tudor form and the continental mascarade, followed by new developments under the Stuart king, James I, to include the anti-masque. By analyzing the chronological changes in masque and dance entries, it becomes clear that Shakespeare and his company took the lead in an innovation copied by other playwrights. An argument is presented for the role of a choreographer, a dancing master on the court payroll, working as a collaborator with Shakespeare in devising new dances in the expression of character, and the beginnings of a new profession of specialist dancer, separate from that of the player who was competent in elementary social dance forms.