This video captures the essence of dance as experienced in the final of three workshops conducted at Queensland University of Technology in September 2017. The research brought together dance students and members of community folk dancers in Brisbane to examine how convict dances in the late 18th/early 19th centuries may have looked and felt.
“Given the ephemeral quality of dance and the many uncertainties in attempting to capture a true re-enactment, we can only endeavour to give a representation of the past, with the proviso that many interpretations are possible”.1
Notes
1Järvinen, H. (2009, p. 235). Dance of the Past in the Present: Teaching a Metahistory. Congress on Research in Dance Conference Proceedings U6 – Journal Article, 41(S1), 234-240. doi:10.1017/S2049125500001151
Header credit: Lowest life in London. Tom, Jerry, and Logic among the unsophisticated sons and daughters of Nature at ‘All Max’ in the East. Illustration by George Cruikshank (1792 – 1878). ©Trustees of the British Museum
