The Ballroom as a Celebration of Military Triumph

This paper will explore the ways in which celebrations of military victories were incorporated into the repertoire of dances at public balls in nineteenth-century Britain. Specifically, it will consider how the victories and heroes of the Napoleonic ceremonies, int eh published collections of dances and songs circulating at the time, and in the motifs used to decorate venues for a ball. Festivities were arranged annually across Britain to honour the victory at Waterloo on the anniversary of the battle. These were celebratory events that included a wide range of activities, one of which was often a public ball where new commemorative dances were preformed. While printed collections of military waltzes memorialising Waterloo could be purchased, other battles and heroes from the Napoleonic Wars were also celebrated in this fashion. The names of Wellington, Napoleon, and Castlereagh were incorporated into commemorative dance titles, as were those of evocative locations like St Helena, Elba, and La Belle Alliance. This paper will consider how dancing was used to inspire patriotic sentiment in the aftermath of war and how these celebratory feelings were demonstrated in the ballroom. 

Clare Tonks grew up on Long Island, NY, where she trained to a pre-professional level of classical ballet technique and performed in numerous full-length ballet productions. She completed her BA in English Literature and Psychology at the George Washington University in Washington DC. She then moved to Paris to fulfil her MA in History and Literature at Columbia University's European campus. Clare graduated with her PhD in History from the University of Edinburgh in July 2022, where she worked under the supervision of Professor Gordon Pentland. Her thesis, "Commemorating the Battle of Waterloo in Great Britain, 1815-1852", analysed the range of practices that developed to commemorate the Battle of Waterloo in nineteenth-century Britain. She utilised her interdisciplinary interests in this research, examining relic collections, travel journals, funerary services, exhibition catalogues, private correspondence, and paintings. This paper blends her research and her deep love of dance and performance history.