Dancing Objects under the Sign of Early Modern Exoticism

Exoticism has successively covered the European continent in the Early Modern Period. Colonial goods, souvenirs from scientific expeditions and reports from travelers fired the mind of people in Europe to imagine foreign worlds and ways of life. Monarchs collected exotic objects and adorned themselves with their curiosities. These objects fueled the fantasy, with such illusionary scenes also appearing on stage. Furthermore, spices from the Far East, coffee and tea influenced the culinary arts, as did silk, rare types of leather and precious stones the fashion or interior design. Botany, architecture and art in Europe developed through interaction with foreign cultures. But how did foreign coloration shape courtly representation? In masquerades and ballets, mysticisms can be found, often recognizable by certain objects associated with the foreign. Was this simply taste like ornamentation or a function as a form of demonstration of power and wealth? This paper will examine this question using selected examples: exoticisms, grotesques or figurines in non- European costumes as well as dancing monarchs as exotic rulers will be contextualized on the basis of poems, descriptions and drawings.

Uta Dorothea Sauer studied musicology, history, sociology as well as psychology at the Technische Universität Dresden. During her studies, she finalized research semesters in London, Paris and Strasbourg. She has been a conference speaker and author on the sociology of arts since 2006. Between 2008 and 2017, she worked as a scientist at the TU Dresden, where she completed her doctorate on court dance. From 2018, she was employed as a cultural historian at the Institute of Saxon History and Cultural Anthropology, the department of International History at Trier University associated with the German Historical Institute, Washington and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. She also worked as a transcriber for ancient scripts at KERN Hong Kong. Since 2022 she has been teaching history at the Preparatory College of the TU Dresden. She is currently preparing presentations on dance for the ‘Elbvenezianischer Carneval’ event and the Soroptimist International Club.