Garlands, Swords, and Flying Dragons: When is a Stage Prop not a Prop?

One of the things about court ballets that exasperated Monsieur de Saint-Hubert in the 1640s was the way in which dancers portraying soldiers and villagers quite rightly (to his mind) came on stage carrying swords and baskets to assist the audience in recognising the roles the dancers were portraying, but as soon as they started to dance they threw down their props and by the end of the closing number nobody knew which character was which; one might as well paint labels on their backs, Saint-Hubert added sourly. Stage props remained the bane of the dancer on stage throughout the 18th century and later: small portable props such as tables or benches had to be danced round and were easily tripped over; very large moveable props such as chariots and flying monsters became derisory and even dangerous if their mechanisms failed. Yet all had a visual or plot-related reason for being used on stage and were regarded as essential by the audience. This paper looks at some examples of how a range of stage props were put to use in various ballets, and the extent to which they were really necessary to the dancer's performance or simply appealed to the audience's love of visual effects. 

About the author

Jennifer Thorp has a particular interest in the dance of royal court and public theatre in England and France from the late 17th to the late 18th centuries. Her publications include studies of the status of the dancer in 18th-century society, the London careers of Kellom Tomlinson, Francis Nivelon, P. Siris and F. Le Roussau, and the place of dance in Rameau's Anacreon. Her edition of Le Rousseau's Collection of new ball- and stage dances 1720 was published in 2008, and at present she is preparing for publication a biography and study of the dances of the London dancing-master Mr Isaac, and working on various aspects of the life and work of Anthony L'Abbé. She has co-edited, with Michael Burden, a study of Le Ballet de la Nuit (Pendragon Press, 2010), and The Works of Monsieur Noverre translated from the French, 1783 (Pendragon Press, 2014).