The Motif of Village Weddings in French (Court) Ballets of the 17th and 18th Centuries Continuities and Variations

Village Weddings are a popular motif in French (court) ballets and mascarades of the 17th and 18th centuries. Many incarnations focus completely on this setting with its meeting of a variety of characters in the wedding party, such as in Le Ballet des Nopces de l’Épousée de Massy (1654), Les Nopces de village (1663), Les Noces de Village – Mascarade de Monseigneur le Dauphin (1683), Le Mariage de la grosse Cathos (1688). The diptych Les Noces de village and Le Lendemain de la noce de village (1700) expands this to a two day experience. There are also a number of topical entrées de ballet within larger works, such as the third entrée of the second part of Le Balet du Roy où La Vieille cour et les habitants des rives de la Seine viennent danser pour les triomphes de sa Majesté (1638), the last entrée of Le Ballet de l’Amour malade (1657) or the fifth entrée for L’Inconnu (1720 as well as 1728). My paper analyses the recurring theme of the village wedding party. The use of this basic narrative was subject to many continuities as well as variations, but hardly any fundamental changes. We encounter it in many different media and preserved source types. The motif allows for the assemblage on stage of certain stereotypical roles from different social classes with their specific characterization in costume, pantomime and dance. The peasants are often represented in a grotesque or at least ‘exotized’ manner, which provides insights into the ‘othering’ of the lower classes by the French aristo

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cratic and bourgeois elite. Gerrit Berenike Heiter is a PhD student and performer specialising in commedia dell’arte, baroque theatre and historical dance. Her thesis in theatre studies at the University of Vienna focuses on French ballet publications from 1573 to 1651 in a comparative study also encom

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passing ballet at the courts of the Austrian Habsburgs. From July 2017 to March 2020 she worked as a research assistant in the Emmy Noether Research Group “Ritual Design for the Ballet Stage: Constructions of Popular Culture in European Theatrical Dance (1650-1760)” under the direction of Dr. Hanna Walsdorf at the University of Leipzig. Currently, she is part of the research team of the FWF-funded project “Border Dancing across Time. The (Forgotten) Parisian Choreographer Nyota Inyoka, her Œuvre, and Questions of Choreographing Créolité” (P 31958-G) at the University of Salzburg. Moreover, she teaches dance history at the Mannheim University of Music and Performing Arts. The 24th Oxford Dance Symposium ‘Dancing in Town and Country’ New College, Oxford, 19 & 20 April 2022