About the Book:

Invaluable advice on how to perform authentic dance styles from Shakespeare's time, covering all the styles featured in his plays as well as a number of dances of a similar vein.

The Dances of Shakespeare offers a brief introduction to the performance of the entire repertory of dance styles featured in Shakepeare's plays. Designed for the practicing director, choreographer or actor, this book provides clear instructions on how to perform the popular dances of Shakespeare's day including masques, brawls, canaries, corantos, galliards, jigs, La Volta, pavans, morris dances and roundels. Illustrated throughout, these instructions allow non-specialists to gain enough technique to perform a convincing and attractive production up to semi-professional level. Features include a chronological listing of dances, as well as an appendix of plays grouped by dances called for in the script, and suggestions for appropriate dances of different tones. Altogether, this lively guide is a must-have book for everyone interested in staging the works of Shakespeare or his contemporaries

About the Author:

Jim Hoskins has performed, directed and choreographed in educational theatre, television, film, the corporate theatre, opera, nightclubs and the legitimate theatre. He has staged more than 400 productions in the US and abroad. Over the past 40 years he has taught period movement and dance, and was the movement specialist for both the graduate and undergraduate programs at Penn State University and the graduate program at the Florida State University (FSU). He resides in Sarasota, Florida where he is now a professor emeritus of theatre at the FSU/Asolo Conservatory and staff choreographer for Asolo Repertory Theatre. He is the author of The Dances of Shakespeare.