The Compleat Dancing Master: A Translation of Gottfried Taubert's Rechtschaffener Tantzmeister (1717)

FAIN: FT-57152-09

Tilden Russell
Southern Connecticut State University (New Haven, CT 06515-1330)

The Compleat Dancing Master is an English translation of the Rechtschaffener Tantzmeister, an immense dance treatise, over 1000 pages long, published in 1717 by Gottfried Taubert. It is organized in three books, dealing with (1) the history, morality, and social utility of dance; (2) the theory and practice of dance; and (3) the metier of the dancing master, the teacher-student relationship, and the occasions and customs connected with social dance. The translation proper is preceded by a monograph-length introductory essay by the translator. Because of the language barrier, this essential source for dance-history studies has remained unaccessible to anglophone scholars until now. Its availability should prove revelatory to dance historians, historical dancers, choreographers, musicologists, students of German 18th-century culture, and dix-huiti-mistes of all types.