“What dances shall we have?” Staging, Reconstructing, and Adapting Historical Dances
In Romeo and Juliet, it is Juliet’s dancing that teaches “torches to burn bright.” In the Spanish jácara, roguish antiheroes dance in shackles to elicit sympathy and critique the Church and State. If dancing is missing from Romeo and Juliet or a jácara performance, the work’s meaning is diminished or distorted, as is textual analysis that ignores dance’s function and symbolism within the piece. Steps and patterns, gestures and styling, music and costume, all affect a dance’s meaning and reception, whether performed on a stage or in the ballroom.