Jennifer Nevile EDC Lecture 2021.

I had to fight with the painters, master carpenters, musicians, actors and the dancers”: Rehearsals, Performance Problems and Audience Reaction in Renaissance Spectacles.

Dr Jennifer Nevile’s EDC Annual Lecture on Zoom 21 February 2021. Dr Nevile is Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales and the author of many articles and books on Renaissance dance, including The Eloquent Body: Dance and Humanist Culture in Fifteenth-Century Italy (2004) and Dance, Spectacle and the Body Politick, 1250-1750 (2008). Her talk deals with European Renaissance theatrical spectacles performed in front of the monarch and court. They carried serious political messages regarding the relationship – both real and hoped for – between the monarch and the state. Contemporary accounts of these events often offer fulsome praise for the costumes, dancing, scenery, stage machines and songs. A successful performance greatly enhanced a country’s reputation on the international stage. Much more was at stake than an evening’s entertainment. Yet then, as now, such multi-media events encountered problems, in rehearsal and performance.
This lecture outlines the desire in European courts for great success, and what efforts went into achieving this, before recounting some of the disasters -- noise and over-crowding, stage-fright, properties too big to fit into the hall, and even fire. Finally, audience reactions are examined to such disasters, and the effects felt on the dynamics between audience and performers.