Acrobatic — Plate 93

What you are looking at

A male dancer in a curtained theatrical interior performs a deep contortionist pose on a wooden-floored stage. The figure bends sharply backward, with one leg extended high behind and arms wrapping around the torso, the body folded nearly in half in a posture of extreme flexibility. The stage is framed by tall columns draped with heavy swags of fabric—the architecture and drapery suggest a formal theatrical setting of the early 18th century. Two cherub or putto figures appear below the stage, flanking a scrolled cartouche containing German text. Musical notation is engraved at the top of the plate, paired with the choreographic instruction below, as is characteristic of Lambranzi's manual.

The dancing

A single male dancer, costumed in period dress with breeches and jacket, executes a severe spinal arch with the torso deeply flexed backward. The weight appears supported on one or both feet while the body curves in a near-U shape; one leg lifts away from the ground, demonstrating active control as well as extreme range. The arms are engaged in the fold, and the head is thrown back in the line of the spinal extension. This is not balletic port de bras or a conventional theatrical hold—it is a demonstration of the body's extreme plasticity.

The dance depicted

This is theatrical acrobatics or contortionism integrated into early 18th-century theatrical dance practice. The image records a technical feat performed in the context of ballet d'action or theatrical spectacle, where dancers were expected to demonstrate virtuosic physical control including extreme flexibility and contortions. Lambranzi's manual documents dances and movements that blurred the boundaries between balletic training, acrobatic display, and pantomimic theatre. This is likely a movement taught and performed in aristocratic contexts or public theatre.

How it was made

This is a copper-plate engraving, a technique requiring skilled hand-cutting of lines into a polished copper surface. The fineness of the parallel lines (hatching and cross-hatching) in the drapery and the precision of the anatomical contours show the engraver's ability to create tonal depth and texture. Engraving was the most durable and reproducible printmaking medium of the period and allowed wide distribution of instructional images; this work's inclusion in a bound manual meant it could circulate in the libraries of dance masters, theatre practitioners, and educated patrons across Europe.

About this work

This is a single plate from Gregorio Lambranzi's *Nuova e curiosa scuola de' balli theatrali*, one of the most influential treatises on theatrical dance and movement of the early 18th century. The plate pairs notated music with a choreographic figure—in this case, a contortionist pose that displays the extreme physical range expected of theatrical performers. The work documents not 'dance' in the modern sense but rather the grammar of theatrical movement as it was taught and performed in the courts and stages of the Holy Roman Empire. It sits at the historical intersection of ballet training, acrobatic performance, and bodily display.

Lambranzi's manual served both as instruction and as cultural record: it authorized certain movements as part of professional practice and circulated them across the network of European dance masters. This plate in particular captures a specific moment of aesthetic permission—a time when the extension of the body into extreme plasticity was considered theatrical and teachable, a mark of a performer's control and cultivation.

How to look at it

Observe the precision of the body's geometric distortion and the way the engraver has rendered the strain and control in the musculature through fine hatching. Notice that the pose is not slack or passive but achieved through active muscular engagement—the extended leg, the engaged arms, the lifted chest. The musical notation at the top invites us to imagine rhythm and timing: this contortion was not static but part of a continuous theatrical phrase, presumably timed to music. The cartouche below with its German text originally contained instruction for the performer—a verbal accompaniment to the visual and musical record.

The artist

Gregorio Lambranzi was a dance master, choreographer, and author active in Nuremberg in the early 18th century. His manual, first published in 1716, synthesized decades of practice in court and theatrical dance. The work is notable for its combination of written description, musical notation, and engraved figures—a multimedia approach to dance instruction that was innovative for its time. Lambranzi's practice bridged the Italian and German theatrical traditions and served practitioners across Europe.

The period

The early 18th century was a period of intense formalization and codification of dance technique. The minuet and other court dances were being standardized, but the theatrical and balletic vocabulary was far wider and more physically adventurous than the court dances we now associate with the period. Contortionism and acrobatic feats were not marginal to theatrical practice but central to it; performers were expected to command an enormous range of body positions and movements. This was also the era in which dance notation systems (Feuillet notation, used for the musical notation here) were being developed to capture and transmit choreography across distance and time. Lambranzi's manual is a record of this expansion of the body's theatrical possibilities.

Where it lives

This plate is one of approximately 120 engraved figures in the first edition of *Nuova e curiosa scuola de' balli theatrali*, published in Nuremberg in 1716 by the printer Johann Christoph Weigel. It is catalogued as Plate 93. The manual survives in institutional collections across Europe and North America and is recognized as a foundational document in dance history.

Dance in this work

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