Step back in time with our Medieval dance workshops!

We will transport you to a time of candle light, powerful monarchy and the Black Death (but we won’t be spreading that!).

These workshops are great for KS2 and KS3, or for any students studying the Medieval and Tudor times. Our Medieval dance workshops get you up and moving, and add an extra educational layer to learning about this subject.

Workshop content:

Intro:

We start with a talk about this time in history and finding out how much each class knows already. Children love telling you facts and feeling proud of the knowledge they already have on a subject! We tell them lots of information about this time period. For example, jobs/money/gender roles. All about the different classes they had in society, it’s hierarchy and how they all worked together.

Dressing up:

We show the classes photos of nobility and talked about the clothing they would have worn. Accounts from that time tell us that their fancy clothing was really uncomfortable and hard to dance in!

Our dance teacher also wears a Medieval style dress and has her hair up in braids – like they would have worn it at the time.

Music:

We talk about the music of the time and play examples. Speaking about the kinds of instruments they would have used and the sounds created.

Dance styles:

There are many different Medieval and Tudor dances that have been recorded in history. Here are some of the more popular ones that we teach during our Medieval dance workshops:

Haute dance – leaping high and showing masculinity in the men, and neat, dainty footsteps for the women.

Basque dance – Originated in Spain. Lots of prancing around and showing off!

Galliard – A very jumpy, energetic dance. This was said to be Queen Elizabeth I’s favourite dance. There’s a quote from John Stanhope of the Privy Chamber who reported, “The Queen is so well as I assure you, six or seven Galliards in a morning, besides music and singing, is her ordinary exercise”. This was when she was in her mid 50’s!

Pavan – This is the dance you’d do as you enter a room or event to make everyone aware of your arrival. It’s a slow, processional, gliding dance.

Volter – This popular Italian dance means ‘Turn’. It was a very risque dance back then, as the men turned the women 3/4 in the air. It was very unusual at that time to have men lifting women and onlookers were often shocked by this dance!

Performance:

We usually teach the Pavane and Galliard dances. But if there’s a particular one you’d like to try, just let us know at the time of booking and we can do that for you.

We end each workshop with a short, informal performance from each group. It’s really fun for students to watch each other dance. They feel proud of what they have achieved throughout the Medieval dance workshops with Zest.

Other historical dances:

Check out the other historical dance styles we do on our ‘Decades Dance’ page.

Contact us:

Get in touch if you’d like to bring some Medieval dance workshops to your school or group.