Opera Reel from 1890s Class
Dance from 1860s class
How to Sit in a Hoopskirt
Teaching Medieval and Renaissance Dances
My youngest dance students!
Tea and Macarons at the AAM Conference
Live music is always fun for me AND the dancers!
Dance mistress for the 73rd OVI Brass band
Keeping large crowds dancing!
Visitors to Latta Plantation get a dance lesson
Lecture on Ladies' Ragtime Fashions
Teaching Girl Scouts to Dance, Dress, and Drink Tea
A Quick Waltz Lesson at the Ball
Medieval and Renaissance Dances
People are hungry for immersive experiences, a chance to play dressup and DO something. People love to find ways to touch history - what did it really feel like to live back then? Historical dancing meets all those needs.
I do event planning that is specifically geared towards historical costumed dance events. The anniversary of Lafayette's visit to your town back in 1825. Dancing to Scott Joplin's music in Scott Joplin's hometown. Victorian Christmas balls. Any year, any anniversary, can be celebrated with a costumed dance event. Movie releases generate enthusiasm among viewers that will bring fans to your history museum, art museum, gala, or other fundraiser.
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Languages: English, German
Gig length: 40 - 180 minutes
Expect me to start by asking you, "What era are you doing?" My role is to help create an immersive, interactive historical experience. People want to feel like they are inside the world of Bridgerton, or Outlander, or The Gilded Age, and the first thing I'm going to want to know is where we are in time, so we can create that illusion of going back in time, and find out what it felt like, what it looked like back then.
Do not expect to sit down. I have been cajoling people onto dance floors since I was 10 years old and went to my first family wedding. Dance is something to DO, not something to watch. If the year is 1776, I am going to approach you in my Colonial dress with the panniers and invite you and your handsome/lovely partner to join in the cotillion. If the year is 1960, we're all going to dance The Twist. Part of what I love about dancing is that it's inclusive; the whole *point* of dancing is to spend quality time with people. And that's what we're going to do together.
Jeanette Watts is on her own personal mission to get Americans dancing again. She teaches at museums, elementary schools, colleges, senior citizen centers, music festivals, dance workshops, historical societies, girl scout events, and any other place that wants to commemorate a special occasion with historical dancing.
Besides maintaining a vast repertoire of dances from the middle ages to the 1960s, she also manages a large collection of historical costumes, which she personally makes, and wears while teaching.
Her various historical exploits can be followed via her YouTube Channel, Instagram, and TikTok accounts, all under the "History is My Playground" name.
Am I supplying the sound system, or you? I do have a sound system available for rent. I am going to need a microphone for myself and an audio jack for my laptop if I am supplying recorded music, or a microphone for myself plus whatever the musicians are going to require if we are going to be having live music.
I also need empty space. Frequently people give me dimensions for the room, but they neglect to mention the piano in the corner, or the drum set on the stage, or the giant Christmas tree along one wall. These things are very important when figuring out where to cap attendance. Dancing people require space.
Saturday
Fashion Lecture: Between the Wars
1:00pm - 3:00pm
Friday
ALHFAM Conference
All-day event
Wednesday
Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival
All-day event
Friday
Lafayette Dinner
5:00pm - 10:00pm
Monday
Lafayette in Cincinnati
6:00pm - 11:00pm
Saturday
1920s event
All-day event
Sunday
Lafayette Ball, Cincinnati
All-day event
Saturday
Lafayette Ball, Cincinnati
All-day event
Friday
Lafayette Ball, Cincinnati
All-day event
Saturday
Dance workshop
All-day event
"Typical" depends very much upon context: is this a 3-hour ball or a 2-hour ball? What is the experience level of the dancers? What is the decade and century we are doing?
A 3-hour ball for the 18th and most of the 19th century is typically going to consist of 15 dances if the musicians would like 2 breaks. It is also common to have a ball with only one break with refreshments, or one water break for a dance ending at midnight with midnight supper and post-supper party games (a typical late Victorian/Edwardian New Year's Eve program).
For other eras, like Medieval and Renaissance, dances can require a very different style of teaching. Once the basic patterns are learned, successive dances require less and less instruction. For 20th century dances, couple dancing has taken over as the popular social dance form, so dances require prior instruction, like a 2-hour afternoon workshop. Then during the ball, people have the entire 2 or 3-hour ball to practice with a wide variety of partners.
For family festivals and other kinds of dance instruction like school programs, I am usually teaching a small number of dances - like 1 or 2 dances - repeatedly, as children come in small groups to learn a dance from a particular time period, before moving on to dip candles and churn butter and watch the weaving and broom making demonstrations.
Historical dancing:
* Nahant Vintage Dance weekends
* Newport Vintage Dance weeks
* George Washington Balls, Williamsburg, VA
* Civil War Balls: Cornets & Cannons, Grande Winter Ball - Ohio Statehouse, 73rd OVI Regimental Band, Sherman House, Shannon Woods
* Flying Cloud Academy of Vintage Dance
* Commonwealth Vintage Dancers
* Dvorana Dance
* Dayton Historic Dance
* Forget-Me-Not Vintage Dancers
* New Orleans Dance Week
* Prague-Provence Dance Weeks
* Stanford Historic Dance Week
* Grand Traditions Vintage Dance
* Society of Creative Anachronism
* Split Tree Farm
* Dance Grand Prix Italia
Historical Clothing:
* Victoria and Albert Museum
* Fashion Museum Bath
* Palais Galleria (Paris Fashion Museum)
* Musee de la Mode et du Textile
* Palazzo Pitti
* National Portrait Gallery, London
* National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC
* Kent State University
* Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
* American Textile History Museum, Lowell, MA
* Musee d'Orsay, Paris
* National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
* Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
* Stuttgart Museum
* Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Belgium
* Louvre Museum
* Blenheim Palace
* Jane Austen Museum, Bath
* Jane Austen's Home, Chawton
* Nymphenberg Palace
* North Carolina History Museum
* Old Courthouse Vicksburg
* Cincinnati Art Museum
International Folk Dancing
* Narodno! International Folk Dancers
* Zivio! Southern Slavic Dancers
* Celtic Renaissance Consort
* Royal Scottish Country Dance Society
* Kyiv Ukrainian Dance Ensemble
* Bagatelle French Club
* Folklore Village Dancers
* Pittsburgh Tuesday Night Folk Dancers
* Miami Valley Folk Dancers
Teachers - the biggest influence upon me as a dance teacher has been the vast number of talented and passionate people who have shared their love of dance with the world. There are at least 200 teachers under whom I have studied. To list only a few:
* Hannah Artuso
* Lieven Baert
* Marc Cassler
* Dick Crum
* Erich Gansmuller
* Martha Griffin
* Petur Iliev
* Zeljko Jergan
* Harry Khamis
* Roo Lester
* Artemis Mourat
* Yves Moreau
* Mady Newfield
* Lee Otterholt
* Steve Percer
* Richard Powers
* Patri Pugliese
* Cathy Stevens
* Marianne Taylor
* Hannelore Umfried
* Yvonne Vart
* Teodor Vascilescu
* Susanna del Vecchio
* Joan Walton
Sound system: Microphone, audio jack for laptop or hookups for live musicians if they are using amplification
2. Empty space for dancing
3. Chairs along the wall where people can change into dance shoes
Dance Instructor