author
Raoul-Auger Feuillet
1659–1710
A key figure in the history of dance writing, this French choreographer and dancing master helped turn movement into something that could be recorded, studied, and passed on. His 1700 book Chorégraphie became a landmark for preserving the elegant dances of the Baroque era.
1 Audiobook
Orchesography, or, the Art of Dancing The Art of Dancing by Characters and Demonstrative Figures
by Raoul-Auger Feuillet
About the author
Working in Paris around the turn of the 18th century, Raoul-Auger Feuillet was a French dancing master, choreographer, publisher, and notator. He is best remembered for publishing Chorégraphie, ou l'art de décrire la danse in 1700, a book that set out a clear system for writing down dance steps and floor patterns.
That notation, now commonly called Beauchamp-Feuillet notation, made it possible to preserve dances in a much more exact way than oral teaching alone. Feuillet's published collections included ballroom and theatrical dances, and his work helped spread choreographic ideas well beyond the moment of performance.
Some reference works disagree on details of his birth year, but they consistently place his life in the late 17th and early 18th centuries and his death in 1710. What remains certain is his lasting importance: for dance historians and performers, Feuillet's writing opened a path for choreography to be documented and revived centuries later.