La Gavotine - Variation on the Gavotte de Vestris
The Gavotte de Vestris enjoyed a rare longevity for an eighteenth-century dance, lasting well into the twentieth century. It was originally a solo performed by Auguste Vestris, choreographed by Maximilien Gardel, in the comic opera Panurge dans l'Ile des Lanternes, by André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry, first performed by the Académie Royale de Musique on January the 25th 1785. La Gavotte de Vestris has been performed many times by different dancing masters, mainly in a version for one couple, with variants or arrangements and variations for several dancers (Jean-Etienne Despréaux, Michel Saint-Léon, Carlo Blasis, Edward Alcott Théleur, Gustave Desrat, Friedrich Albert Zorn, Eugène Giraudet, Georges d'Egville...).
The manuscript Dance Book T B. 1826 (2026 will mark the 200th anniversary of this manuscript) contains a version for three dancers and a variation for four couples. The workshop is an opportunity to discover La Gavotine, a dance for four couples based on the principle of a quadrille using the “solo” parts of the Gavotte de Vestris.
Irène Feste, Arcueil, France
A dancer, choreographer and teacher specialized in early dance from the 16th to the 19th century. She trained in Baroque dance with Christine Bayle and her company L'Eclat des Muses. She has performed with several companies in France and Europe (Danses au (Pas)sé, Les Corps Eloquents, Divertimenty, Doulce Mémoire, Il Ballo...). She has choreographed for the theatre in productions by Pascal Ruiz and for the cinema (Les Trois Mousquetaires by Martin Bourboulon; Le Comte de Monte-Cristo by Alexandre De La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte).
Her research focuses on the development of dance in the early 19th century, and has been awarded several research grants from the Centre national de la Danse: on the treatises of Jean-Henri Gourdoux-Daux, the notebooks of Michel Saint-Léon and on the quadrilles of Jean-Etienne Despréaux and his system of choreographic notation, La Terpsichorographie. This research was supported by the Centre National de la Danse, the Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art and the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
