Holt begins his discussion with a history of "chorography" and the work of famed eighteenth-century dancing masters and choreographers Guillaume-Louis Pecour, Pierre Beauchamps, and Raoul-Auger Feuillet. Several pages of dances written in the dance notation system devised by Feuillet are included. Holt's "reconstruction" of the pavan includes the appropriate music from Thoinot Arbeau's 1588 manual, Orchesographie. For decades, the inclusion of the notation and music was deceiving to many unsuspecting people who used Holt's manual to reconstruct dances for the Renaissance and Baroque. Holt's interpretations bear no resemblance to the originals; however, they do clearly illuminate the romanticized aura that began to surround such dances as the minuet during the nineteenth century. Line drawings and photographs enhance Holt's manual.

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