The Gentleman Dancing-Master

This book is a study of the life and work of the most significant dancing-master at the English court throughout the reign of Queen Anne. Francis Thorpe, better known as Mr Isaac, adopted his father’s professional name both as a dancer in Paris and London and subsequently as dancing-master at the court of Princess, later Queen, Anne. Isaac’s career is discussed within the wider context of court culture in late-Stuart London and includes reprints of his twenty-two surviving ball-dances, created either to celebrate Queen Anne’s birthdays or named after individual courtiers or important political events. Isaac championed the new French system of recording dances, now known as Beauchamps-Feuillet dance notation, and was the first in London to commission notators to turn his dances into a publishable form. In due course most of these notations were sold through the music firm of Walsh and Hare, who not only preserved them within the music book trade in London but also attributed much of their music to the court musician James Paisible. Using new information from extensive archival sources, the book follows Isaac’s career as a dancer, teacher, and choreographer of sophisticated danced duets, some of which were also performed in the theatre. By also considering the extant dances from the point of view of a dancer, this study also throws light on Isaac’s elegant, sometimes humorous, and invariably individualistic approach to creating prestigious dances for his day.