A little (writing about) dancing for Saturday night! My article "Dancing in silence in premodern Europe" just came out in postmedieval as part of a special issue on the "Legacies of medieval dance" edited by Kathryn Dickason. It's about what happens to the connection between music and movement when the music is unheard, inaudible, absent...

Full-text access here: https://rdcu.be/dhmC3

Abstract: In contemporary scholarship, emphasis on music and dance as intertwined art forms drives the popularity of terms such as choreomusicology. Premodern dance and music practices, however, are difficult to link together in the absence of evidence aligning music and choreography, calling into question the very categories of ‘music’ and ‘dance.’ This essay interrogates the relationship between dance and music in premodern Europe by focusing on moments when bodies move seemingly unaccompanied or unmotivated by audible music. Through case studies on choreomania and mystical dance I ask what is heard versus what is unheard, and who hears what when dance happens. I explore the interplay between embodied, corporeal, ‘real’ dance practices and inaudible, incorporeal, ‘virtual’ music. What happens to dance when music is inaudible to listeners or participants? What does imagined versus sounded music do to the perception of the cultural and theological meanings of movement practices in premodern Europe?