Embodied History
Cello, left, wears a stylish straw hat while Gamba, right, sports the most fashionable tricorn
When I’m not sewing, I’m a musician. Specifically, I play baroque cello and viola da gamba, so I’m a specialist in historical performance. That means I play on instruments that are as close to their original versions as possible, and aim to play the music in ways it might have been played when it was first heard. It’s the intersection of music and history in a very tangible way and it’s a lot of fun!
Sometimes, if people haven’t heard of historical performance before they might ask me “is that like at a renaissance fair where you dress up as a pirate or something.” And the answer is….no. But also kind of yes? Because while there’s some truth to older stereotypes of historical performance happening in questionable costumes, there’s also a lot (and I mean A LOT) that we can learn from exploring not only the sounds but also the clothing of the past.
Yours truly in a not-too-tight-to-play-instruments-in dress
For example, we often hear that women in the 18th century didn’t play the violin because they “couldn’t lift their arms because of the way their dresses were cut.”
Well, guess what. It turns out that how you place your armscye (that’s the opening where the sleeve attaches) makes a BIG difference to your shoulder mobility while wearing a garment. 18th century armscyes were set closer to the body than modern styles, which means that even though they fit tighter than many of us are used to, the range of motion is only really restricted if you try to lift your arms over your head.
And guess what else! Playing the violin in the 18th century did not involve lifting your arms over your head! (It doesn’t really now either but I guess modern musicians do tend to flail dramatically from time to time?) It’s true that women in the 18th century tended not to play violin. But some did, and those that didn’t weren’t opting out because their dresses were too tight.
Just like there are those of us who are interested in how music can be embodied history, there are also those of us studying historical dance. As you might imagine, having the proper garments (and for women’s dress, especially having the right UNDERgarments) can have a huge impact on how a dancer uses their body.
I’ll be the first to tell you I’m not a great dancer, but I enjoyed learning a lot about historical dance during my time at Case Western where we worked with Julie Andrijeski who is both a violinist and a dancer. It wasn’t until I’d been learning for nearly 2 years that I was first able to try doing it with stays on. And let me tell you, even for someone who had experience wearing them before, dancing in them was a revelation. If you’ve ever worn a dress that had boning in it or even a particularly snug waistcoat, you’ll have some idea of how even gentle shaping from a garment can dramatically change the way you use your body.
I have a good friend who is a beautiful dancer as well as being a violinist and she will be completing her DMA this spring. She’s doing her lecture recital on a dance topic and will be dancing extensively for that. While there are some costumes available at the school for her to use, because she is quite petite, most of them just don’t fit her. So to scratch my historical costuming itch and help her out, we’re working on a bunch of costume pieces for her that she’ll use for a couple of performances in May (and hopefully in the future as well!)
My first day of work at Colonial Williamsburg was surreal in the best possible way
It’s a big undertaking, involving a lot of techniques I don’t have much experience with, but I’m up for the challenge and I’m learning a lot in the process! And a lot of that learning has come from amazing people who have shared their own experiences online. So I decided to have a go at documenting the process here because honestly writing a blog post suits me much better than only trying to condense all of this down into social media posts. I hope you’ll enjoy following along and that you’ll let me know if you’re here so I can tell if I’m talking to myself or not!