Historical Dance Program
Faculty

Kaspar D. Mainz. After appearing professionally as a ballet dancer in numerous European theatres and opera houses, Kaspar Mainz continued his studies in dance pedagogy and choreography, specializing in the reconstruction and choreography of historical dance forms. He is the Artistic Director of the music/dance/theatre company Delicæ Theatrales, and he has appeared in more than 400 theatrical performances in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Mr. Mainz created and played the lead role in a theater piece with music and dance focusing on the life and work of Händel, which was premiered at the Händel Festival in Halle in June of 1999. In Leipzig, he has given many dance performances in such venues as the Gewandhaus and the Alte Handelsbörse. Mr. Mainz recently formed a professional historical dance troupe, Ars Saltatoria in Halle, Germany. For six years, Mr. Mainz was the Artistic Director of Musica et Saltatoria, an ensemble which has performed throughout Europe offering music and dance from the Renaissance through the early nineteenth century. In the United States, he has presented Baroque dance workshops at New York University, Goucher College and SUNY Stony Brook; he has also performed with Piffaro. His reconstruction of Beauchamp’s Sarabande was presented at a dance conference in London in 1996, and published in the Derra de Moroda Festschrift in 1997. He has prepared a set of instructions for historical dances to accompany a piano method for children that has been published by Schott Verlag. Mr. Mainz has taught at Salzburg University, University of Leipzig, Salzburg Mozarteum, the University (Musikhochschule) of Nürnberg-Augsburg, and the University of Graz. He has also directed a Baroque dance ensemble at the Händelhaus in Halle, Germany. Mr. Mainz is the Artistic Director of the New York Historical Dance Company (www.newyorkhistoricaldance.com). Mr. Mainz has co-authored (with Dorothy Olsson) seven books on historical dance.

Dorothy Olsson received her B. M. in Music Education, major in Bassoon, from the Crane School of Music (State University College at Potsdam, NY), and her Master of Music in Musicology from Manhattan School of Music. She completed her Ph.D. in Performance Studies at New York University, with a dissertation on early twentieth-century dance, entitled Arcadian Idylls; Dances of Early Twentieth-Century American Pageantry. For ten years, she was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Dance Education at New York University. Dr. Olsson’s article on “Seventeenth-Century Dance” appears in A Performer’s Guide to Seventeenth-Century Music (ed. Stewart Carter, Schirmer Books). Dorothy is the founder and director of The New York Historical Dance Company (www.newyorkhistoricaldance.com), a group of dancers devoted to the study, recreation and performance of dances from the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries. Costumed in period clothing, the company performs social and theatrical dances from Europe and America. The company has performed with Piffaro, Parthenia—A Consort of Viols, the Philadelphia Classical Symphony, and the New Dance Group. Dr. Olsson has given numerous workshops in historical dance and has choreographed for the Stony Brook Opera, Folger Consort, Western Wind Vocal Ensemble, Mannes Camerata (Mannes College of Music), Wake Forest University and Princeton University. Dorothy has choreographed for and/or directed several historical theatrical productions at the Amherst Early Music Festival and at the Country Dance and Song Society Early Music Week. Dr. Olsson has co-authored (with Kaspar D. Mainz) seven books on historical dance.

Peggy Murray. A former professional ballet and jazz dancer, Peggy Murray is pursuing a doctoral degree in performance studies at Ohio University’s School of Interdisciplinary Arts. Her research focuses on dance history and the historical role of dance in opera; she continues to study and perform early dance styles in Renaissance and Baroque-era productions. She also teaches movement and choreographs for the University’s Opera Theater program.

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