De la danse : considérée sous le rapport de l'éducation physique

Alerme, P.-E. À Paris, Chez les marchands de nouveautés, et chez tous les librairies des théâtres, 1830 First edition P. E. Alerme based this writing on letters to students and friends. Alerme considered dance an integral part of physical education. This text was written for the middle class, an attempt to democratize dance but also to ensure, through proper education that the art of dance would remain on an elevated artistic and social level. Alerme was with the Royal Academy of Music in Paris, and passed along details about the conventions of theatrical dancing that he believed should be reflected in the manners of social dancing - in formal ballroom settings and at more intimate functions. The author proposed the use of a mechanical corset, for either sex, to help prevent "falling" into sin while dancing the night away. Alerme's serious if not somewhat naïve treatise presages several qualities found in the opportunistic characters of late nineteenth French novels by writers such as Maupassant, Flaubert, and Zola. Alerme's work was referenced often in later nineteenth-century dance literature. University of Utah copy in original blue wrappers.