The Teacher of Dance

What is it about?

The De musica of Aristides Quintilianus, a Roman period author and music theorist unknown apart from this treatise, presents several tantalizing claims on the relationship between dance and three areas of music theory: harmonics, metrics, and, most importantly, rhythmics. Elliptical as Aristides’ remarks on dance may be, if they are considered together with his treatment of the harmonic ‘systems’ more widely used to analyze musical phenomena, a technical discourse around dance can be elicited from the evidence. But ultimately Aristides’ philosophical commitments and the aesthetic qualities of dance confound this discourse on dance, so that, by comparison with the three sciences of musical phenomena, it was only modestly developed. I conclude that Aristides considers the dancing body only minimally conformable to the systems imposed on bodies according to Aristides' theology, almost a remainder unassimilable to the perfections of musical order, and yet somehow orderly enough to be treated according to their proportions.

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