Barbara Sparti
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Barbara Sparti is a dance historian specialized in 15th-17th century Italian dance.
She founded and directed the company Gruppo di Danza Rinascimentale (1975 -1988) which performed in concerts, festivals, exhibitions and conferences throughout Italy and Europe, from Spoleto to Como, Berlin to Moscow, Barcelona to London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall.
She has choreographed operas and plays by Caccini, Cavalieri, Gagliano, Monteverdi, Goldoni and Ruzzante, for stage and TV.
Starting in 1973 she has been teaching practical courses in Italian Renaissance dance in Italy, Europe, North America, and Japan. She was “Distinguished Visiting Professor” at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1990, guest lecturerchoreographer in Israel in 1997, at University of California Santa Cruz (2000), and at Princeton University (in residence in April 2002). Besides her edition-translation of Guglielmo Ebreo’s 1463 dance treatise (Oxford University Press, 1993/95), and her Introduction to the facsimile edition of a newly discovered 1614 dance treatise (Olms, 2004), she publishes on questions regarding style and aesthetics, improvisation and ornamentation, socio-economic and political contexts, dance music, the gagliarda, Jewish dancing-masters, dance iconography, the moresca, and Italian baroque dance.
