Music and dances

of the Spanish nights

of the Renaissance

¡BAILAMOS! Is a concert where you will hear the BIGGEST MUSICAL HITS of the Spanish Renaissance – pieces and songs that were danced to in Royal courts, as well as by the common people at festivals and celebrations. This is a concert programme of music born in the heart of the Iberian Peninsula and from the Spanish speaking colonies of the New World.

Pavans, galiards, folias, calatas, canarios, pivas, romanescas and passamezzos… the programme of ¡BAILAMOS! is comprised of rhythmic, lively, and popular works, and many versions of these pieces can be found in song books and sources of the epoch. In the 16th century, compilations of pieces were collected in songbooks, which were the ‘playlists’ of the time for Court parties and celebrations.

Windu transforms the stage into a dance floor, and, as in the Renaissance, the DJ of today is replaced with live musicians, with a range of slow and fast dances, catchy melodies, and foot- tapping tunes, and we present them with choreography in pairs and as a quartet. In short –the top songs of the 16th century hit parade! We present fresh and innovative arrangements made by ourselves that would impress and delight any noble person of the Renaissance high society who might attend our exclusive party.

In Spain, they danced – and not just a little! While the peasants engaged in dances and songs with racy lyrics, the court dances were the main entertainment of the nobility and was one of the few occasions when physical contact could be made in public without provoking the gossip of the lords and ladies in attendance. What a time that was – we are still waiting to see our royalty engage in a little dancing in public!

The 16th century saw the publication of a great deal of dance music, although often the published music consisted of arrangements for lute and keyboard that were quite different from the instruments that played the same music at dance halls. Much 16th-century music was not written to be played by a specific instrument, but the composer left the possibility for the music to be played by whatever range of instruments were available at any given moment.