Theoretical and Practical Treatise on Dancing; Gennaro Magri

'Magri's Trattato Teorico-Prattico di Ballo is a key to understanding the development of ballet technique' wrote Marian Hannah Winter in her Pre-romantic ballet (1974), 'for Magri knew and discussed all the genres and was a dedicated and painstaking explicator. It is the most valuable 18th century treatise on ballet technique'.

Concerned with dance technique and execution, Magri's text is full of all sorts of pertinent information on what steps were performed and how to perform them, and is the single most important work bridging the gap between pre-romantic ballet technique and the beginnings of classical technique as we know it today.

Magri's work, as a result of his idiosyncratic use of Italian, was long regarded as untranslatable. The English dance scholar Mary Skeaping, aided by a group of experts and enthusiasts, worked for many years on this translation, but died shortly before completing it. Her work was finally brought to a conclusion and edited by her dedicated assistant Irmgard Berry, and is here published for the first time.