WFU presents music and dance from Renaissance Italy

The musicians and dancers will be dressed in Renaissance costume.

Founded in 1983, the Wake Forest Consort is one of the few ensembles-in-residence in the United States devoted to early music. The ensemble performs regularly at Wake Forest and has toured throughout the eastern United States. The musicians perform a wide variety of repertoire including medieval, Renaissance and early baroque music using reproductions of early instruments and historically informed performance styles.

The early music ensemble is composed of Wake Forest faculty members, including Teresa Radomski, soprano; Helen Rifas, harp; Tom Turnbull, recorder and harpsichord; Carol Marsh, viola da gamba; and Stewart Carter, recorder and sackbut.

The New York Historical Dance Company is a group of dancers devoted to the study, recreation and performance of dances from the 15th through 19th centuries. Costumed in period clothing, the company performs social and theatrical dances from Europe and America.

Directed by Dorothy J. Olsson and Kaspar Mainz, the New York Historical Dance Company has performed with the Philadelphia Classical Symphony, the New Dance Group, Piffaro, and Parthenia–a Consort of Viols.

Olsson has given numerous workshops in historical dance and has choreographed for the Folger Consort, Western Wind Vocal Ensemble and Mannes Camerata. She is an adjunct assistant professor of dance education at New York University. Olsson’s article on “Seventeenth-Century Dance” appears in “A Performer’s Guide to Seventeenth-Century Music,” a 1997 book edited by Stewart Carter.

Mainz specializes in the reconstruction and choreography of historical dance forms. He has appeared in more than 250 theatrical performances in Germany, Austria and Luxembourg. He has taught at Salzburg University, the University of Leipzig, the Salzburg Mozarteum and the University of Graz.

Admission is free. For information, call 336-758-5026.