Welcome to Trouvere's resource page for Tudor music and dance. On this page you can download the music and choreography to learn and perform a Tudor dance at school. On this page you can also buy our 'Tudor Music and Dance' pack online.

Click here to download a Tudor Dance

please note - the music include in the downloadable soundfile is in a MP3 format which is a compressed version of the original to reduce the time it takes to download. As a result the sound quality will not be as good as the CD version.

The Tudor Music and Dance pack

The downloadable dance given above is taken from our educational resource pack Medieval and Tudor Dance - A Guide for Schools.

This Guide for Schools is intended for teachers who are keen to explore the medieval and Tudor periods with their classes. It is especially intended to accompany Tudor studies at Key Stage 2, and medieval studies at Key Stage 3, but some of the simpler branles (Torch, Horse, Clog) can be great fun at Key Stage 1. Detailed descriptions and music are given of eight dances and the music for each, performed on period instruments, is given on an accompanying CD.

Most of the dances in the Guide are branles taken from the Orchesography of Thoinot Arbeau, a dance manual written in France in the later sixteenth century. . It is often supposed that the branle (pronounced "brawl") was a more rustic style of dance, and the lively actions certainly contrast with the stately formality of bassadanzas and pavans. Literary accounts of peasant dancing are unsurprisingly lacking, but there are plenty of images of "low status" dancing in Durer or Brueghel especially. Perhaps here we can capture something of the flavour of the branle. However, it is clear that the branles were also known at court, and two other more high status dances are also given in the Guide.

Medieval and Tudor Dance

Price £15 + £2 P&P

If you would like to contact Trouvère Medieval Minstrels then email us

Tel no. 0772 0118406