Dancing in Merlin?

[Arwen17]

You know what? There were never any dance scenes in Merlin. Unless you count that spastic thing Mab and Frik did in the throne room lol.

Uther asked to dance with Igraine, but we never saw any actual dancing ever. Never saw Merlin dance with Nimue either etc.

I wonder what type of dancing would have occurred during the time period? I assume it was very formal with very little physical touching. Probably even a waltz is too much touching.


Side Note:
I may have been watching a ton of tango stuff in preparation for my next figure skating program and I just really would like to see a waltz or tango from Mab lol.
I imagine Mab and Vortigern dancing tango, but getting rough with each other like the tango from Mr. and Mrs. Smith loool. Vortigern would start it, because of his temper, but Mab would finish it haha.
The tango that won Gold in the last Olympics: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOEKdWrtz6U

[himiko]

You're right - I just went back and watched Uther's coronation scene again and we never see any dancing, even in the background. I can't think of any other scenes where it might have taken place - other than Mab and Frik, as you say, and that's more of a "celebration" than a particular style of dance that you would do with another person/ group of people. The closest public approximation I can think of is in football (or soccer, for US people) when someone scores a goal and they sometimes do a little dance or just run around cheering.

In terms of what dancing from that period would have looked like, my knowledge is extremely limited. I imagine most recognisable "modern" dances such as waltzes etc. wouldn't necessarily exist then (or at least, not under that name). I imagine there were probably folk dances, maybe some ritual ones that Mab would be familiar with from her worshippers?

Out of interest I was browsing Wikipedia (which I know is not necessarily the most in depth resource) and on a page about Mediaeval dancing it says the earliest reference to a couple dancing with one another (rather than dancing as a group) dates from approx. the 11th Century.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_dance#Couple_dances

This is quite interesting, as, assuming I have read it correctly and it refers to couple dancing in Europe as a whole, rather than to Germany in particular, this is several centuries after Merlin is set. So I would imagine Uther asking to dance with Igraine specifically would have been quite unusual (unless we interpret it as Uther asking to ensure that Igraine dances when he does, rather than sitting on the sidelines with her husband). Possibly Uther would have been coming across as even more of a randy bastard to the characters than he does to modern audiences?

[sleepyqueenie]

I'd just like to say this topic is fascinating.