The 'Classic' or 'Romantic' ballet of the 1830s and 1840s was replete with what were then called 'dances of national character'. These folk-based forms encompassed an international geography including the Caribbean, North Africa, Eastern Europe and India, with a special fixation on dances of Spanish origin. A new professionalized class of flexible dancers emerged to render these national idioms in step with audience demand and they were matched by a class of artists and printers who documented, amplified, and embroidered their travel in images.
This part of the dissertation follows the traces left in the archive by women dancers who passed not only across the boundaries of national habits but also across the stages of theatres, clubs, saloons, music halls, drawing rooms and streets in imperial London.
