Canarie (dance)

The Canario (Italian ) or Canarie (French ) is a dance that has been prevalent in the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly in Italy. The dance is said to have originally developed in Spain and have emerged from a folk dance of the natives of the Canary Islands, hence the name.

The Canario was a moving dance in 3/8- or 6/8-measure, which was characterized by numerous cracks. While other dances as the galliard and the Courante in the late Renaissance period were marked by generally customary step sequences, could be largely freely improvised when Canario.

Choreography for the Canario are narrated in the books of the Italian dancing master Cesare Negri, Fabritio Caroso and Livio Lupi di Caravaggio. The Frenchman Thoinot Arbeau describes this dance in his Orchésographie. From the beginning of the 18th century, some canarie choreographies have been handed down in the notation of Raoul Auger Feuillet -.