Monferrina

For the Italian wine grape also known as Monferrina, see Nebbiolo.

Italian folk dance

Monferrina is a lively Italian folk dance in 6/8 time named after the place of its origin, Montferrat, in the Italian region of Piedmont. It has spread from Piedmont throughout Northern Italy, in Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and even into Switzerland. In Piedmont, it is usually accompanied by singing and it is danced by several couples.^[1]

The dance starts with two circular promenades by couples arm-in-arm using a lively march step. The individual couples then join both hands for a cross-step with bent knees. The dance often contains bows and mimed teasing and coaxing.^[1][2]

The dance goes under several different names: Monferrina di Friuli, Monfrenna bulgnaisa (from the province of Bologna), Monfrenna mudnaisa (from the Province of Modena), Giardiniera or Jardinière and Baragazzina.^[1][3]

Sachs takes the two part structure of the dance, a procession followed by a couple figure, as indicative of its antiquity along with other Italian folk dances of this type such as the Trescone, Giga and Bergamesco.^[4]

English Country Dance

A Monferrina was an 18th-century country dance, named for its Italian place of origin, which became popular in England around 1800 under the names monfrina, monfreda, and manfredina. It was a lively dance to music in 6/8 time. Collections of music for the dance include Wheatstone's Country Dances for 1810.^[5]

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c} Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro (1931). Costumi, musica, danze e feste popolari italiane. Roma: Edizione O.N.D.. 
2. ^ Galanti, Bianca M. (1950). Dances of Italy. New York: Chanticleer Press. p. 7–8. 
3. ^ Ungarelli, Gaspare (1894). Le vecchie danze italiane ancora in uso nella provincia bolognese. Rome: Arnaldo Forni. p. 64,67,71. 
4. ^ Sachs, Curt (1963). World History of the Dance. New York: W. W. Norton. p. 278. ISBN 0-393-00209-8. 
5. ^ "Monferrina" in Don Michael Randel, ed (1986). New Harvard Dictionary of Music. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-61525-5. 

External links

• Example from Smithsonian recording