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The paper enquires into the ornamental status of decorative objects in nineteenth- century dance performances, focusing on the seemingly additional elements such as ribbons, wreaths, and flower sticks. Using ornament theories by Jacques Derrida and Jean-Claude Bonne, I scrutinise the character of the additional and superfluous and take a new look at dance ornamentality from the margins. To what extent do these materialised decorations correspond to dance figures and body movements, and how does a new view of ornamental objects also change the understanding of dance itself? Do these ornamental elements even have their own agency, so that they must be included in the interpretation of choreographies? The question is not only about the ancient and often architectural origins of ornamental elements such as wreath and festoon, which are unmistakable in nineteenth-century dance, especially in the wake of Carlo Blasis’ Elementary Treatise upon the Theory and Practice of the Art of Dancing (1820). What also needs to be clarified is what happens to these ornamental elements at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of dance modernism. Do tassels, ribbons, and festoons disappear as completely and without any trace as one might initially think, or do these things have a decorative afterlife in modern dance?

Alexander H. Schwan is a dance scholar and theologian with a research focus on spirituality, religion, and ethics. He is currently Principal Investigator of the DFG research project ‘Theologies of Modern Dance’ at the Freie Universität Berlin, where he is exploring the theological implications in the works of modernist choreographers in Europe, Israel, and the US. His scholarly interests also include the intersection of dance and visual studies and the connection of performance with continental philosophy and critical theory. Alexander has been a Visiting Lecturer at UC Santa Barbara and has held visiting fellowships at UC Berkeley, Princeton University, and Harvard University. His article “Queering Jewish Dance: Baruch Agadati” (DRJ 54:2, 2022) was awarded an Honourable Mention for the 2023 DSA Gertrude Lippincott Award for the best English-language article in dance studies in 2022. Alexander recently published a special issue of the journal Performance Philosophy, which deals with the ethics of contemporary dance.