Dancing on the Strand: The Adelphi Theatre’s Dance Repertoire, 1840–1860

Dance was ubiquitous on the early Victorian stage but theatre dance of the period has received little critical attention. Examination of the repertoire of the Adelphi Theatre in London in 1840–1860 shows that dance occurred in a wide range of theatrical contexts including melodrama, farce, extravaganza and burlesque. The Adelphi also specialised in adaptations of Romantic ballets that combined spectacle, narrative, dance and song. In such theatre pieces dance could be not only decorative, but also fully integrated into the structural and thematic contexts in which it was embedded. In The Enchanted Isle, for example, dance makes a suggestive contribution to the political agenda of the play.