Giga (dance)
The giga (in French: gigue) is a joyful baroque dance of English origin. In which one or two soloists perform fast, skipped and very complex steps with music in 6/8, 12/8, 3/8, 9/8 time, and appears as the last movement of the mature suite.
The term also refers to any contradance tune in jig time and any established dance (a contradance for a group of couples) to a jig tune.
Etymology
The various words for the dance form known as the Jigue or giga have a diffuse history, which in turn has led to confusion about the origin of the musical form. The origin of the word is unknown, but it probably came from the ancient verb giguer (which in French means to jump). This verb also seems to be the origin of the term jig, an English dance from which the jig is said to come.
In French, Italian and German, it seems to derive from the medieval word fiddle, violin, a word also used to designate the musician who played that instrument. This usage survives in modern German as Geige (violin), a survival that has contributed to greater uncertainty about the origin of the jig.
Although no jig choreography has survived from the 16th century, contemporary literary references suggest that jigs were fast pantomime dances, for one or more soloists, with a lively rhythm created for virtuoso footwork, and they were a bit risque. (Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing, act 2, scene i: “Wooing is hot and hasty like a Scotish jigge”).
Dean-Smith noted that the word “jig” may have derived from slang in a similar way to the more recent evolution of the word “jazz,” becoming a generic term encompassing many forms of neo-modern music and dance. -aristocracy. As with the first American slang meaning “jass,” most connotations of the English word “jig” in the 16th century were vulgar.
History
Dance was born in Ireland and England. The term seems to come from the French giguer (to play, to jump); However, it was repatriated as a musical form and developed specific musical characteristics on the Continent (Giga). In England it implied no special rhythmic characteristics, except in the hands of composers writing in imitation of the continental style (usually Italian and not French). Early examples included musical versions or specific variations on jig tunes that were sometimes named after the stage characters who performed them; Thus “Nobody's Jig”, from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and in other sources, refers to the character played by R. Reynolds in the comedy Somebody and Nobody.
The jig was adopted in France at the court of Louis XIV. It was known in France around the 1650s (Chambonnières) and became an important part of the repertoire for lute and harpsichord (Ennemond and Denis Gaultier, Nicolas-Antoine Lebègue). One type was considered a fast allemande, with the inclusion of dots (the Gaultier), but in stage music (Lully), the more familiar reexpositional binary variety with upturns, related to the canary, was used. In Johann Sebastian Bach's baroque suite, the jig is the final movement. The growing popularity of this type of dance during the second half of the XVII century is, for the most part, known thanks to the work by Jean-Baptiste Lully. The first dance dubbed the jig in Lully's ballets de cou r appears in 1660, and sixteen more appear in his works up to 1687.
In the Baroque era, jigs could be composed either for a theater (whose dance was performed individually) or for a ballroom (which, on the contrary, was danced as a couple). The theatrical jig consisted of a virtuoso dance composed of pirouettes that demonstrated the technique of the professional dancer. The ballroom jig was much simpler in technique, but had the same liveliness. It served to demonstrate skills and mastery of dance steps; However, as in all baroque court dances, it had to be accompanied by an elegant bearing.
At the beginning of the 18th century, Italian influence generally prevailed (François couperin, Rameau). His tempo varied but was usually fast: livelier than a loure, slower than a canary. In Italy it was much faster and was especially common in violin music (Vitali, op. 4, 1668), often as the last movement of solo sonatas (Domenico Zipoli) and trio sonatas (Corelli). In Germany, most composers use the French imitative texture (Froberger), often establishing a closer relationship between sections by using an inversion of the motif as the subject of the second section (for example the Gigue de la French Suite number 4, by Bach). They frequently favored fluid movement in triplets (Handel, Bach). Jigs written in simple binary time usually require performance in triplets.
Approximately a dozen gigas of the dances and theaters of the XVIII century can be found choreographed in the notation that transcribed dances of the century XVIII. Two dances by Raoul-Auger Feuillet and Guillaume-Louis Pecour contain the most famous testimonies of choreographies of this genre. The “Guigue pour Homme” and the “Gigue à Deux” can be found in Feuillet's compilation of dances Recüeil de danzes, published in 1700. Pecour's “La contredance” can be found in another Feuillet compilation, published that same year.
Giga types
In the music of this period, two different types of gigas emerged: the Italian and the French. The time signature of the French jig was usually 3/4, 6/8 or 6/4. The Italian jig presents triadic figures, with sequential scales in regular values in 12/8 with a fast tempo. Its texture is mainly homophonic and the phrases are divided into units of four measures. All the choreographies that remain today belong to French dance. Many composers, especially in Germany, combined elements of the two schools.
In addition to being deeply rooted in Irish tradition, jigs were very popular in Scotland and England in the 16th century. Related to the modern clog dances of England, they were often used in theater. The English jig, which is danced on two crossed clay pipes, closely resembles the sword dance of Gillie Callum from Scotland.