ABSTRACT
Rolf Gardiner's construction of the landscape as a mystical repository of the past can be positioned within what Frank Trentmann calls "the larger matrix of a 'new romanticism'" in England during the early twentieth century. Gardiner explicitly aligns folk dance, primarily the English sword and Morris traditions, with the landscape, using a web of imagery drawn from nature, the seasons and pagan ritual. Gardiner's appropriation of ecstatic language and natural imagery to describe folk dance intensifies the sense of ancient knowledge and tradition as being embedded within the landscape. Gardiner's integration of folk dance within a wider framework of body culture was also mirrored in modern dance and movement contexts, within which nudism or Nacktkultur was particularly influential. While Gardiner attempts, therefore, on the one hand to segregate folk dance from modern dance, he can be seen on the other hand to incorporate distinct elements of the latter's aesthetic.
