ABSTRACT
Anne Margrete Fiskvik’s chapter, ‘“Nemo ei in orbe terrarium in artibus par est.” The ladder, rope and wire repertoire of itinerant artist Michael Stuart’, is about this dancer, acrobat, and equilibrist’s performances in Trondheim in the summer of 1769. Fiskvik’s main focus is to shed light on itinerant rope and wire performing, which ran parallel to dance at established theatres. She gives an overview of itinerant performing and training in the Nordic sphere and general European repertoire before turning to the treatment of itinerant repertoire in historical dance treatises and modern scholarly literature. The comic, grotesque, and acrobatic styles were typical of itinerant dancing. The most important sources concerning Stuart’s and his wife’s stay in Trondheim are the newspaper advertisements and posters and copies of contracts and bills in the Regional State Archive of Trondheim. These give detailed textual and visual information about Stuart’s repertoire, and show that rope and wire dancing were his specialities, especially dancing on the slack wire. The dances themselves are explored, and Stuart’s performances described in more detail. Fiskvik discusses whether the performances of itinerant artists were understood as dance or acrobatics. This seems to have varied historically, but she defends this entertainment as dance worthy of scholarly investigation.
