Nouvelle methode pour apprendre l'art de la danse sans maitre, contenant la description du Menuet Francais, Menuet Congo, Allemandes a deux, trois et quatre, [...] et de tous les mouvemens qui servent a composer la figure des Contre-danses Francaises et Allemandes (Sieur Brives, Maitre de Danse, Toulouse 1779)

Dance manual/reference by Sieur Brives, Maitre de Danse / chez l'Auteur, rue de la Baruthe, Toulouse 1779. Source: DATA/LIBRARY_OF_DANCE/ABBYY TXT/1779-Brives-Nouvelle_(Toulouse).txt (705 lines OCR; clean French 18c print). STRUCTURE: 7 chapters — (I) Description du Menuet Francais (the standard pre-Revolutionary French ballroom Menuet, taught via 8 lessons; introduces the Five Positions, Plier/Relever pedagogy, Demi-coupe, Pas marche, Pas grave, Salut, Pirouette, Bascule, Coupe, Emboite, Jete, Pas tombe, Glisse, Temps de Marseille); (II) Description du Menuet Congo (the Creole/colonial Menuet variant; PRE-DATES the Moreau 1801 Saint-Domingue attestation by 22 years); (III) Discours analogue en forme de principe touchant les Danses Allemandes (theoretical introduction to the Allemande); (IV) Description de l'Allemande a deux (30+ numbered passes, fleaux, tableaux, jeux de mains, demi-passes, passe a sept temps, passe a huit temps, passe du cou — the most extensive late-18c French Allemande a deux pedagogy in any source); (V) Description de l'Allemande a trois; (VI) Description de l'Allemande a quatre; (VII) Description de tous les mouvemens qui servent a composer la figure des Contredanses (the 12 fundamental contredanse mouvements: Cerceaux brises, Chaines de quatre, Chaines de huit, Chaines a l'Anglaise, Chasses croises, Chasses ouverts, Chasses a la Marquise, Course, Queue de chat, Moulinets, Poussette, Carre de Mahony). PEDAGOGICAL ROLE: 'sans maitre' (without-a-master) self-instruction format — early example of the 'how-to-dance-yourself' genre that culminates in the 19c Hillgrove/Howe/Cellarius mass-market manuals. Brives' Avertissement explicitly addresses 'mon cher Lecteur' rather than addressing a master-pupil hierarchy. ROSETTA STONE LINKS: (a) Brives Menuet Congo Chapter II PRE-DATES Moreau 1801 (H-BAR-MIN-F0021 Menuet Congo) by 22 years — first European-French attestation of the Menuet Congo as a named ballroom dance; (b) Brives' Five Positions, Plier/Eleve, Pas glisse, Pas tombe match Malpied 1770 (H-BAR-VAR-F0001..F0011) — Rosetta confirmation that the Malpied pedagogy was the established Toulouse standard a decade later; (c) Brives' Demi-coupe and Pas grave match Rameau 1725 (H-BAR-VAR-F0025, F0027) — Rosetta confirmation that the Rameau-Pecour technical vocabulary survived intact 54 years later in provincial Toulouse. HISTORIC SIGNIFICANCE: the most substantial late-18c French Allemande a deux pedagogy in any corpus; documents the late-Baroque French belle-danse-into-galant transition at the moment when the Allemande was beginning its absorption into the contredanse framework (cf. Landrin c.1760 'La Colerne pour l'Allemande' contredanse air, H-REN-ALL-F0009). Brives also documents the Menuet Congo as a named European-attested dance form 22 years before its Saint-Domingue/Moreau attestation, raising questions about whether the Menuet Congo arrived in colonial Saint-Domingue from European sources or developed in parallel. Has_Step_Detail = Partial (named-pas pedagogy and detailed prose figure-by-figure technique are present; full per-step Foot-Position / Rise-and-Fall / Sway / CBM technical vocabulary is in narrative prose rather than structured columns). (1779). Imported from local collection.