Dancing Queen - Marie de Medicis' Ballets at the Court of Henri IV (Relié)

Under glittering lights in the Louvre palace, the French court ballets danced by Queen Marie de Médicis prior to Henri IV's assassination in 1610 attracted thousands of spectators ranging from pickpockets to ambassadors from across Europe. Drawing on newly discovered primary sources as well as theories and methodologies derived from literary studies, political history, musicology, dance studies, and women's and gender studies, Dancing Queen traces how Marie's ballets underscored her incipient political authority through innovative verbal and visual, imagery, avant-garde musical developments, and ceremonial arrangements of objects and bodies in space.
Making use of women's semi-official status as political agents, Marie's ballets also manipulated the subtle social and cultural codes of international courtly society in order to more deftly navigate rivalries and alliances both at honk and abroad.