About The Early Dance Consort

The Early Dance Consort is the home of early dance in Sydney, opening a window on the lively and elegant world of European court dance from the Renaissance and Baroque eras.

In performance, Consort directors Fiona Garlick & John Barnard have appeared with many of Australia’s leading early music ensembles, including the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, The Marais Project, The Musicke, Pastance, the Telemann Ensemble, Musica da Camera and the Renaissance Players, as well as with the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong.

Teaching activities include workshops, lecture-demonstrations and master-classes for schools, universities, music societies.  The Early Dance Consort’s regular classes in Court Dancing attract students from a wide range of backgrounds, from musicians, teachers, dancers and actors to people with a passion for social and dance history, costume and music.

Fiona Garlick is a leading authority on historical dance, with a background in classical ballet, and doctorate in French court dance under Louis XIV.  Her specialty is reconstruction and performance of dances recorded in notation, in particular those from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.  She has presented and published scholarly papers on early dance and related subjects both in Australia and overseas.  As artistic director and choreographer for the Early Dance Consort Fiona has directed many early dance presentations, and choreographed for concerts and stage productions of early operas and plays.

John Barnard is co-director of the Early Dance Consort.  After training in jazz ballet, he turned to early dance while studying architecture at the University of Sydney.  He partners Fiona in performance and in the Consort’s teaching activities.  John is also a practising architect in a Sydney-based firm.

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