WEAVER, JOHN

born July 21, 1673, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, Eng. died Sept. 24, 1760, Shrewsbury dancer and ballet master known as the father of English pantomime. Like his father, a dance teacher at Shrewsbury, Weaver went to London in 1700 and became a specialist in comic parts. He adopted such Italian commedia dell'arte characters as Harlequin and Scaramouche for the first English pantomime ballet, the burlesque Tavern Bilkers (1702). Weaver's libretto for The Loves of Mars and Venus (1717) was the first formal libretto published for a dance drama. Originally performed with Louis Dupr as Mars, Hester Santlow (Weaver's favourite ballerina) as Venus, and Weaver as Vulcan, it is his outstanding serious work. Weaver performed, choreographed, and produced his dance dramas at Drury Lane and Lincoln's Inn Fields theatres, in London (1700-36), and later in Shrewsbury. Because his best productions featured plots and acting instead of the then-popular displays of technical virtuosity, Weaver was an important precursor of Jean-Georges Noverre and Gasparo Anglioni, innovative choreographers who demanded unity of plot, choreography, and decor in their ballets d'action. His writings on the dance are of major significance. His Orchesography (1706) was the first English version of R.A. Feuillet's Chorgraphie. A Small Treatise of Time and Cadence in Dancing (1706) and An Essay Towards the History of Dancing (1712) were followed by Anatomical and Mechanical Lectures upon Dancing (1721), a work that anticipated the studies of Carlo Blsis by over a century in its attempt to relate human anatomy to dance technique.