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... an court dance available to present-day researchers is found in collections of social dances: dances written for a small number of courtiers to perform (usually two or four performers) for their own enjoyment at informal occasions rather than important state occasions such as the marriage celebrations of the ruler. From other nonchoreographic sources we know that dancing contributed to the magnificent festivities organized for important public events, but choreographic evidence that records the exact structure of these dances is rare. One of the few surviving descriptions of the genre of "theatrical" dances is the description of Emilio Cavalieri's ballo "O che nuovo miracolo" for the final intermedio of La Pellegrina in the 1589 wedding celebrations of Grand Duke Ferdinando de'Medici and Christine of Lorraine, which provides important evidence for theatrical choreographic practice in late-sixteenth-century Editors' note: The second part of this article, "Cavalieri's Theatrical Ballo and the Social Dances of