User:LavaBaron/Danse du Grand Calumet de la Paix

"Danse du Grand Calumet de la Paix" ("Dance of the Great Peace Pipe") is a dance en rondeau that features in the fourth entrée, Les sauvages ("The Savages"), of the ballet Les Indes galantes by Jean-Philippe Rameau with libretto by Louis Fuzelier. It is considered to be the most musically exotic piece in the entrée and is set to a tempo established by an unrelenting bass drum evocative of Native American ceremonial drumming.

As with the rest of the Les sauvages, "Danse du Grand Calumet de la Paix" was only added to Les Indes galantes in a second production of the ballet which premiered in 1736. Rameau was inspired to score this act of Les Indes galantes by a performance given by two Native Americans from Louisiana who had danced at Paris' Théâtre Italien ten year prior, in 1725.