Discussing theater in Renaissance France, eminent musicologist Howard Mayer Brown wrote, “the boundary line between …theatrical and nontheatrical simply does not exist.” Describing an era in which Ronsard encouraged fellow poets to sing their work and poets like Amadis Jamyn were hired by royalty to recite poetry aloud, where poetry of those writers could be transformed into polyphonic chansons, where individual lines from those chansons could become basse dances, where those basse dances could be part of theatrical productions and those productions could have comic, moral, or religious themes, Brown's words, penned in 1963, continue to be appropriate. Following Brown himself, however, we can cautiously identify certain elements as theatrical.

Throughout this book, Italy recurs as a touchstone for understanding elements of dance and music in France. When discussing the distinctions between social and theatrical dance, however, sixteenth-century dance can be more easily analyzed by exploring both Italy and Spain, since Spain had the widest variety of specifically-named dance events. In Spain, bailes and saraos could both be loosely termed “parties” but they differed in the social class of their participants. Bailes, both the event and the choreographic type of the same name, were widely viewed as the province of the lower classes; saraos were the province of the nobility. More robust in tone, bailes could exist as independent celebrations, or they could be associated with a church-festival as an afterparty; they sometimes followed a play or other staged event. Typical bailes like “Villano (Peasant)” and “Jacaras” contained physical contact and sometimes stamping or other vigorous movements. Arbeau's more energetic branles, like the “Branle des lavandières,” and other dances like the “Canarie” could occupy this category.

Sebastián de Covarrubias defined bailes in a dictionary of 1611. Like Arbeau, he felt it necessary to address the religious qualms of those who would either shun dance altogether or shun bailes, as opposed to danzas, the type of dance found in the upper class saraos. Covarrubias makes it clear that bailes like “Villano” are necessary in some locales just to keep both warm and energetic (tomar calor y brío), but that dancers should be careful of where they do which movements.