Josias Priest was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 dancer, dancing-master and choreographer

Choreography

Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements in which motion, form, or both are specified. Choreography may also refer to the design itself, which is sometimes expressed by means of dance notation. The word choreography literally means "dance-writing" from the Greek words "χορεία" ...

.

History

In 1669, he was arrested along with four others for dancing and making music without a license. In 1668, he was a dancing-master in Holborn

Holborn

Holborn is an area of Central London. Holborn is also the name of the area's principal east-west street, running as High Holborn from St Giles's High Street to Gray's Inn Road and then on to Holborn Viaduct...

, and in 1675 he moved to Leicester Fields to run a boarding school

Boarding school

A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...

 for gentlewomen

Gentleman

The term gentleman , in its original and strict signification, denoted a well-educated man of good family and distinction, analogous to the Latin generosus...

. In 1680 he started a similar school at Gorge's House in Chelsea, London

Chelsea, London

Chelsea is an area of West London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above...

. Here Priest hosted opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

s, including John Blow

John Blow

John Blow was an English Baroque composer and organist, appointed to Westminster Abbey in 1669. His pupils included William Croft, Jeremiah Clarke and Henry Purcell. In 1685 he was named a private musician to James II. His only stage composition, Venus and Adonis John Blow (baptised 23 February...

's Venus and Adonis

Venus and Adonis (opera)

Venus and Adonis is an opera in three acts and a prologue by the English Baroque composer John Blow, composed in about 1683. It was written for the court of King Charles II at either London or Windsor. It is considered by some to be either a semi-opera or a masque, but The New Grove names it as the...

(1684) and Henry Purcell

Henry Purcell

Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...

's Dido and Aeneas

Dido and Aeneas

Dido and Aeneas is an opera in a prologue and three acts by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell to a libretto by Nahum Tate. The first known performance was at Josias Priest's girls' school in London no later than the summer of 1688. The story is based on Book IV of Virgil's Aeneid...

(1689). It is widely believed that Priest choreographed dances for these and other semi-operas by Purcell, including Dioclesian

Dioclesian

Dioclesian is a tragicomic semi-opera in five acts by Henry Purcell to a libretto by Thomas Betterton based on the play The Prophetess, by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger, which in turn was based very loosely on the life of the Emperor Diocletian. It was premiered in late May 1690 at the...

, The Fairy-Queen

The Fairy-Queen

The Fairy-Queen is a masque or semi-opera by Henry Purcell; a "Restoration spectacular". The libretto is an anonymous adaptation of William Shakespeare's wedding comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream. First performed in 1692, The Fairy-Queen was composed three years before Purcell's death at the age...

, The Indian Queen

The Indian Queen (opera)

The Indian Queen , is a semi-opera in five acts with music by Henry Purcell, first performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London in 1695. The exact date is unknown but Peter Holman surmises it may have been performed in June, without the Masque in Act 5, which had to be completed after...

, and King Arthur

King Arthur (opera)

King Arthur or, The British Worthy , is a semi-opera in five acts with music by Henry Purcell and alibretto by John Dryden. It was first performed at the Queen's Theatre, Dorset Garden, London, in late May or early June 1691....

; however, the evidence is not entirely conclusive.

In 1699 Thomas Bray

Thomas Bray

The Reverend Dr Thomas Bray was an English clergyman, who spent time in Maryland as an Anglican representative.-Life:...

 published a collection of dance music which included music for dances by Josias Priest and his son, Thomas Priest. Only one dance by Priest survives, a 'Minuet by Mr Preist' in An Essay for the Further Improvement of Dancing (1711) published by Edmund Pemberton. References to Priest's choreography remain in some musical sources, however. The surviving minuet is for twelve women and uses a limited step vocabulary of minuet step

Minuet step

The minuet step is the dance step performed in the dance minuet. It "is composed of four plain straight Steps or Walks, and may be performed forwards, backward, sideways, &c." or in a square. The steps are often referred to by direction to distinguish them...

s forwards, backwards and sideways, the main choreographic interest being in the floor patterns. It is recorded in a simplified form of Beauchamp-Feuillet notation

Beauchamp-Feuillet notation

Beauchamp–Feuillet notation is a system of dance notation used in Baroque dance.The notation was commissioned by Louis XIV , and devised in the 1680s by Pierre Beauchamp. It was published in 1700 by Raoul-Auger Feuillet, who began a programme of publishing notated dances...

 that was typically used for recording English country dance

English Country Dance

English Country Dance is a form of folk dance. It is a social dance form, which has earliest documented instances in the late 16th century. Queen Elizabeth I of England is noted to have been entertained by "Country Dancing," although the relationship of the dances she saw to the surviving dances of...

s.