Cahusac Louis de, *6 April 1706 Montauban (Aquitaine), †22 June 1759 Paris; French poet, playwright, librettist, and historian of dance and theater. Author of the plays Pharamond (1736), Le comte de Warwick (1742), Zénéide (1742), and L’Algérien (1744). He wrote librettos for works by J.Ph. Rameau, including Les fêtes de Polymnie (1745) and Les fêtes de l’Hymen et de l’Amour… (1747), as well as for A. d’Auvergne’s Les amours de Tempé (1752). He wrote the treatise La danse ancienne et moderne ou Traité historique de la danse (3 vols., The Hague 1754), in which he presented the history of dance and pantomime from Roman times. He advocated for the renewal of the ossified art of dance through a return to the imitation of nature. He was the author of entries on dance in the Great French Encyclopedia.
