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This article analyses the role of dance in debates over theatre in the Spanish Golden Age, showing how dance was used as a touchstone. Some argued that it was a reason to condemn theatre altogether, while others argued that plays should be preserved but that dance should be banned. Focusing on the crisis triggered by the saraband and sensual theatrical dance between the 1580s and 1615, at the height of the Golden Age of court dance, it examines the ambiguity of positions taken against dance that emerges behind the apparently extreme nature of the controversy.