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L-" 



Bmtdttd nxdi Bmtnera 0f Wnh^ 



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• •••• 
• ••• • •••«, 












•••• 






The Madern Rv i/t'-ui/ of Danci^^ 
us an Art 

BY 

CAROLINE AM) 
CHARLES II. C M;I\ 

WITH SVMEPOUfi ILLV:<TRAT'0'Sfi 



NEW YOlth- 
1912 






CorrmLr. »lt. 
Bt DODD, IIBAD & COUPANT 

PM&IifJM, Oetob§r, 1919 






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• • • 

• ••••• * 4 



• • • 






THB FRIENDS WHOSE INTEREST IN THE 

BXPRBSSIONAL INTERPRETATION OP THE DANCE 

HAS ENCOURAGED US TO WRITE THIS BOOK 



M79831 



J 



(S^nnUntB 



CHAPTKR PAGI 

I INTRODUCTION . . . . . ... ,., ..... 8 

II ORIGIN OF THE DANCE 16 

III ISADORA DUNCAN 46 

IV MAUD ALLAN 70 

V RUTH ST. DENIS 82 

VI EVOLUTION OF THE BALLET 98 

VII CLASSICAL BALLET 112 

VIII GENEE 128 

IX RUSSIAN DANCE-DRAMA 146 

X MORDEIN 180 

XI PAVLOWA 197 

XII SACCHETTO 214 

XIII COURT DANCES 229 

XIV WEISENTHAL 244 

XV ECCENTRIC DANCING 266 

XVI FOLK DANCING 280 



1 



MluBttutinnB 



Anna Pavlowa and Mikail Mordkin in "The Legend of 

Azyiade" Frontispiece 

Mikail Mordkin Page 5 

Incident detail in the Dance-Drama of "Sheh^razade" 

Russian Dancers "11 

Lydia Lopoukowa and Mikail Mordkin "17 

Ruth St. Denis in her Incense Dance "28 

Alexis Bulgakow as Shah-riar and the Odalisques in the 

Dance-Drama "Sh6h6razade" "29 

Anna Pavlowa and Mikail Mordkin *' 35 

Scene from the Ballet "Le Lac des Cygnes" ... "89 

Isadora Duncan "47 

Ljdia Lopoukowa and Mikail Mordkin "57 

Ruth St. Denis as Radha in the Dance of the Five Senses " 63 

Maud Allan in "Moments Musicals" "71 

Maud Allan in Her "Dance of Salom6" "77 

Ruth St. Denis in Her Temple Dance "88 

Ruth St. Denis as Radha. Temple Dances .... . " 89 

Ruth St. Denis in the Dance of the Five Senses^ of the 

Temple Dances "95 

Ruth St. Denis in the Nautch Dance "101 

Scene from the Ballet "The Legend of Azyiade" . . " 107 

Lydia Lopoukowa and Alexander Volinine in the Ballet 

"Les Sylphides." Russian Dancers "113 

Mile. Katarina Geltzer^ of the Russian Imperial Ballet • "119 

Group from the Ballet "Le Lac des Cygnes" .... "128 

Adeline Genee in the "Silver Star" "129 

Adeline Genfe in her "Hunting Dance" ..... "185 

Adeline Gen6e in her "Empire Dance" "141 

Dance-Drama of "Cleopatra." Arrival of Cleopatra at 

the Shrine. The Russian Dancers "147 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Dance-Drama of "Sheh^razade." Shah-riar's Revenge. 

The Russian Dancers Page 153 

Maria Baldina as Ta-hor in the Dance-Drama of "Cleo- 
patra" "159 

Theodore Eosloff as Amomi in the Dance-Drama "Cleo- 
patra." The Russian Dancers " 165 

Gertrude Hoffman as "Zobeide" and Alexis Bulgakow as 

"Shah-riar" in the Dance-Drama "Sh^h^razade" " 171 

Ljdia Lopoukowa in the Dance-Drama "Sh6h£razade." 
The Russian Dancers 

Anna Pavlowa and Mikail Mordkin in a "Bacchanale" . 

Mikail Mordkin 

Lydia Lopoukowa and Mikail Mordkin 

Anna Pavlowa in a "Bacchanale" 

Anna Pavlowa 

Anna Pavlowa 

Rita Sacchetto in the "Crinoline Dance" .... 

Rita Sacchetto in her "Spanish Dance" 

"A Pavane" arranged by Murray Anderson .... 

Gavotte in modern costume by Miss Margaret Crawford 
and Murray Anderson 

Grete Wiesenthal in Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody . 

Grete Wiesenthal in Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody . 

Incident Detail in the Dance-Drama of "Sh6h6razade." 

The Russian Dancers " 257 

Theodore Eosloff as Favourite Arab of Zobeide in the 
Dance-Drama of "Sh6h6razade" 

Anna Pavlowa and Mikail Mordkin in a "Bacchanale" 

Children of the Public Schools Dancing Italian Taran- 
tella at Annual Fete of the Public Schools Athletic 
League 

Adeline Genfe in her "Butterfly Dance" 

An Interpretation of Strauss' "Voices of Spring," ar- 
ranged by Miss Beegle for the Children's Symphony 
Concert "297 





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\ 



9mtrttt9 atth 9mtr^ra of Eohw^ 



CHAPTER I 






INTRODUCTION .* * .-. 

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TODAY, in America, we have awakened to the con- 
sciousness that dancing may be something more than 
a form of social amusement in ballrooms, or of gym- 
nastic exercise on the stage. We are taking a keen interest 
in the Art of the Dance. 

By way of contrast the memory goes back some twenty 
years to the World's Fair, at Chicago. Among the special en- 
tertainments, planned for the visitors, was a certain "Congress 
of Dancers." Congresses, religious and otherwise, were a 
feature of the Fair; for the public was, or was supposed to be, 
in serious quest of edification and instruction. Accordingly, 
some genius with an advertising sense borrowed the term for 
this night's attraction; which was neither more nor less than 
a "giant aggregation" of all the various dancers who were en- 
livening in detail the Midway Plaisance. As a special feature, 
to represent the American ideal of dancing, the management 
had engaged a child prodigy. 

One after another the groups occupied the floor of the large 
hall, and in each dance there was some inspiring motive. Some- 
times it was only a physical impulse, uncouthly expressed, as in 

[8] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

the case of the Senegambians. At the other end of the scale, 

in: the J[aB{Uji^$ QheTry filossom Dance, was revealed the most 
••2: •••••••• 

sehi^itif e' sbh'itifftl appreciation of beauty. Between these the 
range •.of *:€kF9rf6siQn seemed as varied as hmnan emotion. 
There passed in review the mystic devotion or savage fierce- 
ness of the aboriginal Indian; the joy of physical well-being in 
the seated dances of the South Sea Islanders ; the sensuous al- 
lurement and tantalising coyness of the Bedouin Arabs; the 
haughty coquetry, sombre aloofness or passionate abandon of 
the Spaniards ; the mild plaintive melancholy of the Cingalese ; 
the reckless gaiety or childish vanity of the Coon ragtime. 
These and many others, each with a soul of its own, expressed, 
sometimes beautifully, sometimes grotesquely, its own ideal-==« 
until it came to the American. 

For now appeared a child, graceful, but mechanical; well 
trained, yet with an automaton-like precision, unspontaneous, 
unresponsive. In each hand she carried an American flag, 
and what she danced is best described as: *^One, two, three, 
kick! One, two, three, kick," just as high as the little leg could 
go. Then again, *'One, two, three, kick; two to the right and 
wave the right-hand flag; two to the left and wave the left-hand 
flag!" 

Was the child enjoying it? Apparently not. Did she care 
for the flag? Well, if so, she did not show it. Was there any 



MIKAIL MORDKIN 









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•••• 



INTRODUCTION 

soul or self-expression in the dancer? None that one could dis- 
cover. Yet, the spectators seemed satisfied and applauded 
wildly. They were not discontented with the presentation of 
this kind of dancing. Why? Had they found in the dance 
something that oneself had overlooked, or had they been un- 
conscious of the soul in the other dances and regarded them 
simply as more or less graceful gymnastic exercises? 

Circumstances supported the latter explanation. In other 
words, dancing had ceased to be an art with us and was re- 
garded merely as a technical accomplishment. We no longer 
used it in response to the promptings of the emotions, but solely 
as a play of the muscles. The conclusion was a saddening one. 

But that was nearly twenty years ago and much has hap- 
pened since then. We have ceased to allow our ideas to be 
bound by a utilitarian standard. Beauty for the sake of 
beauty, no longer the cult of the few, is becoming the heritage 
of the many. We regard the arts no longer as exotics, 
only to be enjoyed at rare moments of leisure, but as a neces- 
sity of civilised life. We know that we are capable of develop- 
ment along other lines than only intellectual ones. So our 
ideas of education have changed. It no longer means only a 
storing of the memory, or sharpening of the ability to reason 
and calculate, especially the latter, but also an enhancing of 
the capacity to give expression to our conceptions of the beauty 

[7] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

of life and living. We have also learned that nothing is more 
conducive to this end than the training of our natural instincts. 

Left to themselves, the instincts may straggle and overrun 
convenient restraints; suppressed they are like the amputated 
limb, which aches and frets the injured nerves. But trained 
and guided along natural, healthy lines, they become the best 
aids to education, because the most natural. 

Of all instincts toward art, dancing is the most elemental. 
It calls for no material or instrument outside of the human 
body. It does not depend for its enjoyment upon long and 
arduous study, though like all arts it admits of it. The enjoy- 
ment of rhythmic movement on which it is founded, is one of the 
first things to which the infant responds. The beating of the 
waves, the swaying of the branches in the winds, the flight of 
the butterflies and birds, are all suggestive of its appeal. It is 
easy to believe that its impulse antedated even that other ele- 
mental art-instinct, the instinct of song. For surely the first 
time that primeval man leaped in the air, feeling the flow of 
life in every limb, and then gained an added pleasure in re- 
peating his leaps in rhythmic sequence, the impulse toward the 
dance was bom. 

The impulse, born of instinct, needed further development 
before it became an art. To the rhythm must be added har- 
mony and conscious balance to complete its technical form, 

[8] 



* 



INTRODUCTION 

and fitness and unity to make it expressive of the spiritual side 
of man's nature. We can imagine the primitive man gradually 
becoming conscious of giving form to his leaps and bounds, so 
as to be able to reproduce them for his own delight or that of 
his fellows, and then using them to express his joy in life or his 
pride of achievement. Then other ideas, requiring other move- 
ments and actions, had to be expressed. Thus, gradually, the 
instinct of rhythmic movement crystallised into an art, which 
appealed to him as something so good and reaching so far be- 
yond his actual experiences, that it expressed something of his 
aspirations toward the unknown, and became linked with his 
religion. For in all primitive nations the Dance at one time 
was a form of religious ceremonies. 

This developing from instinct to art, which has taken ages 
to perform in the human race, can be observed in a less degree 
in the development of the child. More and more, educators 
of the present day are calling to their aid the resources and ob- 
servations of psychology and using them to train the instinct 
that the child may develop in a natural, well-rounded way; that 
every faculty may be used and strengthened and made to bear 
its part in the perfect whole. As yet this idea is new and much 
study must be devoted to it before it accomplishes its full pur- 
pose ; the teachers themselves have much to learn, and what is 
harder, much to unlearn. But it is becoming the ideal every- 

[9] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

where, and in nearly all schools that attempt to keep up with 
the tunes it is more or less in vogue. 

Dancing naturally, therefore, as an expression of elemental 
instincts is capable of beneficial results, too apparent to need 
enumerating. But the highest of these is, doubtless, its ex- 
pressional quality; the fitting of the body to the thought; the 
conveying, not only the idea but the quality of the idea, so that 
we shall comprehend the action and also the inspiration of the 
action, and even somehow be made conscious of the consequence 
of the action. This is a high quality, but it is what we expect 
of poetry, and in its highest form it is no mere metaphor to call 
dancing the poetry of motion. 

It is not only in its highest and most artistic form that the 
dance is a source of delight. It is and always has been pre- 
eminently an art for All the People. There are and always 
have been Folk dances and Folk songs; but no other art, dis- 
tinctly belonging to the Folk. It is unfortunate that one of 
the effects of partial education has been to engender a self- 
consciousness which has clogged the natural dance instinct, just 
as it has that of spontaneous song. Except among the coloured 
people we do not hear in this country the natural chorus-singing 
that may be heard in the colliery districts of Wales, and the 
manufacturing neighbourhoods of Yorkshire and Lancashire, 
where groups of artisans, returning from work, wiU start a 

[10] 



INTRODUCTION 

song, joining in with improvised harmony. In Grermany and 
Scandinavia, and the Tyrol this spontaneous song is familiar, 
but it does not seem to bear transplanting. 

And the same with the dance. The young Irish girl in 
America indignantly disclaims all knowledge of the old-time 
jigs and reels. ^'Me aunt Mary do be a fine one at the old 
country dances, but me sister Bride and me, we just dance the 
new country dances, two steps and all them." But, on being 
pressed, the colleen, two years away from the sod, admitted that 
she had danced jigs when she was a slip of a girl back home. 

The instinct for the dance is not dead in spite of this self- 
consciousness, and the formality of ordinary "socia?* dancing 
cannot quite take its place. Perhaps that is the explanation of 
the constant outbreaks of new eccentricities in modem ball- 
rooms. The American instinct is still too youthful and vital to 
be content with the conventional dancing of "the best form" of 
society. So we have the outbreak of "turkey trots," "bunny 
hugs," "Gaby glides" and so on. It is unfortunate that it 
should have seemed necessary to the revival of expression in 
the social dance, to return to instincts so primitive as to be 
hardly more than brutish. But let us hope this stage of evolu* 
tion will be quickly passed and the growth will be continually 
to something of beauty and sprituality, more worthy of our 
national ideals. 

[18] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

That this Art of the Dance is hound to develop in one form 
or another among us is evident on every hand. The opportuni- 
ties offered in our Recreation centres and Settlement Houses 
for learning Folk dances or "Fancy" dances, as the term is, 
meet with immediate response. Nor is it only due to the 
natural craving of young people of different sexes to get to- 
gether. Many classes, formed entirely of girls, are crowded 
with eager learners, whose daily toil in shop or factory, so far 
from deterring them from this exertion, seems to strengthen 
the impulse toward this expressional resource. In some of the 
classes, where the foreign element is strong, we hear of the 
mothers presenting themselves as eager aspirants, and, undis- 
couraged hy their lack of skill, finding joy and gladness to 
brighten their toilsome lives. 

It took some time, even after our awakening to the needs of 
art in life, for the dance to struggle free of the load of Puritan 
anathema under which it had so long been buried. As an 
amusement it was tolerated, as a form of gymnastic exercise ii 
was approved of, but as late as six years ago the claim of danc- 
ing to be considered as an art was hardly considered seriously. 
Rumours of the revival of Greek dancing came over the sea» 
Such things might suit the artists of Europe, but America re- 
mained cold. Even the news that an exponent of these dances 
was to come to this country evoked no response except among 

[14] 



INTRODUCTION 

those who knew. Then suddenly, as so often happens, we be- 
came conscious that this new form of beauty was blossoming in 
our midst; shown in not only one but various forms. 

Two American women, widely differing in their methods 
and appeal, were each expressing in a new way the old eternal 
truths of Beauty. We could not ignore them. Their appeal 
was elemental and would not be denied. At first we gasped 
and wondered. -But, at length, we shook ourselves free of puri- 
tanic restrictions and hearkened to this new appeal and recog- 
nised it as one that answered to the cry of our own nature 
toward the natural which is the part of the universal and the in- 
finite. We acknowledged it as Art ; the oldest of the arts, but 
ever young, ever answering to the appeal of all that is young 
in our own being, the Art of the Dance. 

Dancers differing from one another in ideal and technique, 
have visited us since then, and in all of them we look not only 
for a technique but an inner ideal of art. Mere agility will not 
satisfy us. The soulless achievement of the old-time ballet 
school is not enough. Such forms of the dance are good as 
far as they go, the artist ever breathes into his creations. Only 
this expression will make of them a Living Soul«»a response 
to our need of Life and Desire of living. 



[16] 



CHAPTER II 

THE ORIGIN OF THE DANCE 

IF the length of pedigree is a mark of distinction, the Dance 
can claim it. It is, as we have seen, the oldest of the arts ; 
bom out of the most primitive and most natural instinct 
of humanity; its instinct to live and express the sense of life by 
movement. The Greek imagination figured this truth and 
also the kinship of the dance with drama, poetry and music in 
the mjrth of the Muses. 

Athene, say the poets of Hellas, sprang from the brain of 
Zeus ; in full panoply of helmet, breastplate, shield and spear, 
equipped to take her place in Olympus as goddess of the arts 
and science. Wisdom and the creative imagination were gifts 
of purely divine origin. But not so the sisterhood of the Muses. 
They were children of Zeus and Mnemosyne, whom men today 
call Memory, and she was of the primordial race of the Titans, 
the early earth-deities who had disputed the sovereignty of the 
Olympian Grods. While the Muses had their place in heaven^ 
they delighted to be of earth ; haunting the brooks and springs. 
In the movement of the water as it issued direct and fresh from 
the womb of nature they found their own kinship and inspira- 

[16] 



Photo, by White, N. V, 
LYDIA LOPOUKOWA AND MIKAIL MORDKIN 



1. 



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THE ORIGIN OF THE DANCE 

tion, and following the stream, as it meandered through flow- 
ery meadows or threaded the ferny mazes of the woods, they 
discovered their own joy of movement and instinctive need to 
express their sense of life. 

The movement of water inspired to movement their own 
supple bodies ; the murmur of the brooks invited their own glad- 
ness to become audible. Yielding to nature's impulse from 
without and within themselves, they learned to better nature's 
rhythms. Little by little the action of their twinkling limbs 
and swaying bodies became more controlled, the accompani- 
ment of uttered sounds more varied and consciously modulated. 
Voice tuned itself to movement and movement gathered in- 
spiration from the voice. So, out of the union of movement 
with the concord of sweet sounds was born the rhythmic Art of 
the Dance. 

For by this time the instinct to express had grown int(j 
conscious expression and the expression, no longer artless as 
nature, had become embodied into the forms and harmonies 
and rhythms of Art. Then, in the possession of this mystery 
of expression in which all the sisters shared, each began to 
vary her own art to interpret her special gift of life. Euterpe, 
gentle maiden, wove her lyric melody and dance in unison with 
the tremble of Leaves, the leap and slide of water, swaying of 
trees to the wind and nodding and smile of flowers. Erato, 

[19] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

listing the song of birds at mating time, and the whisper of 
youth and maid in the hush of the new moon, set the cadence 
and measure of her dance and song to the love-throbs of the 
human heart. Terpsichore, alert to the concord of nature's 
harmonies and rhythms, delighted in harvest and vintage festi- 
vals, and led the choral dance and song of thankfulness and 
worship. And when the choral theme gave voice and vision 
to the mystery of life and the pains of mortals, grave-faced 
Melpomene, it was, who inspired the solenm dithyramb and 
marshalled the slow tread and stately action of the dancers. 
But, when the theme was merry with quips and pranks, laugh- 
ter-loving Thalia lead the rout. Meanwhile Calliope and Clio, 
true daughters of memory, taught men to chant the epics and 
tell the story of their race; Polyhymnia tuned her lyre to 
heavenly lays, and Urania interpreted to men the ebb and flow 
of the tides and the rhythmic revolutions of the planets, which 
we call the Science of Astronomy. 

Thus Hellenic imagination, embroidering the fact with grace- 
ful fancy, pictured Dance, Music, Poetry and Drama, as sis- 
ter-arts, bom of a single instinct, common to humanity, that of 
Rhythmic Movement. Each developed in unison with all, and 
it was at the highest period of the Greek culture that the union 
of those arts was most completely harmonised. To the tone and 

measure of the verse were joined the vocal tones and rhythmic 

[80] 



THE ORIGIN OF THE DANCE 

gait and gestures of the actors, whose interpretation of the 
theme was reinforced by choral dance and song. 

Nor, while the Greeks carried the union of the arts of tone 
and rhythm to a degree of harmony, unattained, so far as we 
know, by other nations, was the fact of the union peculiar to 
themselves. They did not invent it. It developed out of an 
elementary instinct which has been discovered to be common 
to all races at a corresponding period of their primitive state. 
Everywhere the dance in its rudimentary form is accompanied 
by tonal rhythm of voice and instrument and allied to dramatic 
action, while the conception of the whole is inspired by a creative 
imagination, striving to express itself in symbols. 

The impulse of the dance-drama is the expression of emo- 
tions, the earliest of which seem to be religious ; the conscious- 
ness of invisible powers, regarded as spirits of good and evil 
to be propitiated. The only religious consciousness possessed 
by the Patagonians is said to be a panic horror of evil spirits, 
which they seek to avert by monotonous, mumbling, senseless 
incantations, accompanied by a rocking to and fro of the body. 
It seems a straining of terms to speak of this as dance and 
poetry, yet it represents a germ of them, equivalent in ex- 
pression to the merely embryonic character of the religious 
emotion. 

In the more advanced stage of consciousness of good, as 

[21] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

well as evil, spirits, the rudiments of a religious cult make their 
appearance and the dance is regulated by ritual ceremonies. 
Travellers tell of the performance of it by certain savage tribes 
of Australia. The dance is usually conducted at night by torch* 
light; those who take part being fantastically decked with 
flowers and feathers, while their bodies are greased and covered 
with white clay. The last is supposed to be for the purpose of 
disguise, since the greatest secrecy is maintained regarding 
the ceremonies, all strangers being rigidly excluded. Among 
the Aleutians, who inhabit the archipelago of islands jutting 
from the coast of Alaska, the performers in the mystic dances 
cover their faces with wooden masks, carved in rude likeness of 
human and animal heads. Masks of a corresponding character 
were used by the North American Indians in their ritual dances, 
which further involved considerable pantomimic action. Simi- 
lar features characterise the ritual dance-ceremonies of the So- 
ciety of the Areoi which extends over the islands of Polynesia. 
In fact, in all these cases, and there are many others, is to 
be found the germ of secret societies and mystic cults, which 
reached a high development of sjrmbolism and beauty of cere- 
mony in the mysteries of Isis, that originated in Egjrpt and 
spread to Greece and Italy. The Areoi especially are suggest- 
ive of the secret societies which still exist in our own dvilisa- 
tion. The society consisted of seven degrees of increasing 

[22] 



RUTH ST. DENIS IN HER INCENSE DANCE 





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THE ORIGIN OF THE DANCE 

privilege ; the members of each being distinguished by a special 
kind of tattooing. "The Areoi," says Mantzius, **used to go in 
boats, decorated with flowers, from island to island. Every- 
where they were welcomed with respectful joy and, as long as 
they remained, performed their dances and pantomimes which 
originally were of a religious character, but afterwards became 
historical and comical. In these ceremonies the vehement 
gesticulations were accompanied by a curious kind of music." 

This account of the Society of Areoi might have been written 
of the dance-drama of the Greeks at their corresponding 
period of civilisation. With them the religious cult circled 
about the idea of the procreative force in nature, as personified 
in the god Dionysos. He came to be regarded as the special 
protector of the vineyards, which spread over the simny hill- 
sides and were the chief product of the soil. But the reverence 
paid to him had deeper root in the worship paid to the mystery 
of the male force in nature. 

Aristophanes in his comedy, ^^Achamians," describes a 
Dionysiac festival, celebrated by a peasant and his family. The 
family begins with a prayer and then walks in procession to 
the place where the offering is to be made. The latter is carried 
in a basket by the daughter, who walks in advance of a slave, 
bearing a phallus, the symbol of fertility. Behind him walks 
the peasant, chanting a song to the honour of the god and the 

[26] 



A 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

force which he embodies. Meanwhile, from the window of the 
cottage, the wife, playing the part of the audience, watches the 
ceremony. Aristophanes sought to raise a laugh at the poverty 
of the ceremony, as compared to the grandeur which the 
Dionysiac festival had attained in his own day. But in doing 
so, he shed a valuable light on the origin and primitive char- 
acter of the ritual. 

For, long before his own day, the single maiden had been 
reinforced by a number of others, acting as canephorai or 
basket-bearers, while the single slave had been supplanted by 8 
band of youths, whose faces were smeared with mulberry juice, 
their bodies being fantastically clothed in wine*stained drap- 
eries and goat-skins. This merry Tout or comos, enacting the 
part of satyrs, indulged in comic actions and flung gibes and 
jokes among the crowd of spectators. Meanwhile the diief 
victim of sacrifice, a he-goat or tragos, is lead by a grave band 
of older men, accompanying the priest, who now on behalf of 
the community fills the role that in old days was performed 
by the father of each fanuly. 

At length the altar is reached and the chorus of satyrs and 
the chorus of goat-leaders form a circle round it, on the edge 
of which the congregation of spectators spreads an extended 
fringe. 

The priest ascends the platform of the altar and lifts his 

[26] 



THE ORIGIN OP iTHE DANCE 

voice in prayer to Dionysos ; and at each mention of the sacred 
name, cries of '^Euoil Euoil" resound from the goat-chorus and 
are shrieked by the satyr-chorus and taken up with varied ex* 
pression by the throng. Nor does the priest fail to recount the 
story of the god'sbirth and bringing up; pausing at intervals, 
while the choruses move around the altar with symbolic gestures^ 
chanting the dithyrambic song. 

From this ritual ceremony there were but two steps to be 
made and the final form of the dance-drama of the Greeks 
was developed. One of these consisted in the change from 
narrative to dialogue. Instead of the priest telling the story 
of the god, he and the attendant priest would impersonate the 
various characters in turn and enact the incident. The second 
step was marked, when the popularity of these festivals led to 
their being given on other occasions than the Dionysiac feast; 
in which case the doings of some hero would be substituted for 
the worship of the god. But even in this case the dance-drama 
preserved a flavour of its religious origin. The altar still stood 
in the centre of the orchestra and from its platform the princi- 
pal actors declaimed their verses, stepping down at intervals 
to address themselves more intimately to the chorus. 

By the time a secular theme and the impersonation of it had 
been adopted, the goat-chorus parted from the chorus of satyrs. 
Henceforth, tragedy and comedy moved on to separate de- 

[«7] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 



velopment, and each had its own poets and its own traditions. 

It has seemed worth while to dwell on the evolution of the 
Dionysiac ritual, because it illustrates so clearly what travellers 
have noted in all the parts of the world; namely, that the in- 
stinct of primitive man under the impulse of self-expression and 
of communicating his emotions to his fellows has recognised the 
natural alliance of Poetry, Music, Dance and Drama, as sister- 
arts of tone and movement. 

It was the recognition of this that inspired Wagner, and 
today is the basis of Gordon Craig's ideas for the revival of the 
Art of the Theatre. He would create a reaction from the tone- 
less, unrhythmic, unimaginative naturalism of the modern 
drama and method of stage-production ; slough off the sophis- 
tications and conventional forms that have grown around the 
art, and base it once more on instinct. At first his idea waa 
scouted as the empty vapouring of an unpractical dreamer. 
But the study of psychology has been spreading of late years 
and now it is being understood that in the modem, as well as 
in the primitive man, instinct is the basis of the physical and 
emotional life, affecting also the life of his intellect. Further, 
that proper development of all the faculties must start from 
the instinctive promptings of the individual nature; and that 
the desires, sensations and thoughts, resulting from them, 
should as far as possible be left free of rules, dogmas and con- 

[28] 



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•••• 



THE ORIGIN OF THE DANCE 

ventional restrictions, so that the indiyidual may grow to his 
finest capacity of self-realisation and self-expression. 

Imagine a number of actors and actresses, who have thus 
been allowed to reach each his or her own utmost of emotional 
expression; a stage director, who has himself learned to de- 
velop his imagination naturally out of his instincts, and a 
playwright of corresponding imagination, similarly self -grown I 
The last would be able, not merely to serve up a few cross-cut 
slices of life as the result of uninspired observation, but to 
create a vision of life, interpreting something of life's universal 
harmonies and rhythms. The stage-director on his part, 
through his own cultivated imagination and out of his knowl- 
edge of the expressional technique of the stage, would be able 
to give substance and movement to the playwright's vision. 
Lastly, under his inspiration, the natural self-expression of the 
actors and actresses would be co-ordinated into a living whole 
of harmonised relations, as are the units of a finely balanced 
orchestra. 

This in brief is Gordon Craig's ideal, which has grown out of 
the disgust that he and others feel over the present condition 
of the theatre, and its jumble of occasional sense and beauty 
with a superabundance of foolishness, meretriciousness, vul- 
garity, and falseness to life. 

That some progress is being made toward the fulfilment of 

[81] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

this ideal can be detected in the present revival of the Art of 
the Dance. For in it one can discover more than a glimmering 
of the old ^instinct of expression, which finds its highest realisa* 
tion in the wiion of Poetry, Music, Dance and Drama. 

But before pursuing this new phase of the Art of the The- 
atre, it is worth while to glance at the parts which naturalism, 
on the one hand, and some form of convention or symbolic 
method, on the other, have played in the growth of the dance- 
drama. 

From the earliest times mimic dances have existed side by 
side, says Mantzius, with religious dances of symbolic signifi- 
cance. He is of the opinion that the latter are certainly the 
older. The question is not of much importance, otherwise it 
might be argued from the study of children that the earliest 
form of conscious expression is that of imitation. Amongst 
savages the imitation of animals has been a favourite practice. 
The Australian aborigines, for example, imitate with remark- 
able fidelity the movements and sounds of the emu and kanga- 
roo. In time they carried the illusion further by dressing in 
the feathers of the one and the hide of the other. From this 
they passed to an organised dance-drama, in which not only 
these creatures were impersonated, but all the features of a 
hunt were performed. 

Correspondingly, among the primitive nations, including the 

[82] 



THE ORIGIN OF THE DANCE 

Indian tribes of this continent, the mimicking of war has been 
a constant motive of the dance-drama. It has involved not 
only the actually naturalistic features of tracking the enemy, 
stealing upon him and engaging in a conflict of offence and 
defence, but also has been characterised by the introduction of 
grotesque and comic fights, which served as interludes to re- 
lieve the general seriousness. At the same time they afforded 
opportunity for individual inventiveness, which advanced mere 
imitation toward creative acting. 

For even in the primitive dance-drama of savage peoples one 
discovers the consciousness that acting may be more than 
imitation. It is a consciousness rather conspicuously lacking 
in American audiences, habituated to the detailed naturalism 
or imitation, fathered by Mr. Belasco. They applaud, for ex- 
ample, quite extravagantly the representation on the stage of 
a telephone switch-board with a **hello" girl attached to it. In 
their naive childishness, not a whit advanced beyond the 
mimetic instinct of primitive savages, they prattle about the in- 
troduction on the stage of this feature of actual life, to which 
in actual life they are totally indifferent, as if it represented a 
distinct advance in stagecraft and a new motive in drama. How 
the ingeniously clever Mr. Belasco must smile up his sleeve! 
No wonder that, when he appears in response to the vociferous 
applause, he strokes the pendent lock upon his forehead, while 

[88] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

at the back of his busy brain there hums the reflection of another 
stage-director: **Lordl What fools these mortals be!" 

But to return to the war dance. Here is a description from 
Bahnson's ** Anthropologic der Naturvolker" of The Korrobor- 
ree, as performed by the Australian savages to celebrate peace 
after war. **Several tribes are wont to assemble for this 
festival, which is held by moonlight. The day before the ap- 
pointed date the men remain concealed in the bushes, in order 
to decorate themselves for the festival by rubbing their skin 
thoroughly with grease and covering it with white clay. 
Towards sunset the women light a great fire and strike up a 
monotonous song, in which the same verse is constantly re- 
peated; they accompany it by beating on a piece of opossum 
hide, stretched on their knees like a drum skin, or by knocking 
together two boomerangs (wooden missiles used by the Austra- 
Uans in war and hunting) . Armed with clubs, spears and other 
weapons, or swinging torches, the men rush out from among 
the bushes. Conducted by a man who beats the time with 
two sticks or clubs, they begin their dance by winding and 
twisting their bodies, stamping on the ground, and making all 
kinds of gestures and grimaces. From time to time their lines 
dissolve into a confused crowd; small groups play a game 
which consists in chasing each other in a cirde, running back- 
wards and forwards till the lines close again and dancing be- 

[84] 



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THE ORIGIN OF THE DANCE 

gins afresh. This goes on throughout the night till the follow- 
ing morning/* 

Another peace-dance is the so-called Scalp-Dance of the 
American Indians ; a peculiarity of which is that it is performed 
by women. The description is taken from Mantzius' "History 
of Theatrical Art/' **While the medicine-men^^Shamans — ^siag 
and mark the rhythm on their primitive musical instruments, 
the women^ — painted red and decorated with beads and ribbons 
— dance in concentric circles round the scalps, which are sus- 
pended on a pole in the centre; sometimes one of the women 
carries them on her shoulder. At each stroke on the drum the 
dancers rise on tip-toe, jump up and slide a little to the left, 
all the time singing in perfect rhythm with the music of the 
Shamans. After some minutes the women have to rest. Dur- 
ing this pause one of them relates events of past war, especially 
the deeds and deaths of the fallen men; at last she exclaims: 
'whose scalps do I carry on my shoulder?* At these words 
they all jump up again with cheers and screams of vengeance, 
and dancing begins afresh." 

It is to be noted that this dance-drama is scarcely mimetic; 
but rather of a conventionalised character; the jump and slide 
of the woman in rhythm with the music being symbolic in ex- 
pression and no doubt following a form set by the Shamans. 
Further, this interlude is serious, occupied with a recitation of 

[87] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

the deeds and deaths of the fallen warriors. Here we discover 
not only the germ of creative, poetical drama, hut also that it 
parallels the evolution of Greek dance-drama, as the last passed 
from the celebration of a Deity, to that of heroes. It is the be- 
ginning of historical drama, which with the Indians stopped 
where it began, while the Greeks developed it into the heroic 
drama of the classic period. 

Meanwhile, another source of the mimetic dance-drama of 
primitive nations always and everjrwhere has been the instinct 
of the man for the woman ; his wooing of her and her eluding 
of him, with the final yielding or capture. Sometimes, even 
among people of little civilisation, the dance was enacted with 
decorum; elsewhere, with the unbridled naturalism that is 
usually associated with the **erotic*' dance. Under either aspect 
it is probably the earliest form of the pas de deux, as contrasted 

with the choral dance* 

« 

We have spoken of the comic interludes. One frequently 
recurring in ancient as well as modem times is founded upon the 
most usual of hot-weather incidents,«»the attack of an insect. 
The modem '^Tarantella*' has an ancient lineage in European 
dance-lore and can claim kinship with remote alien civilisations. 
But the insect, instead of being a poisonous spider, is often a 
bee. Captain Cook describes a dance of the inhabitants of the 
Philippines, in whidi with the accompaniments of choral move- 

[88] 



• • •• • 

••• 



•• • 
• •• •• 



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• • 



THE ORIGIN OF THE DANCE 

ments the dancer feigns to be pursued by one of the insects ; the 
situation being enacted with every detail of naturalistic vraisem- 
blance. The same motif appears in one of the favourite panto- 
mimes of the Ahnees or Almahas, the professional dancing girls 
of the East and Egjrpt, who are engaged to dance and recite 
in private houses. In his "Correspondence d^Orient" M, 
Michaud describes one of these interludes. A girl has been 
stung by a bee and dances round and roimd with gestures ex- 
pressive of pain, meanwhile uttering cries of "Ohl Oh I Oh 1 the 
heel" Her companions rush to her assistance and in order to 
reach the pain-spot, remove her veil, her shawl and one gar- 
ment after another; the disrobing being carried as far as the 
taste of the audience sanctions it, 

Mantzius, quoting this, finds possible analogy to it in the 
beautiful poem-drama of the Indians — ^**Sakimtala.'* While 
King Dushyanta, hidden among the bushes in the garden, 
watches Sakuntala and her maidens, the former discovers that 
she is being pursued by a bee. In her fright she exclaims: 
^'Ah! a bee! disturbed by the sprinkling of the fountain, has 
left the young jasmine and is trying to settle on my face.*' As 
she circles roimd in her flight, the King remarks: "Beautiful! 
there is something charming even in her terror/' Then while 
the dance continues he comments upon the grace and beauty 
of the princess and apostrophises the ^liappy bee/' 

[41] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

The cbief point of interest in these and similar interludes 
and dance-dramas is the fact that they involve the union of 
naturalistic mimicry and conventional dance forms. In this 
respect they preserve the tradition of the classic Greek drama^ 
from which the later stage departed, as drama became separated 
from dance. Meanwhile the latter, even as in independent 
stage art, has never wholly dissociated itself from mimic repre- 
sentation. Although many of its forms only embody the ab- 
stract sensations of joy and beauty, others have always clung 
to the interpretation of some theme or story. But in the ballet 
developed by the Italians, which was popular during the eigh- 
teenth century and early half of the succeeding century, the 
naturahiess of the dramatic features was lost in the convention 
of the dance forms. The theme, such as it was, became only 
the vague nucleus of what was actually an exhibition of gym- 
nastic grace and skill. It is because of a return to the older 
usage, founded in the hereditary tradition of the art, that the 
modem revival of the dance has its first claim to recognition. 
The forms of the dance have again been wedded to those of the 
dramatic expression. 

In its choral and ballet features, involving supernumeraries 
as well as principals, and also in its depicting of a theme, the 
dance-drama to-day has been most highly developed by the- 
Russians. In their case it is impregnated with the naturalism^ 

[4«] 



THE ORIGIN OF THE DANCE 

which is the characteristic motive also of the Russian novel and 
drama. In the latter arts, authors of other nations have emu- 
lated them, but the palm, not only for frankness of naturalism 
but also for investing it with picturesque attractiveness as well 
as poignancy, belongs to Russia. And the same qualities dis- 
tinguish her creations of dance-drama. 

Meanwhile, it is not the naturalism that constitutes the sole 
or even the chief merit of these creations. It is the sense of 
beauty which is revealed by the Russian, who makes use of 
every opportunity which the theme affords of artistic appeal 
to ear and eye and imagination. Pre-eminently he relies upon 
the inherent capacity of the dance-forms, in their endless 
variety of permutations, based on a comparatively limited num- 
ber of steps and gestures. He handles his coryphees as a 
composer manipulates his musical theme, elaborating melodies 
and harmonies. First and foremost, his imagination, cor- 
responding to the musician's, pictures his theme and its devel- 
opment as an organised succession of rhythmic movements, all 
harmoniously related, adding each its quota of significance and 
beauty to the ensemble. It is the sheer abstract loveliness of 
the whole thing that is its pre-eminent distinction and to this the 
note of naturalism, when it is added, forms a piquant or 
poignant accent. 

And to the ensemble of these dance-dramas all the artistic 

[48] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

resources of the theatre contribute. The Russian invites the 
co-operation of the arts of music, architecture, painting and 
sculpture; and has created a new art, that of scenic lighting. 
The excellency of the result is not the product of a single 
master-mind, but of several master-minds united in perfect 
sympathy of co-operation. Names that it is fair to single out 
for special mention are those of Foukin, stage director of the 
"'Big Theatre," Moscow, the headquarters of the Russian 
dance-drama; Mikail Mordkin, himself supreme artist of the 
dance as well as a master of unrivalled experience* in chore- 
graphic direction; Bakst, the designer of mise-en-scene and 
of details of costumes and accessories, possessed of an ex- 
traordinarily original and fecund imagination; and the musical 
composer, Rimski-Korsakow. Meanwhile the example of 
these artists has bred others only second to themselves, and the 
influence of the master-minds has filtered down to the rank and 
file, so that the humblest is inspired with the ardour of the artist. 
It should be of interest to Americans to know that it is to an 
American, Isadora Duncan, that these Russian artists acknowl- 
edge their indebtedness. It was she who inspired, they will tell 
you, the latest development of these dance-dramas, and Miss 
Duncan herself is in turn largely indebted to the inspiration of 
Gordon Craig. 

{To those of us who saw these Russian dance-dramas in 

[44] 



THE ORIGIN OF THE DANCE 

Faris^ where they were produced by the master minds of the 
Imperial Troupe, the repetition of them in this country fell 
somewhat short of the original in their finer subtleties of ex- 
pressiveness. Yet, even so, they were an amazing revelation 
of what can be done under artistic impulse and co-operation. 
Contrasted with the shoddy patchwork that passes for a beau- 
tiful production in New York they shone as a diamond in com- 
parison with bottle-glass. The reception, however, which they 
met with was lacking in enthusiasm. The public, unaccus- 
tomed to such artistry, was dazzled like a bat in the brilliance of 
an arc-light. 

The stage, which these artists had occupied for a while, was 
re-absorbed into the regular Broadway routine. Had you 
visited the theatre you would have seen the old familiar hodge- 
podge of a little individual cleverness, stirred into a swamp of 
inanity and vulgarity. Back again had come the silly tripping, 
marching and counter-marching of self-conscious chorus-girls 
and the stale variety of '"funny" jokists, male and female; art 
had been ousted, and in the place of a mise-en-scene, stimulating 
to illusions, were trumpery, painted canvases, costumes of 
childish invention and blaring disregard of harmonies of colour, 
and music utterly uninspired. A show more shameful in' its 
tawdry stupidity one could hardly imagine, and yet it had been 

highly commended by some of our leaders of dramatic taste! 

[45] 



/ 



CHAPTER III 



ISADORA DUNCAN 



MAY the combination of two arts enhance, or must it 
detract from, the beauty of each? Is the spirit of 
each a thing so separate and apart that they cannot 
be combined without confusion? Must we listen to music with 
our eyes shut and look at dancing with our ears stopped? 
This question seems to be banal, but it was the subject of many 
of the criticisms which greeted Isadora Duncan's first ap- 
pearance in New York. And truly it would seem that in de- 
veloping their musical taste some musicians have entirely 
neglected all the other arts. Accordingly it is only in surround- 
ings where everything is immobile, that they can be impressed 
with compositions which bear such lively names as Saraband, 
Mazurka, Bourree, Gavotte, Gigue. So much does stillness 
seem to be their one ideal, that it is a wonder they permit the 
musicians to move their arms so vigorously. 

So the musical pundits were shocked. It was a desecration 
of music to associate with it so ^'primitive" an art as dancing; 
too much, possibly, like opening a cathedral window and 
letting nature's freshness blow through the aisles and vaulting. 

[46] 



Copyrl^t t>r SMcheo Photo, by Bduard J. StelchoQ 

ISADORA DUNCAN 

With permiBBion of the Photo. Sectalon 



ISADORA DUNCAN 

It ruffles the hair of the worshippers and disturbs the serene 
detachment of their reveries. 

From their standpoint quite possibly the pundits are right. 
They have trained their ears at the expense of their eyes, and 
have accustomed their brain to respond exclusively to aural im- 
pressions. 

Therefore, since the sense of sight is dormant, it does not 
matter that the colouring of the hall in which they hear their 
Music is crude, its decoration shabby and its lighting distressing 
to the eyes. That is quite appropriate for the proper apprecia- 
tion of the highest music ! But to look at a beautiful creature, 
so impersonal as to be neither man, woman, nor child, flitting 
across a background, restful to the senses, its colour only 
vaguely felt, in rhythmic movement accorded to the subtlest 
phrasing rather than the actual beat of the accent, that was in- 
tolerable. Yet what said one whom they themselves have called 
master: Richard Wagner? 

Of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, in which, to the horror 
of some musical critics, Isadora Duncan dances the second, 
third and foiui;h movements, Wagner wrote as follows in his 
"Artwork of the Future": 

''This symphony is the Apotheosis of Dance herself; it is the 
Dance in her highest aspect, as it were, the loftiest deed of 
bodily motion incorporated in an ideal mould of tone. Melody 

[49] 



t 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

and Hannony unite around the sturdy bones of Rhythm to 
firm and fleshy human shapes, which now with giant limbs, and 
now with soft, elastic pliance, almost before our very eyes, close 
up the supple teeming ranks ; the while now gently, now with 
daring, now serious, now wanton, now pensive, and again exult- 
ing, the deathless strain sounds forth and forth, until in the 
whirl of delight a kiss-triumph seals the last embrace. 

And yet these happy dancers were merely shadowed forth 
in tones^^mere sounds that imitated men I Like a second 
Prometheus, who fashioned men of clay (Thon), Beethoven 
had sought to fashion men of tone. Yet not from *Thon' or 
Tone, but from both substances together, must man, the image 
of life-^ving Zeus, be made. Were Prometheus* mouldings 
only offered to the eye, so were those of Beethoven only offered 
to the ear. But only where eye and ear confirm each other's 
sentience of him (Zeus) is the whole artistic man at hand.'* 

"The whole artistic man!" or in Isadora Duncan's own words, 
"all that is most moral, healthful, and beautiful in art." It is 
to express this that she has dedicated her art. She believes 
in the sacredness of humanity and the sacredness of her service 
to it through her art, so that nothing can be too good or too 
holy to offer to it. All that is best of music shall accompany 
it, just as all that is most lovely in colouring and setting must 1>e 
sought out for it; all that is most impressive in the body and 

[60] 



ISADORA DUNCAN 

mind of the dancer must be dedicated to it. For with her the 
dance must grow from desire and will to dance ; from sympathy 
with the rhythms of nature and in accordance with its laws. 
No need laboriously to stretch the muscles and ligaments with 
unnatural exercise until they become so strong that the laws of 
gravitation seem to be defied. • Given a normal, healthy body, 
developed by natural impulses, harmoniously balanced and 

controlled, and a mind open to the influence of all that is most 

* 

beautiful in life and art, then the body will be provided with 
that upward gravitation of spirituality which will counteract 
the earthly gravitation and give a lightness and poise that mere 
muscular traming can never accompUsh. Such training as wiU 
develop the sjonmetry and grace of the body and help it **to 
evolve movements in ever varying, natural, unending se- 
quences," is her only preparation for the form of the dance. 
And then, to fit the form to the gladness and light of the uni- 
verse and join it to the eternal rhythms of the spheres, she adds 
the training of the wiU and the spirit. 

Such are the ideals of the dancer whose art we heard, before 
her arrival in this country, described a little vaguely sometimes 
as 'l)arefoot" dancing, sometimes as ^"Greek" dancing. It ia 
hardly necessary to say that neither the one nor the other is 
relevant in appreciating her art. Greek it is in so far as the 
Greeks went straight to nature for their inspiration, and 

[61] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

Isadora Duncan has sought the same source, and nature is the 
same in all times and all ages. But never is it Greek for the 
sake of antiquarian prejudices nor opinion! 

Again and again as you watch the play of her limbs and the 
fluttering folds of the draperies you are reminded of this or 
that Greek statue or form on a vase. But this is not the result 
of any slavish imitation. 

Being a lover of beautiful, natural form, she could not fail 
to be impressed by the truth and beauty of Greek art. She 
found in it a synthesis of the sequences of natural movements ; 
in fact, ''of the laws of nature, wherein all is the expression 
of unending, ever increasing evolution, wherein are no ends 
and no beginnings.'' Those are her own words, and she adds: 
''I might take examples of each pose and gesture in the thou- 
sands of figures we have left to us in the Greek vases and has- 
rehefs; there is not one which in its movements does not pre- 
suppose another movement." 

Thus it was the confirmation of her own instinct that she 
discovered in Greek art. She was drawn to the latter by her 
natural impulses, and found herself most akin to the Greek 
when she was most natural herself. 

Accordingly, because the instinct toward the expressional 
use of the body is as natural to her as it was to the Greeks, 
Isadora Duncan is of one mind with them in believing that the 

[52] 



ISADORA DUNCAN 

use of the nude in dancing is as sacred and sane as in the other 
arts. **Dancing naked upon the earth," she says, "I naturally / 
fall into Greek positions, for Greek positions are only earth 
positions." 

The bare limbs and the gauzy draperies, flowing free from 
her body, evidence her belief in the expressive power of the 
body, not a wish to display her body because of any particular 
beauty or grace of its own. It is the sacredness of the body, 
not the beauty of any one particular body that is her motive. 
And, to those who have understood the meaning of her art, it 
is no drawback that she herself has not the absolute perfection 
of proportion demanded by the Broadway show-girl. Rather 
it is a confirmation of her ideal, that the body naturally and 
simply used as a means of expression is a thing to be revered 
because it is "^most moral, healthful and beautiful.^ 

And no doubt that for sheer beauty and gladness of the sort 
that brings happy tears to the eyes and catches the breath in a 
sob at the throat, few things in life equal one's first experience 
of the dancing of Isadora Duncan. The personality of the 
woman is lost in the impersonality of her art. The figure be- 
comes a symbol of abstract conception of rhythm and melody. 
The spirit of rhythm and melody by some miracle seem to have 
been made visible. 

**^ presence distilled from the corporeality of things, it 

[58] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

floats in, bringing with it the perfume of flowers, the breath 
of zephyrs and the ripples of the brook ; the sway of pine trees 
on hillsides and quiver of reeds beside woodland pools; the 
skimming of swallows in the clear blue and the poise of the 
humming-bird in a garden of lilies ; the gliding of fish and the 
dart of the firefly and the footfall of deer on dewy grass ; the 
smile of the sunlight on merry beds of flowers and the soft 
tread of shadows over nameless graves ; the purity of the dawn, 
the tremble of twilight and the sob of moonlit waves. These 
and a thousand other hints of the rhythm which nature weaves 
about the lives and deaths of men seem to permeate her dance. 
The movement of beauty that artists of all ages have dreamed 
of as penetrating the universe through all eternity, in a few 
moments of intense consciousness seems to be realised before 
one's eyes."* . 

For already, before the danceT makes her entrance, we are 
under the spell of music. The lights have been subdued and 
the scene is one of grey-green curtains, falling in long, simple 
folds from the full height of the stage. The efi^ect is neither 
sombre nor gay; just a tranquil background on which the im- 
agination may play, so that when there appears before the 
sweeping folds a small appealing figure, it comes as no dis- 
cordant interruption to our reveries but as though the tone 

* Reprinted by permission ftcm. ^ Camera Work." 

[64] 



ISADORA DUNCAN 

had indeed been moulded by the hands of Prometheus and its 
embodiment were set before our eyes. At first the steps are 
hesitating and wistful, as if she were feeling her way in the 
new world, not quite sure that the atmosphere is as full of love 
and gladness as her heart desires. For the natural spirit 
of the ethereal creature is gladness, and soon in response to 
the gay strains of music she swings into the lilt of gambolling 
limbs and flying draperies. It is the epitome of all the pure 
natural joy that belongs to the beginning of life; the coming 
of the Spring, the first buds on the trees, the tiny flowers, still 
hidden by last autumn's leaves ; the birds, newly arrived from 
the south. So joyous is it, so unpremeditated, that it seems 
like the play of a child to whom sorrow is unknown and unbe- 
lievable, and for that reason it has the child's pathos. 

Such is the beginning of her dance to Gluck's ^'Iphigenie en 
Aulide.'' 

And, now as we may know, she greets her girl-companions. 
For gaiety gives place to comradeship. The hands are out- 
stretched in friendly welcome. The eyes look forth fearlessly, 
frankly; and as the youthful comrades sport and play, glance 
meets glance and hand seeks hand. The ball is tossed high in 
the air, and caught with outstretched arms; while our spirits 
bound in sympathy. Then on the soft yielding sand the young 
forms throw themselves in careless abandonment of play. The 

[66] 



A 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

knuckle-bones are strewn before them and the half -recumbent 
form bends over them, the white hand and arms flashing over 
the sand. Eagerly or lazily, with careless grace, the incarna- 
tion of merry sportfulness, the game is played. Life is still 
nothing but brightness and youth has but added friendship to 
the joys of childhood. 

^ But now a tender note of deeper feeling is felt. The maidens 
watch for the returning fleet. There is longing and even 
anxiety. The deeper feelings of life are awakening and pain 
can no longer be excluded. There has been parting and lone- 
liness before this looked-for home-coming. The movements 
now are not all dancing. A lingering step sometimes. Arms 
stretched out in supplication and longing. The child has en- 
tered into the heritage of life, fuller, deeper and more vital. 
The gaze is intense, the outstretched arms vibrate with passion, 
the feet are winged with longing. No carelessness in the 
present joy, but exaltation. Spring has ripened into summer 
and some of the blossoms are falling and withering that the 
fruit may form. Spring has vanished and the rose is come. 
But there is gladness and beauty in the rose, even while its 
petals fall softly through the air and flutter to the ground as 
in a caress. And just as softly and caressingly the feet of the 
dancer press the ground, as she glides in swift expectancy to 
greet and exult in the coming of the long expected. 

[86] 



LYDIA LOPOUKOWA AND MIKAIL MORDKIN 



w *- 



,. >-< 






ISADORA DUNCAN 

They are marvellous in their suhtle changes of mood, these 
dances of the Old Greek Story. Never mimetic in the sense 
of direct acting, hut ever suggestive of the spirit behind. There 
are no steps, no pirouettes, no elevation on to the toes, no dis- 
play of trained agility, nothing but natural poses, changing 
and melting into each other harmoniously and insensibly. They 
are even somewhat limited in variety, because her aim is not 
to multiply poses but to discover in her own body a free and 
natural expression of what her intelligence and spirit prompt. 

Meanwhile, when she made her second tour in this country, 
it was evident that she had increased her range of movements ; 
and to the knowing eye the source of them was equally clear. 
It was the primitive dance of the Cambodians, who had re- 
cently been appearing in Paris. They had swept the art- 
world with enthusiasm; at least, that portion of the art-world 
which is under the sway of the modem motive. The latter, on 
one hand, is expression. For in revolt against the long pre- 
occupation of artists with the representation of the appearances 
of nature, whether academically, naturalistically, realistically or 
impressionally, they are aiming at a high degree of abstraction. 
They would paint, for example, the human figure, still-life or 
landscape, not for the sake of recording how either looks, but 
to interpret what there is in it of expressional suggestion. To 
the younger generation this motive comes as a novelty, but to 

[69] 



A 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

one man, advanced in years, it has been the consistent motive 
of his life's work. This man is Rodin, of whom Miss Dmican 
saw much during the two years preceding her second visit here; 
the period in which Rodin was deeply interested in the Cam* 
bodian dancers. Besides studying them for herself, she must 
have seen the many drawings that the sculptor made of them 
and enjoyed the advantage of discussing with him the char* 
acter and spirit of their poses and gestures. 

They have their root in a phase of civilisation, far earlier than 
the classic Greek, yet their naturalness has become affected by 
certain symbolical conventions, peculiar to themselves. They 
are even sophisticated; yet with a sophistication so remote 
from that of our own day, that it has all the allurement of the 
primitive. 

Its form and spirit are unmistakable, though it is very difficult 
to describe them in words. Perhaps one approaches a sug- 
gestion of them in the assertion that they involve a certain 
rhjrthmical uncouthness. The poses and gestures are far re- 
moved from the grace of Greek art. The bodies are swayed 
less by intelligence than by emotion, and the latter has a touch 
of savagery, a suggestion of crude earth. Their movements^ 
differ from those of the Greek dancer, as we know the latter,, 
somewhat as Han pottery differs from later Chinese porcelain. 

The influence of this appeared in Miss Duncan's interpreta^- 

[60] 



ISADORA DUNCAN 

tion of the Dance of the Furies in "Orph6e." Here the ex- 
pression of concentrated venom and malice is carried out with 
an intensity and detail more dramatic, savage, earthly than in 
the earlier dances. The muscles harden in the face and limbs, 
the movements are abrupt, fierce, now bowed and now angular. 
The carriage of the body is stiff and inflexible, and then quivers 
and vibrates like a bow-string, loosed from the hand. This 
dance is something of a tour de force. It fascinates one by the 
virtuosity displayed in wedding a borrowed convention to the 
free expression of the dancer's own nature. It has, therefore, 
less of the abstract, impersonal quality which constitutes the 
charm of Miss Duncan's earlier work. 

It is this very charm, however, which has made it impossible 
to secure any picture that can give an adequate idea of the 
^icquisiteness of these dances. It has so far proved beyond 
the power of artists in other mediums to translate this transient 
elusive poetry and make it permanent and stiU alive. 

Yet not even in the "Orphee," still less in the "Iphigenie" is 
there an attempt at expression of the actual facts of the tragedy. 
In the latter it is the pathos, that any doom of sorrow should 
overtake a creature so gay and bright, which is the poignant 
note throughout. And so in the "Orph^e" dance we are con- 
scious of sorrow overcome by beauty; and it is ever the beauty 
that is distilled from emotion and not the emotion itself which 

[61] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

is the appeal of this spiritualised art. In one dance only does 
she seem to attempt the expression of the actual crisis of 
tragedy, and this has not been seen by the general public. It 
is the dance to the *'Liebes-Todt" of Tristan and Isolde. It 
shows flashes of exquisite beauty, so ethereal that they could 
not be held for more than a moment. But the effect was too 
impalpable for a general audience in a large hall. The touch 
of supreme anguish seemed to be evaded, just when one was 
led to the point of expectation. Possibly the motives of the 
music are worked out in too great a detail to sustain a dance. 
But, however that may be, the impression was rather like being 
aware that something was present of rarest beauty of which 
however we were only allowed a glimpse now and then. 

It goes without saying, after all, that a spirit so sensitive as 
Miss Duncan's to the diverse moods of joyousness and gaiety 
cannot fail to respond to the deeper emotions. . But perhaps 
one reason that our spirits respond more readily to the sprightly 
appeal is that, like the sunshine, it is a need of our life and there 
is none too much of it in our modem city life. Of pleasure or 
excitement there is plenty; but pure, spontaneous, natural joy 
comes to us so seldom that we are hungry for it. Such a gay, 
careless swagger, for example, as she displays in the ap- 
prentice's dance in the '^Meistersinger" ; such a spontaneous 
burst of gladness as the Schubert ^'Moment Musicale"; sudi 

[68] 



Photo, br otto Saronjr 
RUTH ST. DENIS AS RADHA IN THE DANCE OF THE FIVE SENSES 






V bw Wvbb^ b b 

^ s. X, *> ^ bb b vv 



b », 



b b 

b b 



b b b 

b b ^ b 

b b k 



ISADORA DUNCAN 

ecstasy of joy as the Blue Danube! One can imagine how the 
inhabitant of the dreary Northern winter longs for and greets 
the return of the Sun, and the refreshment that it brings to 
him, by our enjoyment of these. Our hearts dance with the 
gay dancing figure as it swings, so unencumbered before us, so 
free. 

Freedom I There can be no joy without it. And here is 
Freedom personified, no restraints of clothing, no shoe to bind 
the foot. No convention that counts or orders the steps of the 
dance. The very rhythm of the music translated into co- 
ordinated plnrasing rather than any restricting measured heat. 
For hardly ever do we find any regular stepping of the *'one, 
two, three," order. Often the actual step is taken regardless 
of the measure and only co-ordinated by expression. Yet the 
harmony is not broken, but guided and balanced to a pa^ect 
whole. 

We speak of these dances as Greek or primitive, but what 
could be more modem in motive than this? Are we not learn- 
ing to discard rigid rules that have hardened into conventions- 
for^the-sake-of -convention? If it does not make for efficiency, 
let it go. And what is efficiency, but the utmost possible ex- 
pression of human endeavour. And that is just what art must 
be. We do not ignore rules; but we accept the essence of 
the rule unreservedly, that we can break the letter while we 

[66] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

keep the spirit, and so Isadora Duncan can break the measure 
of her music, because she keeps the expression. 

This is the new ideal that is recreating our systems of educar 
tion, and it is an inspiring motive not only to Miss Duncan's 
art but of her ideals of life. To educate a certain number of 
children by this ideal of controlled freedom so that their bodies 
and minds, following healthy instincts without conventional 
restraints, shall develop in balanced harmony, has been an 
ambition very dear to her heart. The open air, freedom from 
constraining clothing, wholesome food, but food to be desired, 
and all the exercises of running and climbing and bathing that 
the growing child naturally craves, are the only rules imposed. 
For the rest she trusts to natural impulses and desires, guided 
by well balanced instincts. That aUibe children will dance be- 
cause they wish to dance is her hope, but none will be trained 
with tasks and exercises that mean torture to unformed bones, 
and straining the growing muscles, in order to make dancers of 
them. TThat they will be helped to feel consciously the joys 
of perfect poise as the bare foot holds the ground, of the up- 
ward spring of the body, we may well believe ; for all of these 
are parts of the human heritage of joy, which too many of us 
have missed, because in our day and generation teachers were 
more bent on curbing or irradicating natural instincts than in 
guiding and developing them. And it must be a source of joy 

[66] 



ISADORA DUNCAN 

to Miss Duncan to think that her ideals, as set forth in her art» 
have undoubtedly had their share in convincing the modem 
world of the beauty and desirability of thus centering the con- 
trol of moral and physical being not in authority of rules and 
conventions but in the rightly trained desire and will; substitut- 
ing for submission to control a true sense of harmonious balance. 

In some of her ideas, no doubt, Miss Duncan has run so far 
ahead of her age that the latter is left in doubt as to the direc- 
tion of her path. Her belief in the sacredness of the use of the 
nude in her art, in which she has led the way for other modem 
dancers, proves a stumbling block to many. Of her absolute 
sincerity, and the purity of her ideal, there is no doubt, and she 
stands for it with unflinching courage. 

In her own words, "Only the movements of the naked body 
can be perfectly beautiful. Man, arrived at the end of civilisa- 
tion, will have to return to nakedness; not the unconscious 
nakedness of the savage, but to the conscious and acknowledged 
nakedness of the spiritual being.'' And again she declares: 
''Thenoblest art is the nude. This truth is recognised by all, 
and followed by painters, sculptors, and poets. Only the 
dancer has forgotten it, who should remember it, as the instru- 
ment of her art is the human body itself. Man's first con- 
ception of beauty is gained from the form and symmetry of the 
human body. The new school of the dance should be that move- 

[67] 



A 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

ment which is in harmony with, and which will develop, the 
highest form of the human hody." 

^ And again, as to her conception of the dance of the future. 
Miss Duncan shall speak for herself: "From what I have said 
you might conclude that my intention is to return to the dances 
of the old Greeks, or that I think that the dance of the future 
will be a revival of the antique dances, or even of those of the 
primitive tribes. No, the dance of the future will be a new 
movement, a consequence of the entire evolution which man- 
kind has passed through. To return to the dances of the 
Greeks would be as impossible as it is unnecessary. We are not 
Greeks and cannot therefore dance Greek dances. But the 
dance of the future will have to become again a high, religious 
art, as it was with the Greeks. For art which is not religious 
is not art ; it is mere merchandise. 

"The dancer of the future will be one whose body and soul 
have grown so harmoniously together that the natural language 
of that soul will have become the movement of the body. The 
dancer will not belong to a nation but to all humanity.* She 
will dance not in the form of nymph, nor fairy, nor coquette, 
but in the form of woman in its greatest and purest expression. 
She will realise the mission of woman's body and the holiness 
of all its parts. She will dance the changing life of nature» 
showing how each part is transformed into the other. From 

[68] 



ISADORA DUNCAN 

all parts of her body shall shine radiant intelligence, bringing 
to the world the message of the thoughts and inspirations of 
thousands of women. She shall dance the freedom of woman. 
She wjll help womankind to a new knowledge of the possible 
strength and beauty of their bodies, and the relation of their 
bodies to the earth nature and to the children of the future. 

" Oh, she is coming, the dancer of the future ; the free spirit, 
who will inhabit the body of new women; more glorious than 
any woman that has yet been ; more beautiful than the Egyp- 
tian, than the Greek, the early Italian, than all women of past 
centuries — ^the highest intelligence in the freest body 1" 



[69] 



CHAPTER IV 



MAUD ALLAN 



TO most lovers of the dance in America Miss Maud 
Allan is known only by hearsay, for, although she has 
made an appearance in New York, it was during the 
dearth, artistically speaking, of the summer-season, and under 
circumstances not very congenial to art. She was received, 
in consequence, not so much as an artist as a sensational 
curiosity. 

She has written a little story of her life, which is interesting 
as showing the steps by which she gradually reached the idea 
of becoming a dancer. Her early childhood was spent in 
Canada, whence her family moved to California. Here she 
enjoyed the liberty of country life and showed a marked apti- 
tude for physical exercises, becoming an expert rider and 
swimmer. Meanwhile she exhibited sufficient talent for music 
to suggest the hope that she might develop into a professional 
pianist. She was accordingly placed in the San Francisco 
School of Music under the tuition of Mr. E. S. Bonelli, and be- 
gan a thorough course in the practice, theory and history of 

music It was during the early days of her studentship that 

[70] 



^^ 



MAUD ALLEN IN "MOMENTS MUSICALS" 






V 

*• 



b b 

> b % 

b b b 

b b 



vb 
b b 



b b b 

b 

b b 

b 
b 



b 
b b b 



MAUD ALLAN 

she saw Madame Sara Bernhardt. The magic charm of the 
latter's acting made a deep impression on her. It revealed to 
her consciousness that there were other forms of expression be- 
side musical ones. It was not so much the great artiste's voice 
that aroused the child's imagination, as her use of her body. It 
was the first inkling of what the young student came to realise 
later; the capabilities of the body as an instrument of emotional 
expression. 

In time she proceeded to Germany to continue her musical 
studies, and it was during one of her vacations, spent in 
Florence, that she received the second stimulus to what was to 
be after all her chosen art. In the Accademia she made the 
acquaintance of Botticelli's "Allegory of Spring." In the 
fluent rhythms and intricate harmonies of that spiritualised com- 
position she discovered analogies to the rhythms and harmonies 
of music. What she had hitherto experienced in her brain be- 
came visible to her eye. Music seemed to be embodied in the 
figures of *Trimavera" and the dancing Graces. More than 
this, she felt herself in these figures ; felt their movements and 
winding rhythms stirring in her own body. There was 
awakened within her the longing to be herself an instrument of 
emotional expression; and the desire was increased in her when 
she saw Botticelli's "Birth of Venus." Henceforth, while con- 
tinuing her musical studies she became also an eager student of 

[78] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

pictures and sculpture, always with a view of learning the 
secret of physical, plastic expression, and this led her to the 
study of nature's rhythms to be seen in moving grass and danc- 
ing water, in flight of birds and swaying of trees; in the infinite 
examples of nature's universal rhythm. 

Gradually the piano became less sufficient to her; it was the 
instrument of her own body that she felt a growing need to 
cultivate. She devoted an increasing amount of her time to 
physical culture ; not, however, to a formal routine of exercises, 
but to movements expressive of a thought. The latter might 
be inspired by a statue, a picture, something observed in nature, 
or some imagined experience; whatever it was the movements 
of the body were attuned to the expression of the emotions, thus 
mentally conceived. In her own words — ^**A woman who seeks 
grace of movement is best served when she strives to harmonise 
motion with inspiration, be it that of music, the graceful figure 
of some statue or picture that imagination has endowed with 
moving life, or memory of some nature pictiu*e, a wind-rippled 
wheatfield, or the dance of autumnal forest leaves.'* And she 
adds: ''With such things as these for inspiration and stimulus, 
time does not count." 

To appreciate the fulness of meaning in this remark, one 
must be young or still have the memory of youth, and must 
have known such desire of self-expression, and the joy of culti- 

[74] 



MAUD ALLAN 

vating it. It is to find oneself in a new and brighter world, 
treading the mountain-tops of aspiration, breathing the upper 
air of spiritual exaltation; the body seeming to be glorified by 
the spirit which possesses it, and the spirit in turn to be en- 
riched by union with the physical elation. It was the wedding 
of body and spirit in an inseparable union to promote the fullest 
harmony of existence which was the basis of Delsarte's phi- 
losophy and system of expression. It finds its ultimate aim in 
Ruskin's admonition — "Fix, then, this in your mind, that your 
art is to be the praise of something you love. As soon as the 
Artist forgets his function of praise in that of imitation, his 
art is lost." 

In 1901 Miss Allan spent the summer months in Weimer, 
studying the piano with Busoni. In the autumn of the same 
year she was again in Berlin, where she had the privilege of 
meeting Marcel Remy, who later composed the music for her 
^*Vision of Salome." Of this Belgian composer, who was also 
a savant and a Greek scholar, she made a confidant. He en- 
tered with warm sympathy into her desire and ambition, and 
encouraged her by speaking of the unending possibilities open 
to anyone who would try to learn the old Hellenic spirit of the 
dance, and thus recreate a lost art. Under his inspiration she 
began to study the poses and dresses represented in the ex- 
amples of Greek art. He would come to her study, and, sitting 

[76] 



^ 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

at the piano, play some piece from Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, 
or Schmnann, or at other times improvise while she practised 
herself in interpreting the music. Finally, she made her debut 
in dancing at the Theatre Hall of the Royal Conservatoire of 
Music, in Vienna, to the accompaniment, partly of orchestra, 
partly of grand piano. This was in 1908. Since then she has 
appeared in many German cities, toured Switzerland, Austria 
and Hungary, and performed in Paris. In March, 1908, she 
made her first appearance in London at the Palace Theatre. 
As one of the first of the modem dancers who have en- 
deavoured, not to imitate the manner of the Greek dance, but to 
emulate its spirit. Miss Allan has had to bear her share of 
criticism. Much of it was based on the notion that the dis- 
tinguishing feature of the dances was the fact that they were 
performed with bare feet, and in scanty draperies, which re- 
vealed the nudity of the limbs. Some of them, it is true, in- 
volved these features ; but, on the other hand, such a one as "the 
Dance Sacred and Profane" was accompanied by voluminous 
draperies, while, in "Chopin's Funeral March'* the figure was 
completely shrouded. The motive, in fact, has nothing to do 
with the quantity or character of the costume ; the latter being 
purely incidental to the artist's conception of her theme and 
to the expression of it. And as this came to be realised general 
criticism evaporated. It took, however, a particular shape in 

[76] 



MAUD ALLEN IN HER " DANCE OF SALOME " 



».».»• 



». I. - 



b w V 



b V W 



MAUD ALLAN 

opposition to her rendering of "The Vision of Salome." Some 
who applauded her other dances recoiled from this one, either 
because it interpreted a page of history that was recorded in the 
Bible or because the theme itself was felt to be revolting. 

This is no place to enter into a discussion, pro or con, of 
these objections; but, in view of them, it is interesting to recall 
the artist's own explanation of her conception of the theme. 
Briefly, she pictures Salome as an innocent girl of fourteen, 
brought up in the seclusion of the children's quarter of the 
palace. She has no knowledge that the luxiuy with which 
she is surrounded was part of the marriage dowry of her aunt, 
whom Herod had put away that he might marry the girl's 
mother, Herodias. Only one harsh note had disturbed the 
peace of her life. A whisper had run through the halls, re- 
peated by slave to slave, that this luxury had been denounced 
and the vengeance of Almighty God invoked upon her mother 
by "one crying in the wilderness." Yet the continuity of her 
quiet life goes on. Suddenly she is sununoned to the presence 
of the Tetrarch and is bidden to dance before the *1ords, high 
captains and chief estates of Galilee." She has often danced to 
please her father and mother in old days and the playmates of 
her present life, but she falters at appearing before this high 
assembly. But, gathering heart from the rude, plaintive 
cadence of the music, she springs into the great hall. Blind 

[79] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 



to the circle of inflamed eyes, she sees only Herod and her 
mother, and for them and them alone weaves her most ingenious 
witcheries of dance, and, as the music dies in a whirl of passion, 
falls panting in obeisance before the throne. 

She hears the Tetrarch's voice, "Ask of me whatsoever thou 
wilt and I will give it thee." Dazed, frightened by she knows 
not what, she takes refuge in her mother's bosom. ** What shall 
I ask?" she whispers, and the mother answers, *^The head of 
John the Baptist." 

It is brought in, terror and horror seize the child, she flees 
to the terrace garden, but the horror pursues her, for there is 
blood upon her hands. The sight turns her for a moment to 
stone, then brings back the whole ghastly scene, as in a vision. 

She is dancing again, as in a dream, and once more tastes the 
joy of her triumph. Suddenly from out the distance comes a 
wail of distress and the head of John the Baptist rises before 
her, she has a wild desire to take it in her hands. Ecstasy 
mingles with dread, she lays it on the floor and dances round it 
in a mad whirl of childish joy, until exhaustion breaks the spell 
and she falls to the ground. 

She awakens; the ordeal she has gone through has changed 
the child into a woman. For a moment she is conscious of 
superior power, then of a power superior to her own. Her 
first impulse, to conquer it, is followed by another. She longs 

[80] 



MAUD ALLAN 

to be conquered, craving the spiritual guidance of the man 
whose head is before her. But the lips are silent, and in her 
agony for help she presses her own upon them. In their cold 
touch she realises the strange grandeur of a power higher than 
she has ever dreamed of. She begs and prays for mercy. A 
vision of the joy of Salvation hovers before her. She stretches 
out her trembling arms, but the vision disappears. Her 
anguish overpowers her and she falls, still grasping with her 
hands for her lost Redemption. She pays the atonement of 
her mother's sin. 



[81] 




CHAPTER V 



RUTH ST. DENIS 



AVAST gloomy temple is revealed, spotted here and 
there with flickering lights, Indian ornament and 
pillars encrusted with gold, dulled by centuries of 
time and incense smoke. Strange figures, supporting the dome 
roof, and on the ground, wrapt in meditation, the squatting 
bronzed forms of almost nude devotees ; their white turbans and 
loin-cloths catching a gleam of the faint light which pierces the 
fretted door of the shrine. An atmosphere of mystery and de- 
votion, belonging to another civilisation and another age. Then 
wailing music, as the worshippers, offering their gifts, prostrate 
themselves before the shrine. 

Presently through the incense smoke we are conscious that 
the doors are opened and the impassive form of the goddess, 
wrapt in contemplation, is revealed. 

The music becomes more poignant, fresh spires of smoke 
wreathe up before her. Her limbs become animate. Or is it 
the flickering of the lights? No, slowly the throb of life creeps 
into the face. The eyes half open; the head is slightly raised; 
the bosom heaves ; the head turns slowly. Rhada has awakened 

[8«] 






• • •• • 
• . . 



• •• • • 



• • 



•••• 



'• •' 



• • 



I 






••••• ••••• 

••••• ••••• 






• • •• 

• •• • 



RUTH ST. DENIS 

from her long repose and gazes curiously at her worshippers. 

Then, slowly slipping from her throne, she pauses to enjoy 
the pulsations of life, the warm breath of the air and the luxury 
of the moment. By degrees, as her dazzled worshippers bend 
their heads, she tastes the joys and sensations with which she 
has endowed mortals, and glides into the Dance of the Five 
Senses. 

Sight is awakened by the sheen and hues of the jewels 
which bedeck her body, and reflect the quivering lights; Hear- 
ings hy the little silver bells that tinkle, as she bends to catcli 
their varied detonations, her whole body alert to note their 
differences; Smell, by the garlands of flowers, in which she 
wreathes herself, drawing them luxuriously around her, crush- 
ing them against her shimmering flesh as though all parts of 
her would partake of their fragrance ; Touch, by a satin-petalled 
lotus, laid in turn to her cheek, her arm, her lips; while the 
smooth ripple of muscles under her glossy skin responds with 
shivers of sensitive sympathy to the caressing pressure of her 
foot upon the ground. Every nerve is sensitive and in tiuii 
conveys the message. Then, most human of all. Taste. 

She drinks, and for one brief moment the goddess is intoxi- 
cated with human sensation and, flinging away the bowl, 
abandons herself to the passion of life. In time the spell is 
over and she sinks to the ground. Then, slowly gathering the 

[86] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

self-control of ages, she rises, steps past the prostrate wor- 
shippers and the glowing flames of the sacrificial fires back to 
the aloofness and solitude of her godhead. Her limbs are 
folded; the hands rest upon the knees; animation dies down«^-^ 
down, tiU again there is only stillness, a supreme patience. The 
lights flicker out, the gates of the shrine are closed. The atmos- 
phere of mystery and devotion are far removed from a Broad- 
way vaudeville stage. Yet it was on the latter that was first 
exhibited to New York this Dance of the Five Senses by Ruth 
St. Denis. 

It was a strong impulse that prompted this woman, American 
bom and bred, to saturate herself with the spirit and mystery 
of the Orient and translate them with such faithfulness to our 
Occidental imaginations. She was already a trained dancer, 
before the interpretive idea of dancing took possession of her 
mind. Accordingly, when later she came in touch with the 
mysticism of the Orient, she was fired with desire to express its 
s}rmbolism in dances, founded on the mysteries of those ancient 
temples. She studied with East Indian natives, not only the 
forms of the dances, but the sombre, yet gorgeous, colourings 
that is a feature of the decoration of their rock-hewn temples. 
Such was the bias of her temperament, that it was no effort to 
her to put aside her Caucasian point of view and absorb with 
all reverence that of the Orient. Thus she evolved with the^ 

[86] 



RUTH ST. DENIS 

help of her Oriental teachers these dances which express in a 
manner not too exotic for our grasp, the passionless rhapsody 
of a mystical sensuousness. 

No wonder that managers, amazed and confused, held back 
at first from opening their doors to this new aspirant; such 
thorough abandon to rapture which was devoid of sexual ap* 
peal — cold and dear as crystal^-^was utterly beyond their ken. 
It held no allure for the ordinary habitue of the Great White 
Way. So one by one they shook their heads, and bowed her 
out of their ofiices, until at last a manager, more far-seeing than 
the rest, offered her a "turn** in the ordinary vaudeville pro- 
gramme. 

Only her deep faith in the reality of her chosen field of art, 
which had urged her to piu^sue and perfect it in the face of 
every obstacle, could have persuaded her that it would triumph 
even over the incongruous surroundings, and capture an audi- 
ence which, having witnessed the trick bicycle-rider, would 
presently yell with delight at the black-face comedians. Every 
penny that Miss St. Denis could raise was invested in giving the 
trial venture a suitable setting. Everything depended on its 
first reception. If ever faith might falter this would be the 
time. But Ruth St. Denis had faith in herself, her art and her 
pubKc^-and it was justified. 

Not that the vaudeville audience, as a whole, comprehended 

[87] 






DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

her aspirations. At first there was a distinct gasp of amaze- 
ment; wonderment whether to disapprove of the audacity or to 
resent the lofty aloofness of the conception. But in each au- 
dience were a few who responded unreservedly to the beauty of 
the appeal and went out and told others of the rare vision they 
had seen. These, in turn, spread the good news until the mana- 
ger was surprised to find at each performance a stream of peo- 
ple of a type not usually seen at a vaudeville performance, who 
came just before '"Rhada's" appearance and hurried away as 
soon as her curtain fell, and who came again and yet again. 
Truly the people who came and saw and were conquered were 
a cause of some surprise to others than the manager. 

The American public is very prudish. Yet here, a beautiful 
body was displayed with no casings to interrupt the play of 
light on the bronze skin or hide the play of muscles of the lithe 
limbs. But the crystal purity of the dancer's intent seemed to 
have reflected itself in the minds of her audience and banished 
every thought of prejudice. 

Her growth out of the uncongenial soil of American condi- 
tions and the form it took is perhaps to be explained by her 
parentage. In her the strain of Celt is mingled with that of 
the Puritan. Through the latter she has inherited that vision- 
ary trait which often has exhibited itself in transcendentalism, 
and this in her case has been warmed and humanised by the 

[88] 



RUTH ST. DENIS AS RADHA. TEMPLE DANCES 







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RUTH ST. DENIS 

Celtic imagination. Her art is to her a veritable religion. Nor 
is this to be understood in a metaphorical sense; but as a literal 
fact. One cannot be long in her company without realising it, 
nor fail to miss the influence it has had upon both her career 
and her art. It has given her a faith which removes mountains, 
makes nought of difficulties, and compels achievement. After 
she had surmounted the obstacles which stood in the way of her 
first appearance in this country, she felt within her the call to 
proceed to Europe for further study and a larger field of sym- 
pathy. The caU had the solemn authority of a divine intima- 
tion. She had received it and was bound to heed it. We 
saw her before she sailed, and, though she was going among 
strangers, ill-suppUed with funds and scarcely better equipped 
with introductions, she told us that she had no fear. ^^God had 
put it into her mind to go and the outcome was in His hands." 
Her faith was justified. Her dances were warmly received 
abroad and nowhere more so than in Munich, the leading artists 
of that delightfully artistic community extending to her and her 
art the warmest appreciation. The year following her visit 
to the dty, they were still talking of her with unstinted en- 
thusiasm. Since then, during a visit to the Pacific coast, she 
has had the opportunity of studying Oriental mysticism from 
the angle of the Japanese imagination. 
All symbolism of worship comes under her study, and she 

[91] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

penetrates to the inner core of its meaning. For example, 
the subtle moods, always dreamy and vague, of her Incense 
Dance, which is hardly more than a series of poses, portrays the 
mental exaltation, the upward wind of the spirit which is true 
worship. 

The flimsy draperies, the dull lustre of the ye$sels, and the 
absence of any very definite or decisive movement — all are 
suggestive of reverie rather than ecstasy, of the preparation 
rather than of the consummation. The dancer herself ceases 
to have a personality. She is but an emanation, a shadow only 
a little more substantial than the smoke spirals which curl up- 
ward from the vessels before her. So vague, so impalpable, is 
this figure that it is almost impossible to identify it with the 
vivid, self -concentrated creature that glides so insouciantly 
onto the stage at another time in the Cobra Dance. 

Here, cruel and heartless, with long lazy limbs, carelessly 
lounging in undulating grace, and long lazy eyes, half closed 
with drooping lids, she is still, intense and vital. Then, the 
long, rounded arms begin to glide and writhe and coil, as the 
cobra-like hands curve and flatten and raise themselves. Are 
they hands or serpents' heads ? What follows then ? Surely the 
coils of the cobra body. And above them the face. Still, 
intense, but full of vibrant concentration. The whole body is 
changed, one feels the strength and sinuousness in every part, 

[92] 



RUTH ST. DENIS 

yet it is smooth, rounded, unhurried. Technique and com- 
mand of muscles? Tes, to be sure; but above that a deep, in- 
forming spirit, which has absorbed the snake motive and is in- 
fusing it into every part of the body. 

It is this ability to intellectualise sensation and then discover 
a means of interpreting it, which characterises all Miss St. 
Denis' impersonations. Study again the action of the dance of 
the "Touch" in the Dance of the Five Senses; how apart from 
the touch of the flower in the hand, the foot caresses the ground 
and the feeling is expressed through the leg ; how the extended 
hand seems to feel the air and the whole surface of the body 
appears to be sensitive and palpitating with expression. How 
in the dance of "Taste," the pleasure and ecstasy run through 
the shoulders and neck and down to the firmly planted feet. 
It is emotion raised to an abstract power. It is not some one 
person's sense of taste; but the sense of Taste. And so 
through aU these dances until the goddess goes back into her 
shrine and life and animation fade from her face. The limbs 
lose their elasticity as the whole figure settles back into placidity, 
the Nirvana of the Buddhist. 

The art of Ruth St. Denis was peculiarly fitted to make the 
first serious assault on the American appreciation, because it 
has that appeal to the intellect, that literary quality, which is 
the one to which our training and ideals have made us more 

[98] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

susceptible. We all knew, or thought we knew, something 
about Temple dances. But we did not know enough to take 
them too literally. Our knowledge was highly fraught with 
indistinctness, so that the appeal through our intellects to our 
imagination was very happy. The motive was never too subtle 
or intangible but that we might gather something which we 
would translate into our own language. For the writer there 
was something else than emotional adjectives; for the painter 
and photographer, direct inspiration ; for the musician, rhythmic 
harmonies of movement which suggested music. For each of 
us something that we could understand. 

Thus it arrested the attention of the public, as a merdy 
esthetic appeal might not have done at that time, and forced 
them to take the art of Ruth St. Denis seriously. And this is 
just what they had never done before with the art of Dancing. 
Pretty, amusing, even charming it might have been; but never 
before had they met in the dance this high seriousness of pur- 
pose, which compelled a like seriousness of consideration. And 
so, this first appearance was really a matter of much significance 
and had its efi^ect in the consideration shown to other dancers 
who have followed through succeeding years. 

That it was not only the novelty of the appeal which had won 
our approbation was indicated, as has been noted, by the verdict 
of Europe. The Temple Dances were greeted there as a truly 

[94] 



RUTH ST. DENIS IN THE DANCE OF THE FIVE SENSES, OF THE 
TEMPLE DANCES 



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RUTH ST. DENIS 

worth-while contribution to the sum of the beauty. Mean- 
while, other dancers became assured that a people who would 
produce such an artist would not be irresponsive to the appeal of 
the Dance. Accordingly, the door was opened, and since then 
every season brings its quotum of dancers. 

The sleeping goddess has awakened; but unlike the Rhada 
of the Shrine has remained to gladden the eyes of her votaries 
in many various manifestations. From each we catch fresh in- 
spiration of Beauty and Joy and gain with each a little more of 
the power to draw an impersonal and abstract delight. We are 
becoming votaries of the Dance ; not only of the Dancer. 



[97] 



CHAPTER VI 

THE EVOLUTION OF THE BALLET 

THE art of the Ballet is an evolution from the same 
source as that of the drama. Both have come to 
us in their present f oim through the pageants and 
mystery plays of the Middle Ages. Both have their counter- 
part in the earliest games played by children of all countries, in 
which song and rhythmic ordered movement and pantomime 
gestures form a large part. 

The culture of the Renaissance caused a demand for some- 
thing less crude than the miracle and mystery plays of the 
Middle Ages, and the masque, with its combination of music, 
poetry and dancing became the diversion of the upper 
classes. Toward the dose of the fifteenth century we find the 
dance occupying by far the largest share of the attention and 
these dance-dramas, performed on occasions of state by the 
flower of the young nobility, under the name of ballets, de- 
veloped into events of great magnificence. In the sixteenth, 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries they were truly the sport 
of kings. Produced at court functions with great lavishness 
of setting and costume, they were participated in by the royal 

[98] 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE BALLET 

family and members of the court, kings themselves not disdain- 
ing to appear in them. They were almost always of an al- 
legorical or mythological character. Virtue conquering Vice; 
Spring overcoming Winter, and so forth ; and were interspersed 
with singing and dialogue. Sometimes these masques were 
combined with balls in which the actors performed quadrilles. 
Later, an explanatory recitation took the part of the masque, 
the quadrille was expanded and thus the drama-dance as in 
Greek time became seriously considered as an art of expression. 
The dancers at first were usually amateurs and it became cus- 
tomary for them to wear masks, representing the character they 
performed. So deeply rooted was this practice, that when 
Gardel appeared without one in 1772 it caused much sensation. 
One of the earliest and most memorable records of ballet 
is the tragic Ballet des Ardents* Given by the Duchesse de 
fierri, at Paris, early in the fifteenth century, it was less of a 
ballet as we at present understand the word than a masquerade 
ball. The story is well known. Charles VI and some of his 
companions came to the ball disguised as savages, in costumes 
largely consisting of tow, and chained together. As they 
danced among the ladies, challenging them to guess their 
identity, the king's brother, the Duke of Orleans, snatched up 
a torch, holding it among them, the better to examine them. 
In a minute the tow, which was held together by pitch, was in 

[99] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

flames. The unhappy savages chained together could not es- 
cape. Four were burnt to death, one saved himself by break- 
ing his chain and jimiping into a tub of water, and the king was 
saved by his aunt, the Duchesse de Berri, who threw her mantle 
around him. But the shock he then received caused his mind to 
give way and he never thoroughly regained his reason. 

In spite of this tragic mishap the taste for ballet became 
more pronounced during the two succeeding centuries, both in 
France and Italy. We find in 1489 a splendid fete given in 
honour of the Duke of Milan and his bride, Isabelle of Aragon. 
It was a mixture of masque ballet and banquet, each course of 
the latter being served by mythological characters ingeniously 
related to it, who performed dances expressive of their parts. 
Thus, the cloth was set by Jason and the argonauts, bearing 
the golden fleece. A roasted calf was contributed by Mercury. 
Diana and her nymphs bore in venison, Hebe served the nectar, 
Tritons were laden with fish, and so forth. Music and dancing 
were introduced into this gorgeous pageant, which ended with 
an allegorical masque. 

The patronage of the ballet was not confined to courts and 
nobles ; the dignitaries of the church also gave them the benefit 
of their attention and even composed ballets and had them per- 
formed. A ballet is mentioned as being given by the councfl 
of Trent in honour of Charles the Fifth. In all probability it 

[100] 



RUTH ST. DENIS IN THE NAUTCH DANCE 



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THE EVOLUTION OF THE BALLET 

was something more in the nature of a ball. Cardinals and 
bishops took part in it, and it was opened by Cardinal Ercole of 
Mantua. In Portugal the church organised a ballet on the oc- 
casion of the beatification of St. Ignatius Loyola. It repre- 
sented the siege of Troy and was enacted with the aid of 
much scenery and an enormous mechanical horse, which moved 
in the procession from the Church of Notre Dame de Loretta to 
the Place St. Roch where scenery was set up to represent the 
city of Troy, which fell at the approach of the horse, while the 
Greeks performed marshalled dances amid a blaze of fireworks. 
The following day the pageant represented the arrival of Am- 
bassadors from the four corners of the earth. The various 
personages were conveyed in mimic brigantines, propelled in 
some manner through the streets; each company, dressed to 
represent the inhabitants of one of the four continents, de- 
scended at the appointed spot and performed a ballet. 

In England we find Queen Elizabeth entertaining the Grand 
Prior of France and the Connetable de Montmorency with a 
ballet danced by ladies of the court representing the Parables 
of the Ten Virgins. 

Under Catherine de Medici the ballet became a regular func- 
tion of the court, and a master of court ballet was appointed, 
an Italian named Baltasarini, who was called in France 
Beaujoyeux. He organised fetes and ballets on a gorgeous 

[108] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 



scale, inventing mechanical contrivances to ei)hance their splen- 
dour. He also introduced trained horses into his ballet, and 
taught the ladies and gentlemen of the court to perform in- 
tricate evolutions while riding them. The ballet of Circe, one 
of his most famous productions, lasted six hours, the Queen 
Louise Vaudemont taking the part of prima ballerina. King 
Henry III playing an important part. 

These combined pageant ballets through the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries continued to be enacted with great mag- 
nificence, the dancers still being ladies and gentlemen of the 
court, though occasionally professional musicians were pressed 
into service, not only to provide the music but to add to the 
magnificence of the spectacle by filling places in the scenery 
that must have been somewhat uncomfortable if not hazardous. 
Thus, Menestrier, in describing a ballet performed in the Salle 
des Bourbons in 1615 on the occasion of the marriage of 
Madame with the King of Spain, mentions: ''Thirty genii 
(being the chamber and chapel musicians of the King) sus- 
pended in the air, heralded the coming of Minerva, the Queen 
of Spain; Minerva danced to five separate tunes and several 
figures to each tune. And in the sixth tune all voices and 
lutes and violins joined. Then Minerva and her nymphs all 
danced together/' 

The titie of *Xe Roi Solefl," by which Louis XIV was 

[104] 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE BALLET 

pleased to be known, was given him at his appearance in that 
character in a ballet called '^Night/' In the reign of this 
monarch we find the general public were allowed to witness 
these spectacles, which hitherto had been produced solely for 
the court. The opera now superseded the masque, while the 
ballet became more and more identified with it, often introduced 
arbitrarily, without connection with the structure of the play. 

In 1661 the Royal Academy of Dancing was founded and we 
find professional dancers gradually taking possession of the bal- 
let, though for many years Louis XIV continued to appear, 
dancing sometimes with the professional dancers. Usually he 
impersonated gods and heroes but occasionally essayed a comic 
character. And, while princes were the performers, the com- 
posers and inventors were also the greatest of their age ; Moli^re 
and Comeille being included among them. 

In the courts of Italy and Spain these ballets were equally 
popular and magnificent and it was at this period that the 
Czar Fiedolwitz Romanofif of Russia, wishing to introduce into 
his court some of the culture of the Renaissance, sent to Italy 
for sixty artists, expecting to receive painters. When they ar- 
rived, he discovered that half of them were dancers. But he 
was broadminded enough to believe that art might declare itself 
in more manifestations than one, and bade them show what they 
could do. He established the Imperial ballet and school of 

[106] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

dancing, which from that time kept alive in Russia the true 
spirit of the art of the ballet. 

In the eighteenth century we find one Noverre, ballet master 
of the courts of France, Stuttgart and St. Petersburgh, who re-^ 
vived the art of pantomime and allied it to the dance. Hitherto 
the action had been interpolated between dances, but now we 
find the two blended and the ballet takes on a new life. He 
flung aside the outworn conventions and looked to nature for 
his inspiration. ''A ballet," he said, ''is a picture, or rather a 
series of pictures, connected by the action which forms the sub* 
ject of the ballet. A picture is an imitation of nature; but a 
good ballet is nature itself, ennobled by all the charms of art." 
He reformed the costuming of the ballets, which until then had 
been entirely conventional. The ballet of the Horatii had 
formerly been costumed in hooped skirts and padded coats of 
doth of silver or gold, with the hair in powdered rolls. In this 
reform he had immediate successors. Gardel and the Vestria 
family succeeded also in substituting for the old display of sup- 
pleness and dexterity a real portrayal of character and emo- 
tion. Under their guidance appeared many dancers, men aa 
well as women, whose names survive to this day, while their 
supremacy as artists was acknowledged by the greatest minds 
of their own time. 

After the French Revolution dancing as an art seems to have 

[106] 



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• • 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE BALLET 

declined, though we find individual names of great artists scat- 
tered through the first half of the nineteenth century, such as 
Augusta Vestris, a descendant of the famous family of that 
name, Grisi, Cerito, Fanny Elssler and Taglioni. On the en- 
thusiasm evoked in England by this last-named dancer, we 
find an amusing comment in the letter of Jane Welsh Carlyle : 
*^1 saw a very curious sight the other night," she writes, "the 
only one I have been to for a long while, viz., some thousands 
of the grandest and most cultivated people in England all gaz- 
ing in ecstasy, and applauding to death, over a woman, not even 
pretty, balancing herself on the extreme point of one great toe, 
and stretching the other foot high into the air, — ^much higher 
than decency ever dreamt of • It was Taglioni, our chief dancer 
at the opera ; and this is her chief feat, repeated over and over 
to weariness, — ^at least to my weariness. But the Duchesses 
were flinging bouquets at her feet; and not a man (except 
Carlyle) who did not seem to feel disposed to fling himself. I 
counted twenty-five bouquets I But what of that? The Em- 
press of all the Russias once, in a fit of enthusiasm, flung her 
diamond bracelet at the feet of this same Taglioni. ^Virtue is 
its own reward' (in this world) ? Dancing is and sin^g and 
some other things still more frivolous; but for Virtue? it may 
be strongly doubted (as Edinburgh people say to everything 
one tells them) ." 

[109] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

It was such absence of ability to appreciate the appeal to 
beauty that brought about the downfall of dancing and the 
general decline of art in England through the mid- Victorian 
period. Beauty and expression being languages not under- 
stood, the promoters of dancing supplied the public with ex- 
hibitions of skill and suppleness that were unmistakable and re- 
quired no appreciation of that Puritan bugbear, Beauty. 
Throughout all Europe there appears to have been a corre- 
sponding decline in the art of dancing. Even in Russia, where 
the native temperament had kept the art alive, notwithstanding 
the conventionalities imported from France into the Imperial 
ballet school, the vitality seems to have languished. In other 
countries it lingered under the guise of gorgeous spectacle, but 
even in these dancing played an ever decreasing part. Ten 
years ago it seemed hardly an exaggeration to say that the 
ballet was dead. 

But that was not the case. It had been allowed to get out 
of touch with the spirit of the times and therefore ceased either 
to inspire or to be inspired by modem thought. It was the 
old story of trying to live by a womout tradition. Because 
the ballet had flourished in the eighteenth century and had then, 
like painting, concerned itself with courtly pastorals, satin clad 
nymphs and brocaded shepherds, the ballet sought to keep its 
vitality by preserving these threadbare vanities. 

[110] 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE BALLET 

It was the pitiful attempt of the aged belle to keep her court 
around her by continuing to wear the finery of her youth, which 
in reality only shows up mercilessly the incompatibility of the 
faded cheeks and the frivolity of array. No wonder that the 
people of the nineteenth century, enamoured of the vital facts 
of life, had scant respect for these ballets. They were become 
but pale abstractions; their anemic stories, mere skeletons on 
which to hang the trickery of agile posturings and sophisticated 
allurements. 



[Ill] 



CHAPTER VII 

CLASSICAL BALLET 

IN developing its wonderful pantomime-ballets, the reincar- 
nation of the old "'ballet d'action/' the Russian School of 
Choregraphy has not entirely neglected that essentially 
choregraphic form of the ballet which either tells no story or in- 
terprets a theme in the purely conventional language of the 
dance. In this "'Classical'' ballet free use is made of all the 
recognised technicalities of ballet dancing, — ^the pirouettes, the 
toe-dancing, the entrechats, or any other formality of the danc- 
ing school. 

In form it does not differ from the old Italian style ; but its 
use is kept entirely for such dances as do not call for the real- 
istic setting of the dance-drama; such, for example, as the 
famous "'Coppelia'' or the modem romantic dream, ""Les 
Sylphides," or the fairy fantasy of the "Lac des Cygnes/' In 
nearly all of them the women wear the conventional ballet 
dress, short, full-skirted, with silk fleshings and satin shoes, 
while the dress of the men is usually formal. But in spite of 
this conventionality the spiritual quality of the dances is not 
lost. That is to say, these Russian artists are more intent on 

[112] 



' ' " ' " Phito. Hi- White, N. Y. 

LYDIA LOPOUKOWA AND ALEXANDER VOLININE IN THE BALLET 
" LES SYLPHIDES." RUSSIAN DANCERS 



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CLASSICAL BALLET 

interpreting the meaning and spirit of their theme than in 
portraying the obvious shell of fact. And one of the causes 
of the abstract quality of these dancers is their absolute aloof- 
ness. Never do they seem to be dancing to the audience. 
The dancers remain behind the frame of the proscenium with- 
out betraying any consciousness of the world without. Those 
who can remember the satisfied simper of the old-time Italian 
ballerina will know how impossible it was to associate her with 
any world other than that of footlights and canvas scenery. 
She was no creature of the woods, expressing her own joy in 
nature, but a sophisticated woman of the world, calling our 
attention to the number of times that she could cross her feet 
during one bound in the air. 

It was La Carmago, a dancer of the eighteenth century, who 
invented this particular exercise and whose love of conquering 
difficulties made the number of ^'entrechats'' that she could cut 
an object of much importance. But even in that age of arti- 
ficialities such tricks did not appeal to the more artistic of the 
audience. **I have even seen," says Baron, one of the writers 
of that period, ^'a dancer cross sixteen times, but do not suppose 
that I admire such gymnastics, or your pirouettes either/' 

Such conscious exhibitions of skill are necessarily destructive 
of art and it was this that destroyed ballet-dancing in Italy 
and France after its period of greatness diuring the seven- 

[116] 



A 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

teenth and eighteenth centuries. Technique without the 
counterbalance of artistic comprehension has temporarily over- 
whelmed other arts at other times, and it needs strong person- 
ality and definite consciousness of the artistic significance of 
the medium to keep technique where it belongs. This has 
been the great work of the directors of the Russian school of 
ballet. 

By the time their novices are allowed to make their debut 
their technical ability is supposed to be an assured thing, so 
that the director does not concern himself with it but concen- 
trates all his attention on the expression. It is characteristic 
of their pupils, that they seem to be creatures not ruled by the 
physical laws which govern ordinary men and women. They 
perform marvels of graceful agility; but with so little appar- 
ent effort that they seem less concerned with the execution 
of them than in expressing the music of which they are the 
embodiment. And this, of course, means perfect technique, a 
training that has made theu* art a second nature, a medium 
that they can conunand with as little consdous effort as is 
used in walking across the room. 

Years of training are needed to accomplish it. Begun in 
childhood, it lasts for ten years at least. But when it is fin- 
ished, it leaves the dancer equipped with such flexibility of 
technique that its control is a matter to which his attention need 

[116] 



CLASSICAL BALLET 

never be drawn. His or her whole soul can be given to artistic 
expression, even while feats of extraordinary difficulty are be- 
ing performed. Consequently we do not find ourselves con- 
cerned with the agility but with the expressiveness of the 
motion* A pirouette may be executed to a marvel, but what 
we are most conscious of is the quintessence of languor or of 
coquetry, or rapturous abandonment, or the numberless other 
phases of sentiment, it can be made to express with a subtle 
force more vital than words. 

Accordingly the technical pirouettes and toe-dancing be- 
come not an end in themselves but a means to an end, and only 
hint with a refinement and exquisiteness of suggestion at what 
more naturalistic action would express more obviously. When 
these conventional motions are performed with the daintiness 
and grace of a Katrina Geltzer, we succumb to their expres- 
sion of supreme beauty and recognise the intellectualised qual- 
ity of their estihetic charm. And in these purely imaginative 
ballets-operas, such as *The Lac des Cygnes,*' the traditional 
ballet-movements are perfectly in accord with the symbolism 
by which the story is set forth. As Theodore Banville says, 
"Every step is equivalent to an image in a poem." For here 
we are in the realm of fairy-tale, though the story has been 
invested with human pathos. The recital of facts in this ballet 
always takes second place to the dance-movements, which are 

[117] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

among the most significant of those shown by the Russian 
artists. 

Tschaikowsky has invested this ballet with the fire and poetry 
of his music, which ever breathes a vague melancholy that pen* 
etrates even the gayest moment. 

Three of the greatest of the directors of the Russian ballet 
worked to perfect the representation of "Le Lac des Cygnes/* 
one of them being Mikail Mordkin, who made his debut in it 
in Russia. 

Enchanted lakes, full of mystery and melancholy, meta- 
morphosed maidens, gloomy forests, the brave, but ill-fated 
princci^these and other features of the story are familiar to 
folk lore of all the world, but are spiritualised in this instance 
by the poetic wizardry of art. 

At first we see the young prince gaily disporting himself in 
the company of his followers. These are his last days as a 
bachelor. Tomorrow he must choose a bride. He calls in 
his retainers and surrounds himself with the peasantry, while 
mirth and gay dances pass the hours away. The evening 
shades draw in, but the joyous spirits are still ready for more 
activity. With lighted torches the whole party of men bound 
off to a midnight hunt, vying with each other in feats of skill 
and daring, full of lusty and joyous life. 

Then we are transported to the mysterious shores of the 

[118] 



MLLE. KATARINA GELTZER OF THE RUSSIAN IMPERIAL BALLET 



CLASSICAL BALLET 

enchanted lake. It lies deep in a forest of grey-green trees* 
The moonlight faintly pierces their foliage and presently 
white, softly-massed forms gradually stir into life, as the swan- 
maidens wake and glide from group to group, shaking out 
their fluffy garments like the arched wings of the swan and 
curving their arms, as slim and white as its neck. It is mar- 
vellous, the suggestion that is given of swans, especially when 
the forms are massed into fluttering groups. There is no 
actual imitation, no false wings, but just the smooth gliding 
motions, the curves of wrist and fingers, the undulating forms ; 
the imagination is stimulated to fill out the rest. 

Into this scene of enchantment biu-st the young prince and 
his companions, stiU boisterous in their gaiety. But they are 
transfixed to behold not the swans they pursue as quarry but 
beautiful maidens, who shrink from their turbulent approach. 
It is now the huntsmen's turn to be abashed. For these radiant 
beings seem to reproach the young men's temerity in venturing 
to disturb them. His companions would persuade the prince 
to withdraw; but the beauty and charm of the chief of these 
lovely maidens has entirely bewitched him and he remains with 
her. She tells him her sad lot, which grants to her only the 
hoiu-s of darkness in her own form, and turns her during the 
day into a swan. She is in the power of a wicked enchanter, 
and nothing can break the spell but the absolute fidelity of the 

[121] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

first love of a brave knight. This the prince pledges her. She 
shall come to his castle on the morrow and before his mother 
and all the assembled company he will declare her his bride. 
She sees her deliverance at hand. Alternately she hopes and 
fears, abandons herself to the caresses of her lover or shrinks 
in dread of some cruel fate that may intervene. 

It is in a scene like this that one feels that the conventional- 
ised ballet, with its super-refinement of gestures and motion — 
quite unreal as natural expression — can sometimes suggest 
the glamour and unsubstantiality of fairy-lore in a manner 
that no other art can do. True, these are not real people, but 
they are creatures of that same imagination which has peopled 
the folk-lore of all ages with giants, fairies, witches, enchanted 
maidens and princes. It is not what children call ''really 
true," but it responds to an instinctive desire, which is uni- 
versal, for the combination of the natural and the imaginary. 
So the enchanted maiden, turning slowly in a pirouette, ex- 
quisitely expressive of reluctant yet complete surrender, drops 
finally into the arms of the prince, while we are conquered by 
the same glamour which enthralled us when we first heard such 
tales in our childhood. 

But these young lovers are not destined to *^ve happy ever 
after.'' The magician who has the maiden in his power will 
not permit her to appear at the castle, save in the shape of the 

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CLASSICAL BALLET 

swan, and cunningly substitutes for her at the ball his own 
wicked daughter. This part in the ballet is danced by the 
same dancer who appears as the ill-fated swan-maiden and a 
subtle sinistemess in every motion and expression is the only 
clue we get of the difference between the two. For she, too, 
must be captivating; only for charm she must substitute allure, 
for maidenly reticence a conscious coquetry. As she weaves 
her spells around the prince, the music tells us of the poor 
swan circling round the castle in the dark outside. And, while 
he plights his troth to the false-hearted enchantress, the flut- 
tering of the white wings and the piteous cry from out in the 
night reveal to him that he has been tricked. He has been 
false to his first vot^ and the swan will never regain her maiden 
form. Broken-hearted she returns to the lake and the prince 
follows in remorseful haste. There is, however, no hope for 
them but to join their fates in death. So, in the lake beside 
which they first met and loved, the unhappy lovers are united 
for ever. 

Such is the story, unreal yet full of reality, and such is its 
setting forth. Removed from natiu-alism, but full of the ar- 
tistic significance which translates and illuminates it into a lan- 
guage perfectly understandable by Slav or Saxon, Greek or 
Gaul. 

But, even this slender thread of narrative is not necessary. 

[126] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

As the melody in music, so the story in the dance may he sim- 
ply a suggestion, appearing and disappearing and haunting 
the background of harmonious rhythm, now seemingly lost 
entirely, now hinted in an underlying harmony. It is not a 
definite wrought-out form but a subtle thread of idea, vaguely 
felt rather than obviously detailed. And as the melody is 
not one you can whistle, so the story is not one that you can 
tell. 

The ballet, "Les Sylphides," represents the highest achieve- 
ment in this purely abstract form of dance. Simply a phan- 
tasy of abstract beauty, called in the programme ''Romantic 
Reverie," around which one could weave one's own dreams of 
poetry. The scene was as formal and unrealistic as the dance; 
a grove of clipped yews; grey-green in the faint light, with a 
suggestion of grey ruins of architecture; the light somewhat 
subdued most of the time, though shining lustily in some of the 
more bravura dances. The dancers are in the formal ballet 
costume, not flitting in naturalistic freedom, but dancing in 
formulated steps over the green of the ground. They lend 
themselves, however, in a wonderful manner by their sheer im- 
personality to "reverie." They are not human beings nor 
fauns nor dryads, but emanations of the moonbeams and the 
ancient trees and ruins of the spot. If you will, they are but 
the spirits of the forces of the elements which have floated 

[126] 



CLASSICAL BALLET 

around that spot for centuries and now, taking form, sport in 
bodily presence so that for once mortals may look on those im- 
der whose sway they dwell. 

They hover now in groups, forming and reforming in massed 
loveliness; so light and airy that they seem to be borne on the 
breeze around the solid, gnarled stems of the trees. Now they 
cluster on the ground; now disperse in wisps of misty white- 
ness, as though a breath of wind had blown on them. Nothing 
more airy and unreal could be imagined to have life and form. 

As they flitted in the half light, they somehow called to 
mind that strange, unreal exotic, the night-blooming cereus. 
Its white, waxen flowers bloom once in ten years and then but 
for a single night, as though their purity and elegance were too 
exquisite for the work-a-day world, but belonged to the world 
of spirits and fairy folk who may assume mortal shape only 
during the hours of darkness. Even the shape of the blossom, 
almost luminous in its whiteness, is not unlike the buoyant 
skirt of the dancer, while the formality of the shrub on which 
it blooms might suggest the setting of this romantic dream. 
One would hardly wish for detailed descriptions of these dances 
any more than one would wish to pick and wear the blossom. 
They are all phantasies that reveal themselves for a little 
while and then are gone, leaving a vague sense of yearning and 
the memory of a lovely dream. 

[187] 



CHAPTER VIII 

ADELINE GEN^ E 

THE first years of the present century showed little 
promise of the hrilliance of the present renaissance 
of the Art of the Dance. Those graceful waltzers, 
Kate Vaughan, Letty Lind, and Sylvia Grey had left no suc- 
cessors in their dainty bon-bonniere art. The skirt and ser- 
pentine dances became less and less a matter of dancing and 
more and more one of clever manipulation of mechanical con- 
trivances. Not that the artistic possibilities of the combination 
of these floating fabrics and coloured lights has yet been fully 
utilised. But the thing lacking was the actual dance spirit 
that would use the contrivances only as a means of additional 
expression. So, too, with the wonderful flying ballets. Since 
they required of the performers little save ability to maintain 
a graceful pose, as they were moved through the air by means 
of ingenious mechanism of wires, they can hardly be considered 
as dances of expression. 

More expressive, but even less commendable, were the whirls 
of high kicks and limb-contorting stunts that did duty for danc- 
ing in most of the stage ballets of the period. Like all ex- 

[128] 



Photo, by Otto Sanmr. N. V. 

ADELINE GEStR IN THE SILVER STAR 



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ADELINE GEN:^E 

}>ositions of skill this form of dance easily degenerated into a 
mere personal matter of agility and ingenuity. The appeal of 
the performer was, ''Look at me, I can kick higher and faster 
than anyone you ever saw before ;" the dancer looked out to the 
audience to make sure that they were looking at her. The 
atmosphere, thus created, is deadly to dignity and false to art. 
It is permeated with the essence of sophistication and reeks 
of the limelight and rouge-pot and all other disillusionment that 
art should make us forget. 

Into this artificial patchouli-scented atmosphere there floated 
one day a bright sunbeam, wafting with it an air sweet and 
fresh and cool as the dawn on a dewy meadow. It was as 
though a window had been opened in an overheated conservatory, 
and in the refreshing breath of the pure morning air the poor 
withering plants lifted up their heads and bloomed once more. 

It was Mademoiselle Adeline Grcnee who, through the fra- 
grance of her presence, first in England, then in America, as- 
siu'ed us that the ballet was not, after all, a dead thing, that 
the conventional technique under the control of an artist might 
still be made to yield sincere and vital expression. 

A Dane by nationality, born in Jutland, this little lady made 
her first appearance in Copenhagen as a child-prodigy at the 
age of nine. Continuing her studies under her uncle, a famous 
ballet master, and his wife, a Hungarian dancer, MUe. Genee 

[131] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

appeared again with ripened talent at the Royal Opera House 
of Copenhagen and at those also of Munich and Berlin. Then 
she went to London and for thirteen years was identified with 
the Empire Music Hall. 

There, as when she later appeared here, the environment in 
which she found herself was not on the plane of the Royal Opera 
Houses, hitherto the scenes of her triumphs. Her audiences 
were, as a rule, not looking for art, but for amusement, and 
had not even learned to expect art from a dancer. Undis- 
mayed, she set herself, therefore, to restore iht Cinderella of 
the Muses to her rightful sphere. 

And for this she was royally equipped. She had, to begin 
with, a technique which was flawless. The most difficult exer- 
cise she performs with the insouciance of a frolicking child. 
Added to this is the charm of purity and fragrance which one 
associates with childhood, combined with that artistic sincerity 
which makes her appeal impersonal and abstract. 

It was the appreciation of this lovely child-spirit in her lliat 
caused Arthur Symonds, that poet-critic of English drama, to 
send to Mile. Grcnee a basket of penny china toys, and with 
them some nonsense verses entitled ''Homage of the Fenny 
Dolls to the Illustrious Lady Adeline Gen6e/' They read as 
follows : 



[18«] 



ADELINE GEN^E 

"We are penny Dolls; we bring 
To fair Gen6e welcoming. 
Venice made us of her earthy 
We are but of hiunble Urth, 
We can crow and grunt and sing 
For fair Genre's welcoming." 

It is true that there is nothing profound in her art; Kut do 
we chide the little brook, brawling over its rocks and murmxur- 
ing amid its mosses, because it is not the ocean? Axe there not 
infinite delight and variety in its windings and hurryings and 
cool still pools and splashing little waterfalls? So, in the ex- 
quisite miniatures which Mile. Genee discloses there is a charm 
none the less genuine because its range is not boundless nor 
its depth overwhelming. 

With these resources, in spite of the handicap of unworthy 
surroundings. Mile. Genee came and conquered. Soon the 
public was asking: ''Is it necessary that the dancer's art shall 
be displayed amidst vulgarities and inanities? Does it not be- 
long to the realm of beauty?" The little lady by her own sin- 
cerity and fragrant sweetness had made some of her public 
think. She achieved this marvel by being true to her art and 
her own ideal, continuing to give of her best and not stooping to 
a lower standard. So, though her art is of the most joyous, 
dainty, gossamer texture, it proved to have in it some of the 

[188] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

gallant spirit of the Fairy Prince, who could right the wrongs 
of the neglected Cinderella of the arts. 

But the conditions of her appearance, especially in New 
York, were a rather significant commentary on the ways of our 
purveyors of public entertainment. For here was a public 
which, as subsequent events proved, possessed a latent taste for 
the artistic rendering of the dance, and here also an artist most 
capable of giving it to them. But the purveyors, by trying to 
attract a public which had neither taste nor discernment, sue- 
ceeded in repelling some of those who were most ready to greet 
the dancer with real appreciation. 

But the banalities and vulgarities of her surroundings never 
touched MUe. Gren6e*s art. Above it all, she shone, clear and 
bright, no more contaminated than is the moon by the gutter 
which its silver beams illumine. 

Her dancing is a revival of the classical style, and again and 
again we are r^ninded as we watch her of the old prints of 
Taglioni. The very style of her dress, worn usually a little 
longer than the modern French ballet skirt, gives her something 
of the elegance and demureness of the Victorian period. Her 
technique is of the French School, accomplishing with perfect, 
grace and precision all the conventionalities of toe-dancing,, 
pirouetting, balancing and the rest. But through all runs a. 
sprightly elfishness and gaiety which infuses life and originality^ 

[184] 



Phota by Otto Sarony. N. r. 



ADELINE GENEE IN HER HUNTING DANCE 



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ADELINE GEN:^E 

into everything she does. The purity and innocence of her 
face, with its soft cluster of yellow hair pushed back to each 
side of the rather high forehead, and the candid, friendly eyes, 
the lithe, straight limbs, the arching smile of her mouth all help 
in the impression of fresh and happy sanity. 

Of all her dances the one most characteristically her own is 
the Hunting Dance. Clad in full riding paraphernalia, habit, 
hat, boots, high stock and hunting crop, she bounds down an 
incline with a beautiful forward leap of the body that is full of 
suggestion of the buoyant hurrying onward motion of the eager 
horseman. For her hunt is the fox hunt, not the pursuit of 
game. And how certainly one feels the action of a spirited 
highly-bred horse — ^the trot, the gallop, the canter I All are 
suggested rather than mimicked, and there, too, is the rider 
seated on a side saddle, swaying lightly to the rise and fall of 
her mount. There is something in the restive patter of the 
feet, something in the toss of the neat h'ttle head, and the light 
but firm poise of the hands which tells you all that is necessary 
to start the imagination picturing horse and rider both. It 
does not need the dogs, handsome though they be in their 
spotting of colour, to give you the whole **field*' on a bright 
morning at the beginning of a good run. And at the close of 
the dance, when she stands whip uplifted and the smile of 
triumph lighting her piquant face, one shares the exhilaration 

[187] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

that has ever made the hunt a bond, knitting together all lovers 
of the horse, be they high or low, since woods gave place to open 
country. 

Nor is her gaiety at all lacking in dignity. In the Empire 
Dance, the dainty poise of her head, the firm supple straight- 
ness of figure, the arch of the wrist all confirm a suggestion of 
gracious courtliness, as of one who has dropped the reserve of 
formality, yet clings to certain inherent stateliness of breeding, 
even in her gaiety. 

MUe. Gren^ was seen in one drama-dance during her visit 
to this country. It was more in the nature of a French "ballet 
d'action" than that of the naturalistic dramas depicted by the 
Russians. Its theme is a repetition of the often-told story of a 
dryad, loving a mortal who swears to be true to her and her 
alone. The tryst at which his love is to be proved is forgotten 
by him and he comes to the spot accompanied by a new love. 
The dryad returns to imprisonment in her tree, while the faith- 
less swain remains ignorant of her fate. The poignancy of this 
rendering of the story lies in the innocent souUessness of it and 
in a wistful longing for the deeper things of life. The actual 
note of anguish is hardly touched; but there is pathos in the 
appealing figure, hght and fragile as a snowflake, which melts 
at contact with the rough human world. The spectacle of out- 
stretched arms and slowly retreating figure, posed with hardly 

[188] 



ADi!LINE GENf E 

a touch of the toe on the ground, is exquisitely ethereal and 
lovely. 

Indeed it has well been said of Genee that she merits the 
words of Paul $t. Victor, written of another dancer: "Her 
movements might inspire a designer of fine and dainty orna- 
ment. All she does is exquisite, minute and delicate as lace- 
work." 

Her latest appearance has been at the London Coliseimi in 
a ballet which has not yet been seen in America. It is a dance- 
drama entitled ^'La Camargo/' being based on an episode in 
the career of that famous queen of the ballet, who captivated 
the vagrant heart of the fifteenth Louis, was extolled in verse 
by Voltaire and painted by Lancret. Established in one of 
the apartments of VersaiUes. she is discovered trying on a new 
dancing costume. A bouquet is handed to her, accompanied 
with a note, couched in terms of insolent gallantry. While she 
is smarting from the affront, an old friend of her early life 
enters in distress. Her son, a playmate of La Camargo's girl- 
hood, now one of the king's guards, has been arrested for 
striking his officer; death is the penalty. Will La Camargo 
intercede for him with the king? It was a scandalous remark 
affecting her reputation which had angered the youth, and the 
traducer, it transpires, was no other than the writer of the in- 
sulting note. La Camargo accepts the opportunity of 

[189] 



DANCING AND DANCilJlS OF TODAY 



humbling him. The king enters, she daii'ces for him, and in the 
thrill of his pleasure claims the pardon as a reward. He cannot 
condone the insubordination; she dances again, and yet again, 
putting forth all her skill in the invention ^f fresh steps and 
combinations. The king, though fascinated, remains obdurate ; 
it is only when he has been shown the note that he grants the 
pardon. La Camargo is revenged and the youth goes free. 
But the sight of him has recalled the memories of her youth, and 
she sighs for the freedom of the country life and realises that, 
notwithstanding all her triumphs, she is a lonely, loveless pris- 
oner in a gilded cage. 

No theme could be fitter as a medium for the display of 
Genee's particular qualities. Her art is a product of the tra- 
dition which La Camargo herself did so much to establish; 
moreover the little modem artiste's charm consists largely in 
its mingling of a studied precocity of style with a spirit so 
fragrantly natural. If, then, this new ballet, as a production, 
is somewhat disappointing, the fault is scarcely hers. It is to 
be attributed rather to the spirit and method exhibited by the 
author, producer and designer, Mr. C. Wilhelm. He repre- 
sents the Teutonic spirit and method as contrasted with those 
of the modem Russians, and it is for this reason that it has 
seemed worth while to allude to this particular production. 

The difference can be summed up in two words, the Teutonic, 

[140] 



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as represented here, is based on ^nimicry; the Russian, on in- 
terpretation. When, for example, Genee urges the king to 
sign the pardon, she has beefl instructed or encouraged to 
wriggle her wrist in the air> as if she were writing. This is 
but a sample of innumerable little futile mimicries employed 
to tell the story to the audieftice, who thereby are treated as if 
they had but little intelligence and no imagination. Many of 
us are disposed to hurl back the affront across the footlights 
and assert that it is a lack of intelligence and imagination 
which characterises the production. The effect, indeed, upon 
the student and lover of the modem dance-drama was one of 
dissatisfaction, as with something uninspired and rather com- 
monplace, and this, notwithstanding the charm of Genee, whose 
art seemed robbed of much of its freshness and originality by 
contact with such ill-considered and unimpressive matter-of- 
factness. 

The point is worth enforcing, for there seems to be little 
doubt that the dance-drama is destined for a better fate than 
to be a fad which will shortly be superseded by some other 
"latest thing." It is so firmly rooted in the past that its fu- 
ture is assured, and is so much a product of human instincts 
that its hold upon the popular imagination will increase. Ac- 
cordingly, it is well to note that there is a higher and a lower 
form of the art. The latter is illustrated in the example we 

[148] 



DANCING ANL^ DANCERS OF TODAY 

have been coiisidermg» whicii» notwithstanding its elaboration 
and refinements, is fundamentally akin to primitive dance- 
dramas in its reliance upon the mimetic instinct: the rudi- 
mentary faculty of imitating and the rudimentary delight of 
reorganising imitation. 

On the other hand, the higher gift is the faculty of inter- 
pretation, while the higher capacity of appreciation is con- 
cerned chiefly with expression. The art which involves these 
qualities is creative — ^it is born of and appeals to the imagina- 
tion. 

Now it is in this direction that the Russians have advanced 
the dance-drama. They have lifted it into line with the modem 
developments in the sister arts of painting, sculpture, music 
and literature. Even when their dance-drama is most natural- 
istic, it is more than that. It is not satisfied only to represent 
certain facts, it also invests them with suggestions that stimu- 
late the imagination to abstract enjoyment. In pursuit of 
this higher purpose the Russians have evolved a new language 
of choregraphic expression. It has a vocabulary, idioms and a 
style of its own, properly belonging to it, because derived 
from the genius of its own art of dancing. It does not ex- 
clude the mimetic element, but has absorbed it into the more 
abstract and conventionalised language of the purely dance 
form. Meanwhile, the conventionalisation through the infu- 

[144] 



ADELINE GEN^E 

sion of the mimetic is saved from being merely formal. 

The language has thus become an elastic medium of ex- 
pression, a living language. The artist who has learned its 
vocabulary and idioms can use it as a musician does his medium. 
He can play upon the endless permutations which the vocab- 
ulary and idioms involve, and create his melodies and har- 
monies of movement in response to the creation of his own 
imagination. His body thus becomes an instrument of living 
and inexhaustibly varied expression. He depicts the theme of 
the dance, but with a wealth of beautiful suggestion that raises 
one's imagination to high levels of abstract enjoyment. We 
revel in the sheer beauty of this labyrinth of moving harmonies 
and rhythms, controlled by and interpreting the dancer's intel- 
lectualised conception of the theme. For cultivated intelli- 
gence and taste, as well as perfection of bodily technique, are 
prerequisites of this new language of choregraphic expression. 

By the time that we have fallen under the spell of this rich 
and varied art-form, the mainly mimetic form, with its scanty 
fringe of conventionalised steps and gestures, seems very 
threadbare and unsatisfying. 



[146] 



A 



CHAPTER IX 

THE RUSSIAN DANCE-DRAMA 

THE Russian Imperial School of Ballet, since its 
foundation in the seventeenth century, has been sec- 
ond to none in Europe. In spite of its share in the 
general decline of the nineteenth century, it has always stood 
for something vital in its own country. Its artists have re- 

« 

garded it seriously as the expression of a form of drama, — as 
distinctly so as poetry or essay are forms of literature. 

The Imperial School of Ballet in Russia has not been con- 
tent to train dancers and then throw them on their own re- 
sources to make a living as best they can. It has always 
maintained a troupe of dancers, selected from the best of the 
pupils, whose position made it possible for them to devote 
themselves not to the exploitation of themselves but the de- 
velopment of their art. They are allowed to dance only dur- 
ing the best years of their life, while their bodies have the 
suppleness and beauty of youth, after which they receive a 
pension and are obliged to retire. But to cease to dance does 
not mean to cease to promote the efficiency of this branch of 
the drama, and we find dancers becoming directors and in- 
ventors of the dance-drama. 

[146] 



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• • 

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THE RUSSIAN DANCE-DRAMA 

The reason for the decadence shown in the nineteenth cen- 
tury seems to have been the same in Russia as in other coun- 
tries. The French vogue for exhibition of technical ability de- 
stroyed the natural artistic expression of the dancers. 

The directorship of the ballet had been entrusted to French- 
men and other foreign dancers whose strict idea of a classical 
conventionality had no relation to Russian ideals or their other 
expres^ional forms in literature, painting or drama. 

Gradually, however, that passionate interest in life, tinged 
with Oriental fatalism and luxurious imagination which is felt 
so strongly in the other forms of Russian expression, began 
to find its way into the ballet. The wonderful revival of the 
national ideal in music lent inspiration to the awakening of 
the dance. Look over the names of the composers whose 
music is used in the Russian ballets: Borodine, Stravinski, 
Glazounow, Tschaikowski, Rimski-Korsakow. Their work is 
universal in its significance but notably Russian in both expres- 
sion and appeal. What wonder that they aroused the artistic 
spirit of the dancers, who proceeded to shake themselves free 
of the fetters of conventionalism, and express themselves ac- 
cording to the aboimding temperament of their own country. 

And truly no one can see these dance-dramas of the new 
Russian movement without realising that a new form has been 
imparted to this art. Here is realism not content with giving 

[149] 



A 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

us the mere fact, but expressing the significance of the f ac£ s6 
forcefully that it is enhanced fifty-fold. No longer is it per^ 
sonal and peculiar to the individual, but universal and typical 
of the elemental forces from which it proceeds. Is it ih6 
enamoured Amoun who aspires to the possession of the dis- 
dainful Queen? We see the infatuation of the moth for the 
destroying flame, universal, elemental. Is it the persistent 
opposition of his rejected love, Ta-hor, who would save him 
from his doom and free him from the fatal enchantment? We 
see the futile fight against waning passion that makes tragedies 
all the world over. Characteristically Russian, but universal 
also, and told in the universal language of dance with the en- 
chantment of music whose ardour of expression is characteris- 
tically Ryssian. It is no wonder that these ballets have stirred 
the artistic world. Not the principals only but every dancer 
in them is a trained artist ; not in technical achievement alone, 
though that is an important factor, but in the art of expresdon. 
In the smallest detail of what might seem like a mere chorus 
part, there .mdst be nothing perfunctory, no single gesture 
made merely for the sake of uniformity. Each must have an 
inspiring motive. Brains must move as well as muscles. And 
the gesture must be thought out so that it conveys in the most 
poignant manner possible the conclusion at which the brain has 
arrived. It is not the naturalistic gesture, but the inter- 

[160] 



THE RUSSIAN DANCE-DRAMA 

pretive, that is sought. But it must be given with the inner 
conviction that shall make it seem natural. In this way the 
Russians have created a new choregraphic language. 

The scenery is planned with the same expressional idea: 
no absolute imitation of any individual scene, but something 
that will best express the character of the environment of the 
drama enacted. The costumes, too, must enhance the emo- 
tional expression of the wearers and the general character of 
the scene, and are never either merely charming groupings of 
colour nor authentic copies of actual garments of any period or 
coimtry. Thus, this basic idea of expression spurs on the work- 
ers in every detail of the production and the art of the director 
of the ballet must harmonise these and give to each its just 
proportion of prominence. For example, in the dance-drama 
of Cleopatra, while Ta-hor tries to turn Amoun from his 
growing infatuation for Cleopatra, there are times when the 
figure of the Queen must be merely a baleful shadow on the 
outskirts of the drama of these two lovers and again a time 
when a glance, flashed from her compelling eyes, destroys in 
a moment the fabric of Ta-hor's painfully laid defence. But 
Cleopatra must make no movement. Stretched on her couch, 
she appears coldly indifferent to these mere underlings, even 
^hUe she destroys them with her witchery. 

There are cruelty and bloodthirstiness in these Oriental 

[151] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

dramas of the Russians, the outcome of tiieir fatalistic tenden- 
cies; but the horror has never the brutal hideousness of tiie 
Grand Guignol or of the modem Japanese naturalistic drama. 
The slaughter of the faithless wives in the '"Sheherazade" is a 
thing of horror anc} terror and fierce revenge, but it is not 
sickening or revolting. It is even beautiful in a lurid way, and 
the solitary figure of the vengeful Schah-riar, wiping his scim- 
itar, as he gazes at the dead body of his last favourite wife, has 
pathos and dignity as well as remorselessness. For tiie poise 
and rhythm of the dance have in themselves expressional pow- 
ers that make gross realism unnecessary and embody the neces- 
sary narrative in suggested outlines, which while they both 
enhance and elude the actual fact, never lose sight of the in- 
forming spirit of them. Nor are the subtle differences of 
spirit imexpressed. In the two dramas, both representing 
tyranny and cruelty of Oriental despotism, the **Sheherazade" 
and the '^Cleopatra," what a differenece there is in the tempera- 
ment of each I In the "Shchcrazade" — ^profusion, luxury, hot 
passions, warmth, light, love; a scene, curtained, cushioned, 
draped, with closed doors and heavy scented atmosphere; the 
gestures and poses, full of voluptuous abandonment, the fig^ 
ures of the sultanas, like exotic orchids, sensuous, fragile, intoxi- 
cating. 

But in "Cleopatra** there is austerity and refinement of 

[168] 



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• • • • ■ •• 



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THE RUSSIAN DANCE-DRAMA 

sensuousness: bare walls, stone jSoors, the air blowing cool 
from the desert, even the couch of the Queen straight and 
hard* The colours are faint and cold with much black intro- 
duced, so that the general effect is less that of colour than of 
lights and darks. The gestures are straight and tense; the 
Queen concentrated, enigmatic, absorbing remorselessly all 
that approaches her of life and joy, and in exchange bequeath- 
ing death. 

It is no wonder that when a company of artists, trained in 
this school of Russian dance-dramas, inspired by the music of 
the vivid school of Russian composers, came to Paris, they 
electrified that city with their new form of art. Here was 
drama raised to an abstract power; but retaining its warm 
fervent touch upon vigorous pulsating life. It was more ab- 
stract than pantomime, more alive than dance. It admitted 
of the wildest frenzy of rhapsody, but remained impersonal 
and objective. It could be marble, cold and remote, or throb- 
bing with human feeling. It was a series of pictures for the 
painter, statues for the sculptor, stories for the romancer, psy- 
chology for the scientist and a Thing of Beauty for every eye. 
No wonder Paris took it to her heart and loved it. 

It was due to the enterprise of Miss Grcrtrude Hoffman 
that these ballets were brought to this country. Herself a 
trained dancer, she could not fail to be impressed with the mar- 

[166] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

vellous technique. But while she had the artist vision to appre- 
ciate the appeal of their beauty, she had also the American 
enterprise and courage to bring them to her native country. 
It was a colossal undertaking and not without its hazard. If 
the appreciation of our public had been a *'sure thing/' it would 
not have been left to her to bring them. But managers felt 
dubious of such a venture, with something so unusual and so 
expensive. But, undismayed, Miss Hoffman worked unceas- 
ingly for two years, studying under one of their professors, 
the while, to realise her ambition. At the end of that time with 
the help of Mr. Morris Gest, she brought over the entire 
company, scenery, costumes, and placed before the New York 
public the result of her endeavour. As the result of her study 
she was able to appear with them, identifying herself with the 
spirit and method of their work and showing an increase in. 
the depth of her own artistic powers that put her in the front: 
rank of artists. 

Let us examine these dramas, so full of the exuberance and 
the fatalism of the Orient and the philosophic melancholy of 
the Russian. 

The scene of "Cleopatra" is an Egyptian temple, built with 
solidly planted permanence that marks the aiQchitecture of 
Egypt. The walls are massive, with straight square-cut open- 
ings to deep embrasures, in which the shadows lie grey and 

[166] 



THE RUSSIAN DANCE-DRAMA 

opalescent. A few straight-branched tamarisk trees, vague 
greyish-green in line, soften the comers and throw black pat- 
terning of their shadows on the dull-toned masonry. But 
overhead the ceiling cloth is a mass of black and gold, barred 
and spotted with richly sombre ornament. It is the abode, not 
of luxury but of mystery and austerity, presupposing dark 
recesses beyond, long galleries of solid stone, and hidden cham- 
bers. If we examine the actual detail, we are impressed by 
the suggestiveness of the lighting which leaves dark shadows 
in the comers and in the openings of the doorways and il- 
limiines the modellings of the wall embrasures. The priests 
and attendants slide silent and impassive from place to place, 
intent on the mysteries of their calling. The place is hushed 
and removed from the turmoil of things — shut in by the 
stretches of the desert and its own imperishable walls. 

But even these barriers have not shut out human passions. 
Gliding in and out in busy preparation are the fair young 
priestesses. They make ready for the arrival of the Queen of 
Egypt who comes to spend a night at the shrine in fulfilment 
of a vow. But it is not the expectation of her coming that 
makes the young priestess Ta-hor look with longing and ex- 
pectation toward the great doorway. She waits for the yoimg 
Arab-chief, Amoun, her lover. And before long her hopes 
are rewarded ; Amoun, young, supple, strong, bounds into the 

[167] 



i 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

hall and clasps her in his arms. He has been hunting, and 
even now his bow is in his hand and the quiver of arrows slung 
over his shoulder. He is stript of all but a loin doth, that he 
may run with fleetness equal to his prey. 

The young priestess masks her love that she may once more 
have the joy of having him woo it. She darts from him, elud- 
ing his outspread arm and holds him off wilh outstretched 
hands. But she is a creature too friendly and frank for long 
resistance and presently melts into his arms in mutual rapture. 

He describes to her his chase, the boldness of his arrow shots, 
the pursuit of the quarry. Then again they give themselves 
up to bliss. The entrance of the high priest, dad in his leopard 
skin, seems to interrupt their gladness. Will he tear them 
apart? He seems to hesitate and then leaves them that he 
may consult the oracle of the shrine. The lovers remain, anx- 
ious and fearful. What will be their fate? Can they resign 
themselves to parting, or shall they cling together come weal 
come woe? Their gestures alternate between hesitating re- 
nunciation and passionate defiance: but soon the priest re- 
turns. The orades are favourable. He will bless their union 
at the appointed time, and the lovers are made happy. 

But now the doors are flung open. There enters the train 
of the Queen. First come her guards, swart Ethiopians^ 
armed with spears; then rank after rank of slaves, dancers^ 

[168] 





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THE RUSSIAN DANCE-DRAMA 

musicians, Greeks and fan bearers ; lastly, her personal attend- 
ants, grouped closely round a black, sarcophagus-like litter 
which is borne on the shoulders of four stalwart negroes. In 
it, hidden from all curious eyes, is the august person of the 
Mighty Queen. 

The bearers place the litter on the ground, and the maidens 
help their mistress to alight. Lifted from her resting place, 
she is placed on a pedestal in the middle of the hall; swathed 
in wrappings from head to foot, shrouded like the mummies of 
her ancestors. Is it some escape from death which she has 
come to celebrate, or does she make atonement for some sin, 
that she comes in grave clothes? Her maidens loose the wrap- 
pages, and circling roimd her, free her from their sheath and 
reveal her in all the glory of her beauty and witchery. Languor- 
ously she stretches her newly freed limbs, moving in sinuous 
imdulations; the only curving figure in that mass of straight 
and angular poses. And, as she moves, her eyes fall on 
Amoun who, unperceived till now, fascinated, has watched the 
ceremony. 

Well is she called the Serpent of the Nile. She has struck 
with her baleful poison straight to the young chief's heart, 
and henceforth he loses remembrance of all else but her. With 
fTa-hor's kisses warm on his lips he is instantly possessed of a 
mad infatuation for the queenly enchantress. Ta-hor watches 

[161] 



A 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

him and vainly tries to draw him away, to intercept his passage 
to the Queen; while the attendants drive him back» as they 
wait on their mistress's pleasure. The Queen is not uncon- 
scious of the shaft she has planted, but disdains to show any 
sign of interest and wearily stretches herself prone on the 
long straight couch. With head resting on her hands, she gazes 
before her with inscrutable eyes that seem to look far beyond 
the present scene, while her dancers, Greeks, Jews, and Egyp- 
tians, seek to beguile the time with their art. Again and again 
the love-crazed Amoun tries to fling himself at her feet, but is 
intercepted by Ta-hor» who wages the unequal fight against 
this new mad passion. It is the age-old hopeless struggle, fore- 
doomed to def eat» to rekindle the quenched ashes of a burnt out 
flame. 

Desperate, at last, Amoun remembers his skill as a hunter. 
He will wing an arrow with the tale of his love and shoot it 
at his enchantress even though it is his own life and that of his 
former love that must pay the penalty. He seizes a parch- 
ment and writing on it his mad avowal, wraps it round the 
shaft and shoots it to the feet of the Queen. At last her in- 
terest is aroused though she is still calm and deliberate. Who 
has had boldness thus to invade her aloofness? As her slaves 
with fierce gestures seize the desperate man, she, smilingly, 
reads the parchment. At least it is something new to relieve 

[162] 



THE RUSSIAN DANCE-DRAMA 

the monotony of the evening. She bids them bring him to 
her. She gazes long and dispassionately at him. He is good 
to look upon, yomig, ardent, beautiful of form. How best 
shall he be made to gratify her caprices? Shall she order her 
slaves to torture him to death and watch those supple limbs con- 
tort in agony? His eyes bum with passion and adoration. 
Fearlessly he proclaims his love for her. His tongue is win- 
ning. She pauses before uttering her relentless sentence. 
Death? Yes, but first she will enjoy a new pleasure, more 
weird, more macabre than any she has tasted before. She will 
give herself for this one night to the ardent embraces of this 
impassioned youth, but for it he shall pay a price fitting the 
condescension. 

The flame of the fire which has attracted him shall bum him 
up utterly. And that night for him shall know no morrow. 
He must die at dawn. Her embracing arms must be his last 
bond to life. As they unclasp, his earthly ties are to dis- 
solve. He shall enjoy the one mad night, but never the mem- 
ory of it. She bends forward and whispers the condition in his 
ear. Unhesitating, Amoun flings himself at her feet, willing, 
nay even radiantly happy to accept her terms. Ta-hor makes 
one more desperate appeal, even crying to the Queen for 
mercy, but Amoun thrusts her aside and she is dragged from 
the royal presence, while Amoun is drawn into the encircling 

[168] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

snare of the beautiful, slim, white arms of his enchantress. 

Then begins a scene of voluptuous reveby. Mad dancers 
surge around the couch on which Cleopatra and Amoun re- 
cline. Love, delirious passion, is in the air. Faster and faster 
whirl the dancers in mad, intoxicating measures. Exhausted, 
they fling themselves to the floor for brief respite. Then on 
again. Truly a tragic dance of the hours, which fly as fast as 
the feet of the dancers. While Ta-hor, crouching in her comer, 
counts by heart-throbs the moments slipping by. 

Suddenly breaks the sound of trumpets. The day is dawn- 
ing; the price must be paid. With still deliberate movements 
and inscrutable, sombre eyes, the Queen calls for the poison 
cup. The fangs of the Serpent are bared; unrelenting she 
strikes them into her victim. She even smiles as she hands him 
the cup and watches him unflinchingly fulfil his pledge. No 
movement or contortion of his death agony is lost on her. 
Chin on hand, the smile still playing round her lips, and with 
no softening of pity in her eyes, she sees him die. Then slowly, 
deliberately, she rises from her couch and with one glance over 
her shoulder at the body, still beautiful in death, goes to meet 
her new lover. Marc Antony. 

But her triumph ends there. After all she shall not be the 
last to hold this poor victim of her fascination in her arms. 
She may leave him, but the faithful Ta-hor has recovered him 

[164] 



THEODORE KOSLOFF AS AMOUN IN THE DANCE-DRAMA " CLEOPATRA " 
RUSSIAN DANCERS 



W to 



_fc to 
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' to to 



THE RUSSIAN DANCE-DRAMA 

never to be parted. Casting herself on the ground beside him, 
she tries frantically to revive him. In vain ; life has fled. But 
bending over the pale lips, she drinks their poison, as her heart 
has already fed on the poison of his faithlessness. He is hers 
once more. One glance of passionate triumph toward her de- 
parted enemy and she falls lifeless on the body of her lover. 

Such is the story, forceful, grim, sensuous, cruel, as the 
stem impassive figures of the old Egyptian tombs. It is 
charged with burning passion that does not warm and glow but 
sears and blinds with livid flame; filled, too, with sombre fatal- 
ism, which stoops not to mourn or pity but accepts unquestion- 
ingly, without even resignation. One tender ray, however, 
pierces the gloom, as a sunbeam, straying through a chink 
in the temple's solid masonry, might fall for a moment on the 
face of one of the Colossi, or as a lotus might bloom for a day 
on the dark waters of a shaded pool. It is the faithful love of 
the priestess Ta-hor; faithful in spite of her lover's faithless- 
ness; willing to sacrifice herself, if she may save him. It is 
the one note of human truth and unselfishness in the lurid 
tragedy of loveless passion. 

Miss Hoffman's impersonation of the sphinx-like Queen 
was a confirmation of the idea that the dancer's art can reveal 
the psychology even of a complex character. For here was a 
creature of exquisite beauty, but with cruelty and sensuousness 

[167] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

betrayed in every movement. And yet not even consciously 
cruel. It was not the wilful caprice of the coquette, but the 
more deadly, passive cruelty of the sphinx. She was joying in 
her own beauty and its power, but accepting them and their 
baleful consequences with a fatalism that admitted of neither 
joy nor pity. Every sleek and sinuous movement is replete 
with that sinister charm which is seen in Aubrey Beardsley's 
drawings of "evil ladyes.*' The gestures of the long, slim arms, 
the angle of the wrist and the droop of the strong, slender 
bands, all are expressive of nervous quiescence, of unshrinking 
firmness and of the ability to bide her time. It is an image not 
soon effaced from the memory and a characterisation so vivid 
and clear-cut, that no spoken word could have made it more 
convincing. 

How different from the chiselled clearness of the Cleopatra 
is the impression of the "Sheherazadel'' Here all is glowing 
warmth and dusky scented atmosphere, voluminous draperies, 
sweeping in silken folds to the floor, drowsy colourings of reds 
and golds; purples and golden brown, heaped dishes of luxuri- 
ous fruits and exotic flowers. Jewels glow in slumbrous splen- 
dour on the satin smooth skin of voluptuous arms and bosoms. 
Indolent forms of women of the harem are strewn on soft 
cushions or move with languid grace of careless ease. The 
chattering cries and shrill laughter of girls confuse the ear as 

[168] 



THE RUSSIAN DANCE-DRAMA 

they play their childish pranks, and half fearfully, half boldly 
defy the stolid eunuchs who guard their seclusion. 

Firm and immobile in their midst stands the tall figure of 
the Schah-riar, with pale face and blue-black beard. He gazes 
hauntingly from one to the other of the beautiful forms for one 
that he can trust implicitly ; as though his soul were lonely even 
in this turmoil of caressing arms, and the soft wooing glances 
of houris as lovely as those of paradise. 

And slinking through the midst with the envious snarl of a 
hungry wolf is the ominous form of the Schah-riar's unhappy 
brother. These seductive forms and appealing smiles are as 
pricks to the raw wound in his bosom. He despises his 
brother's fancied security. He himself has been betrayed, so 
all caresses are traitorous. Fool! to allow these shallow blan- 
dishments to blind him. His own eyes are opened, wide, star- 
ing, unsleeping. They smart and ache with the longing for one 
moment's forgetfulness of the horrible abyss into which they 
once have looked. His brother's eyes must open, too I 

Silently, he moves among them, seeking for the potion that 
shall open those blind eyes so that they, too, shall sleep no 
more. And he finds it. One word in the ear of Schah-riar and 
there flickers over the latter's pale grave face a look of cold, 
fierce passion, charged with dismay and hatred. But only 
for a moment. Among all these swaying forms of beauty he 

[169] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

stands again firm, unmobile, his glance following one, the love- 
liest of them all. And now they duster romid him, pressing 
against him, circling romid him, their faces raised to his. Then 
he is alone with that lovely one, Zobeide, and at the touch of her 
arms he forgets the poison with which his eyes have been 
anointed. As yet the scales have not fallen from them so that 
they do not penetrate beyond the lovely frame which conceals 
her heart. Why look deeper when the outside is so fair? She 
winds herself aroAnd him like the vine around the oak. It is 
an ecstasy to feel that her frailty needs his strength. The ward- 
ers shall look to her well. She is his own; his absolute pos- 
session. Nothing shall rob him of her beauty and enchant- 
ment. Banish these fears, unworthy of a superior intelligence! 
Why need he fear? She will die without the light of his pres- 
ence. See her droop and languish at the thought of his de- 
parture. Weill put her to the test if you will. He is secure. 
And if not— 1 

The doors close and the women are left alone, shut into that 
warm and scented room where the cool air of the bills may 
never blow, where the light from the swinging lamps sheds a 
rosy lustre unlike the pure clear light of day. On their 
luxurious pillows the sultanas stretch themselves once more. 
How shall they pass the time away? The dancing of the slave 
girls? The downings of the buffoons? Of these they are al- 

[170] 



Pboto. by White, N Y. 

GERTRUDE HOFFMAN AS "ZOBEIDE" AND ALEXIS BULGAKOW AS 
"SHAH-RIAR" IN THE DANCE-DRAMA "SHEHERAZADE" 






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THE RUSSIAN DANCE-DRAMA 

ready weary. There is a wilder frolic. The old, half-foolish 
eunuch cannot withstand their blandishments. Reluctantly, 
fearfully, he does their bidding. First the huge bronze doors 
fly 0{)en and in rushes, with a swirl of resounding vigour, a 
group of bronzed Arabs. Now the silver doors are opened and 
silver-clad youths join the others, bringing with them a breeze 
of outer air, stimulating and enlivening. Tumultuously they 
fling themselves into the throng of mischievous daring girls. 
But one door remains locked and Zobeide herself is wheedling 
for the key of it. Unable to resist her the now thoroughly 
demoralised warder relinquishes his key, and through the golden 
door bounds a handsome young Arab clad in golden garments, 
comely, vigorous, conquering. 

And then begins a wild saturnalia of love and feasting and 
revelry. Whirling in mad rushes round the hall, the Arabs 
seize the scampering girls, who now yield and now repulse them, 
then struggle wildly in their arms to relax suddenly in an 
abandon of sensuousness. All is a confused f antasie of darting 
forms, and swirling draperies ; strong grasping arms and lightly 
leaping legs ; a kaleidoscope of colour, vigour and allurement. 
In the midst Zobeide and her Arab lover are lost in a dream of 
love which lifts them from the whirling mass around into a 
paradise of throbbing, fervent rapture. 

So wild is the madness of the revel that no one hears the 

[178] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

approach of intruders. But in their midst is standing once 
more the immobUe form with its pale face of Schah-riar. And 
joined with the swirling throng are figures, dire, and awful, 
silently doing their dread work. They are the King's guards 
who, obeying his orders and mingling with the revellers, are mer- 
cilessly cutting them down, men and women alike. The wild 
whirl has grown wilder, but even as a form bounds into the air 
it crumples and turns and falls, a limp, distorted mass. The 
scimitar of the Nubian guard has done its deadly work. The 
wretched women fly, terror-stricken, from place to place only to 
be cut down as they run, on stair or floor, in pairs, in masses; 
their bodies strewn as they fall; here piled, one upon another 
in confusion, here lying alone in a pitiful huddle. And still 
the pale face and immobile form of the Schah-riar, standing in 
their midst. 

From a pile of bodies creeps the miserable Zobeide to the 
feet of the man, once her adoring lover. She clings to his 
knees and implores him to spare her. Her glorious head lies 
low on the ground, as she grovels abject in her terror. Can 
he see her thus without some touch of pity? Surely she could 
not face him now if she were wholly guilty? His white face 
softens for one minute. But instantly at his side is the gaunt 
wolf form of his brother. With his foot, disdainfully, he turns 
over one of the inert forms on the ground. It is Zobeide's 

[174] 



THE RUSSIAN DANCE-DRAMA 

lover* With a cry she raises her head from the dust. The 
heautiful neck is thrown back, so white and firm. From be- 
hind creeps the executioner with a bow string. The Schah- 
riar's stem pale face has hardened again. Zobeide knows there 
is no escape. She seizes a knife from the floor, rises to her 
knees and plunges it deep. Amid the carnage towers the im- 
mobile form of the pale-faced Schah-riar. His eyes are opened. 

In 2k)beide, as in Cleopatra, Miss Hoffman gives an imper- 
sonation of haunting beauty. She does not dance, but her 
mimetic movements are rhythmic, undulating and caressing, in 
perfect accord with the music but not measured to its beat. 
The final moments of terrified intensity touch a note of tragedy, 
rarely reached on our modem stage. 

In these dance-dramas one thing that strikes the careful ob- 
server is the intense earnestness of every individual performer 
from the greatest to the least. It is a thing so little seen among 
our native actors that it needs to be studied. We have plenty 
of conscientious, careful actors who carry out every instruc- 
tion of the stage managers and can be trusted to "get every- 
thing over." But this earnestness of the artist, living in his 
art, seemingly unconscious of the audience, not working for 
its appreciation only, but primarily for the sake of perfecting 
a work of art, is a thing so new to us that we hardly know 
how to grasp it. For audiences need training as well as per- 

[176] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

formers, and the Russian dancers are too new as yet for us 
to realise fully the beauty of their art. 

Their perfect technique and dramatic iSre have so astonished 
us, that for the most part we have not had time to study the 
details of their art. Their innate sense of rhythm, which can 
correlate a seemingly unregulated rush and swirl of movement; 
the minutely studied psychology of the various gestures and 
poses; the artistic accord of technique and emotion — ^all these 
things, which every amateur of music studies at the opera as 
a matter of course, we have not yet learned to treat seriously 
in the Art of the Dance. 

There is nothing that the American public needs more to- 
day, to cultivate their artistic appreciation of drama, opera, and 
the dance itself, than just such a School of Dancing as has been 
developed by these Russians. 

It would enhance the taste for Beauty, that beauty which, 
in so many of our productions, despite their lavishness, is so 
wofully lacking. It would show that it is not numbers, but 
the harmony of numbers that counts ; not lavishness of detail, 
but co-ordination of detail that makes for drama. We might 
even learn that it is not the costliness of stage decoration, but 
subtle sense of fitness, that makes for atmosphere; that a well 
placed stencilling will sometimes suggest the character of a 
scene as convincingly as an imported crystal chandelier. The 

[176] 



LYDIA LOPOUKOWA IN THE DANCE-DRAMA ■ 
RUSSIAN DANCERS 



v » <- 



w >• 1. I. 



THE RUSSIAN DANCE-DRAMA 

production of such a school would so accustom our eyes to 
heauty that we would not longer tolerate ugliness, and so train 
us to an ideal perfection of harmony that we should rebel at 
the hotch-potch too often served up to us« 






\ 



nw] 



CHAPTER X 

MIKAIL MORDEIN 

IN 1910 Mikail Mordkiii and Anna Pavlowa made their 
appearance with the ballet of the Metropolitan Opera 
House, and New York woke up to realise that what we 
had regarded languidly as a rather effete manifestation of mu- 
sical tradition was something real and vital. To begin with, 
the technique of these artists was beyond anything ever seen 
in this country. Their airy flights and exquisite pirouettes 
were not only exhibitions of extraordinary skill, but a language 
of eloquent expression in harmony with the theme or motive 
of the dance. Added to this was the fact that both of the 
dancers were distinguished by a grace and beauty of person and 
form. No large lumpy muscles nor hard wooden-looking 
limbs, but youthful supple figures such as one would wish to 
believe that all young people possess I 

The man had to conquer in his audience a certain hesitancy 
and suspicion. A male dancer, unless his performance were 
eccentric, was quite alien to the American idea of his sex. But 
to the surprise of his audience there was nothing efi^eminate or 
petty in Mordkin's art. His movements had the free swing 

[180] 



b 

V b 



W i- L k. I 






w «. 



MIKAIL MORDKIN 

and restrained power of an athlete. Here was a man whd 
while he looked as if he could take care of himself in most cir- 
cimistances in which a man might be placed, could yet ^^stick a 
rose in his hair without looking like a fool," to quote the half- 
grudging praise bestowed on him by a college boy. The rea- 
son of his triimiph over suspicion and prejudice is simple 
enough. For this was no mere exhibition of a handsome young 
man in elegant and airy garments, pirouetting and posturing to 
obtain admiration. If it had been only that, no amount of skill 
or agility or beauty of person could have saved him from some 
degree of contempt from the average American. But here was 
a man who had penetrated into the meaning of things, whose 
intellect wasi working to express ideas, while his body was 
trained to be the instrument of expression through which to 
express them. So, if he stuck a rose in his hair, it was not 
with the object of exciting admiration for his personal ap- 
pearance but to signify the joy of life in all beautiful things, 
and the desire to appropriate and use all that nature bestows 
for our delight. Nor is it only the joyous beauties of life that 
belong to this form of the dance. 

There is beauty in shadow as well as in light, and the grim 
tragedies of life have their poetry which can be translated into 
dance as well as into words and music. More than that, the 
shadows are needed to enhance the light and keep the true 

[188] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

harmony of art. That Mikail Mordkin has the poet's mind as 
well as the dancer's body is shown by his appreciation of these 
rules of art and his application of them to his arrangements of 
the ballet stories. For it is not only as a dancer that he has 
distinguished himself. As an arranger and director of these 
complicated ballets he has proved himself a wizard of dance 
craft. For Mikail Mordkin seems to have absorbed all thai 
even that great school of art, the Russian Imperial School of 
Ballet, could impart and given himself heart and soul to devel- 
oping and augmenting the possibilities of the expressional 
power of the Dance. The early training which in his case started 
at the age of nine, is severe, and includes much more than 
merely physical exercise. Besides these, every student must 
study music thoroughly, for without a good understanding of 
music it is hopeless for them to expect to enter into the subtle- 
ties of expression to which music is the due, and which are ever 
the goal of the directors of the Russian ballet. The student 
also must master history, geography and literature, all with a 
view to developing his knowledge and understanding of the 
characteristics he is called upon to portray. 

And seriousness, with which not only Mikail Mordkin but 
all these artists of the Russian School of Ballet regard their art 
and devote to it constant study of everything intellectual and 
artistic that may refine upon or enlarge the possibilities, is the 

[184] 



MIKAIL MORDKIN 

life spirit which gives it energy and constant growth and vitality. 
Without such seriousness no art can live, no art can grow, for 
growth is a necessity of life. 

So from being a dancer and one of the greatest of dancers 
we find Mordkin grow to be also the director and arranger of 
these dance-dramas. And so highly is he thought of in this 
branch of his art that the great Bourgault-Ducondray chose 
him to be his successor in the production of his ballet, "The 
Arabian Nights." The musician had spent ten years in Asia 
preparing this ballet and studying Oriental music, but found 
himself unable to finish the production on account of fatal ill- 
ness. Four days after resigning the fruits of his labour to 
Mikail Mordkin he died and the responsibility of the production 
fell on the young man's shoulders; and ever since the work of 
producing has been a recognised part of his career, giving 
wider scope to the poetic instinct that has always been a char- 
acteristic of his art. 

Especially does he seem to be drawn to such stories as admit 
of a mingling of the grave with the gay and in the ballets of his 
arrangement there will usually be found some moment of 
poignant appeal, not merely of passion but of emotions more 
complex and subtle. He is not satisfied with the merely pretty 
and obvious, but needs the touch of poetry and romance. 

In illustration of this take his arrangement of Delibes' ballet 

[186] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

of "Coppelia/* The story, well known to opera-goers, is of the 
aged Doctor Coppelius, maker of mechanical toys, whose 
masterpiece is a life-sized doll, which he has devoted himself 
to making as nearly hmnan as possible. So well has he suc- 
ceeded that Franz, simple lad of the Hungarian village, has 
seen it through the window and fallen madly in love with it. 
Meanwhile Swanhilda, a beautiful maiden, sighs for him in vain 
and becomes filled with bitterness against the supplanter. A 
fete takes place in the village and in the prevailing license of 
mirth Swanhilda and a bevy of her companions invade the shop 
of Doctor Coppelius, while students and villagers are amusing 
themselves at the doctor's expense. Through the window 
Franz catches sight of the moving forms of the girls and, think- 
ing it a favourable opportunity to visit the object of his infatua- 
tion, mounts a ladder to enter by a window. But the doctor 
unexpectedly returns, drags the ladder from under him and 
while he is still prostrated carries him into the laboratory with 
the determination that he will carry out a long meditated ex- 
periment and transfuse the vitality of the young man into the 
doll. As he enters the laboratory the invading girls make 
their exit and escape as best they can, but Swanhilda uncere- 
moniously gets rid of the doll, and, taking its place, imper- 
sonates it with great success. 
To his delight the doctor finds the doll responsive to his 

[186] 






MIKAIL MORDKIN 



'. *- ^ V. V. 



*- V 



MIKAIL MORDKIN 

experiments. Its cheeks glow with animation, its arms and 
neck are warm with the throb of life. He is transported with 
joy at his apparent success. But at the height of his triumph 
Franz recovers consciousness and at first mistakes Swanhilda 
for his mysterious enchantress. Later, discovering her 
identity and the hallucination under which he has laboured, he 
transfers to her his affection, and the two fly together, leav- 
ing the doctor disillusioned. In the original the story ends 
here. 

But that was to make of the little poem merely the recital 
of a practical joke, which did not accord with the artistic spirit 
of Mikail Mordkin. That the lovers should be light-hearted 
and joyous was natural and fitting, but he could not find that 
it accorded with the true spirit of life to make the disappointed 
experimenter merely a butt and a dupe. Instead, he lent to 
this figure a certain intensity, sinister, and devoted ; so that dis- 
covering the hollowness of his short-lived triiunph and the dis- 
appointment of his long cherished ambition, he is broken-hearted 
and falls lifeless on the floor, as the lovers carelessly flit to their 
happiness. Is it too poignant an end for so merry a little 
interlude? The Italian temperament might say "yes.** But 
the touch of melancholy is characteristically Russian and is to 
be found in nearly every phase of their art. We might even 
say it is characteristic of life, in which we ever find that we can- 

[189] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

not take the rose and leave the thorns. In any case, it lifts 
the whole poem on to a higher plane of dignity by showing re- 
spect to human strivings and ambitions, however fantastic their 
embodiment. 

But it is the deeper himianity of this point of view, this see- 
ing in art an embodiment of life instead of the manifestation 
of mechanical puppets, which holds our interest in these Rus- 
sian dancers. Added to that is their marvellous command of 
physical expression. Eyes, lips, gestures, pose, all seem to 
be under absolute control from the intellectual centres. Look 
at the picture of Mikail Mordkin and Lydia Lopoukowa in 
Greek Pastoral costume. 

Here are a man and woman, highly trained and educated, 
necessarily sophisticated by their contact with the world and 
connection with court life, conscious that the eyes of number- 
less people are on them. But what do we see? A boy and 
girl in the Arcadia of first love ; alone, in the Lovely Land of 
Heart's Desire, with no words to express the new strange 
emotions surging up in them. Tongue-tied, abstracted, they 
smile vaguely from pure gladness ; minds unreasoning, eyes un- 
seeing, they are not even conscious of passion; they are innocent, 
foolish, happy. 

And all this is art; but the deeper, truer kind of art which 
consists of possessing one's self with the soul of the fact and 

[190] 



LYDIA LOPOUKOWA AND MIKAIL MORDKIN 



• e 






V b b W to fc 



MIKAIL MORDKIN 

steeping one's spirit in it, until the spirit penetrates not only 
the mental but the whole physical being. 

The appeal, however, is not by any means always in a minor 
key. The Bow and Arrow Dance and the Indian Dance, not 
that there is much of the Indian in it, are as full of gay vigour 
as a breath from the mountain tops or the first nip of early 
autumn frost on a fine October morning. To see Mordkin in 
these dances is to feel the blood sing in one's veins ! No task 
seems too great to be attempted. He bounds across the stage 
in two great strides ; four walls can surely never hold him ; he 
belongs to God's out-of-doors; all the free fleeting things of 
nature are his brother's. Not only is there suppleness but 
strength and solidity of form. His foot grips the ground as 
the root of an oak tree ; the grip of his hands, the tension of his 
arms are like the knotted form of its branches ; full of strength. 
The swing and ease with which he whirls his partner high in 
the air are full of the mastery and vigour of a frame, alive in 
every part. But form has not been sacrificed to muscle. In 
every part of the body there is symmetry and proportion. 
Whatever exercise has been needed to develop this flexibility 
has not been allowed to interfere with development of the whole 
as an expression of the mind. Much of the dancing is per- 
formed with feet and legs bare, and we see a foot unspoiled by 
cramping shoes, toes lying flat and supple, such as scientists 

[198] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

tell us we are in danger of losing as a race. In fact, although 
the long training may be specialised, the development is evi- 
dently working with, not against, nature. 

The part of this training, however, on which Mordkin him- 
self lays most stress is not the purely physical one. It is the 
training of the mind to grasp first, the meaning of the emo- 
tions portrayed; then their effect on the person feeling them; 
the effect on his carriage and his movements, on the tensity or 
laxity of his muscles, the exciting or depressing of his nerves; 
then, after all, is the study of how to convey all this to the au- 
dience. Too much responsibility must not be given to the facial 
expression ; every part of the body must tell the story in its own 
way. 

Mordkin tells of himself, in an article written, if memory 
serves, for the Sunday Magazine, that it took him one year's 
study to learn to express, by his body in movement, the simple 
emotion of hate. He teUs how his master worked with him 
taking as a theme the words, "You have done me a grievous 
wrong, therefore I hate you.'* First, together, they analysed 
the emotion of hatred, finding that as it is directly opposed to 
love, so all its effects on the body will be the opposite to those of 
love. Whereas love makes the body quick and light, hatred 
makes it heavy and slow. Love inclines the body towards the 
object loved; hatred, though not inclining it away from the 

[194] 



MIKAIL MORDKIN 

one hatedy which would imply some fear, holds it erect and 
tense. After mastering the meaning of the emotion and its 
effect on the hody it must be translated into movements, 
rhythmic and harmonious. For this emotion is to be danced, 
not acted, and the dancer must know thoroughly this dance 
language so that he can translate fluently and easily. 

For perfect appreciation of his translation of course it is 
somewhat necessary that his audience should know at least the 
rudiments of the language in which the dancer is expressing 
himself. The lack of that knowledge in England and this 
country was a good deal of a surprise to Mikail Mordkin, 
brought up, as he was, in a country where it has always been 
one of the accepted arts of expression, and is as thoroughly 
understood as the musical rendering of the opera is here. For 
just as naturalistic speaking in the opera gives place to the song, 
and action and expression must conform to the music, so in 
the dance, naturalistic movement is replaced by rhythmic, har- 
monised movement and the expression must be co-ordinated 
with these and the music. In the opera we look for all this, 
but to expect it in dancing was a new idea. The story is told 
that Mordkin was present in this country at a vaudeville show 
iwhere one of the performers burlesqued the "'new idea of Rus- 
sian dancing.'' The comedian made a few eccentric steps, then 
explained to his audience that those steps signified that he 

[195] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

was a girl whose lover was sick in Pittsburgh and he was going 
by train to see him and would have to change from the local to 
the express. Mordkin saw the humour of the situation and 
laughed heartily, but said that he had learnt by it how much a 
general audience did not know about the art of dancing. 

If he returns to this country next season he may find out 
something else, and that is how quickly the American audiences 
can learn when once their minds are awakened and their in- 
terest thorou£^y aroused. 



[196] 



CHAPTER XI 



ANNA PAVLOWA 



IF some airy spirit of nature, captured by a kind-hearted 
poet, who had trained its ear to mortal music and its heart 
by recitation of stories of pathos and romance, should be 
allowed freely to interpret its own conception of human life it 
might evolve such an art as Favlowa's. The earth has no claim 
upon her. She does not even need it as a resting place for her 
feet. She can just as readily float in the air or swim through 
the waters. So in interpreting the things of the earth she is 
quite detached in her point of view, a lyric embodiment of 
the soul of facts far more than an impersonator of the facts 
themselves. Her dancing bears towards drama the same rela- 
tion that the song of a bird bears towards the song of the 
human voice. The bird's song may be the rapturous carol of 
the lark or the throbbing pathos of the nightingale, either of 
which will thrill the hearers to the very core, though it has 
not the personal capacity to experience these emotions with 
which the human voice thrills us. And thus it is with Pavlowa. 
She has the bewitching capacity of expressing, to an exquisite 
degree, a whole range of human emotion without suggesting 
that she herself has any personal share in them. 

[19T] 



/ 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

For one thing, her technical achievement is a thing so won- 
derful as to place her beyond the physical laws that govern 
the movements of ordinary mortals. And in everjrthing she 
does is an exquisiteness of dainty grace which gives it poetic 
distinction. Yet with it is an air of wildness, of wilfulness 
and mischievous joy. Never do we feel any of the lassitude of 
the overtrained or the sophistication of the over-perfected. It is 
the spontaneous ebullition of the airy spirit with no conscious- 
ness that there is such a thing as technique. Those wonderful 
poses which she maintains, when raised in the arms of her com* 
panion dancer, are the absolute expression of blended art and 
nature. And in all she seems to be filled to the finger tips with 
the sheer joy of the moment ; not an inch of her but is fully and 
consciously alive. 

Moreover the training in the Imperial Ballet School has in- 
cluded a thorough knowledge of music. This, with the Rus- 
sians, is considered a most necessary part of the dancer's equip- 
ment, since it is ever from the music that she must seek inspira- 
tion. Even in the dance-drama it is not the story only that 
must be interpreted, but every subtle mood and shade of the 
music must be duly revealed. So the long twelve years* study 
which the Imperial School demands trains not body only but 
mmd and taste. The pupils study the geography, history and 
civflisation of various countries; their literature and art and 

[198] 



ANNA PAVLOWA IN A *' BACCHANALE" 



ANNA PAVLOWA 

everything that will help to develop the sympathetic under- 
standing of different phases of human life. Accordingly the 
dancers who have come to us from this school have been no 
empty-headed attitudinisers, but earnest, studious artists devot- 
ing their lives to what they claim to be the most beautiful of 
the arts. 

In allowing to these artists liberty to break the continuity 
of their twenty-year contract, the Imperial Ballet School has 
indeed made a great contribution to the world of art. And in 
sending Pavlowa they sent of their best. For even with this 
wonderful training it is only the rare genius that has the creative 
ability and fire which mark her achievement. In Russia her 
name holds high rank among the great artists of the Dance. 

It is well nigh impossible in words to give any picture of the 
spirituelle beauty that pervades her art. The varying moods 
flash and melt into each other in endless procession. Now 
shrinking in timid dread, now mischievously teasing, dark eyes 
full of tantalising elfishness; now haughtily disdainful, head 
held high, the tips of the toe hardly deigning to touch the 
ground; now archly bashful, arms upraised, eyelids lowered, 
yet one quick glance beneath them darting a challenge. For 
she dances with eyes and smiles, flash of the teeth, curve of the 
neck; every part of her in accord and doing its share in the ex- 
pression of the sentiment, while her beautiful mobile features 

[201] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

change with the changing moods like the surface of water under 
the play of the sunshine and wind. 

How slumbrously dusky are her eyes as she sits sullenly and 
aloof before her captors in the drama of ''Arabian Nights," 
every limb tense with outraged pride and hatred. The royal 
maiden has been captured by warrior hordes who have brought 
her, rolled in a rug of rare weave, as a surprise to their lord. 
How full of dignity and appeal is her movement toward the 
Schah Rahman, with chained hands outstretched, and be- 
seeching eyes. How consciously beguiling is each pose as she 
lures him to a fancied security, all the while watching him 
with stealthy malice and long slow glances that wait the fulfil- 
ment of her purpose. How the seeming radiance will die away 
from her face and limbs and body as she turns to ply him with 
wine with which she counts on overwhelming his vigilance. See 
her as she sits before him, every limb infused with inviting 
witchery, a smile too consciously sweet illuminating her face, 
while the eyes are those of a startled fawn, watching, ever 
watching. And when her end is accomplished and the ravished 
Schah-Rahman hangs helpless over the arm of his throne, how 
her whole form shrinks in fearful horror, as, clinging to her 
faithful slave, with dilated eyes fixed on her victim, she gropes 
for the door which leads to liberty. 

And all this with that wonderful aloofness which presents so 

[202] 



ANNA PAVLOWA 



ANNA PAVLOWA 

much more of the spirit of the fact than the fact itself 1 If you 
are looking for simple pantomime acting, you may not ap- 
preciate Pavlowa. But when acting has been removed to this 
abstract plane and you learn this new art language there opens 
before you a whole world of beauty and expression. For it is 
a mistake to think that, because Pavlowa is a creature of ex- 
quisite beauty, the sight of that beauty is the whole of what 
there is to be enjoyed in her performance. There is, indeed, 
so much of sheer physical beauty that it is not to be wondered 
at if it suffices with some of her audience. But in truth she has 
so much to give, if one only looks a little deeper, that it will 
repay even that unwonted exertion which an ordinary theatre 
audience seems usually to grudge— the exercise of its mentality. 
Her art is an expression of exquisitely intellectualised sen- 
sations. 

For this language of abstract emotion, which is occupying so 
much of the attention of our art world today, is set forth in 
Pavlowa's art in a manner so attractive that even the most de- 
voted lover of the naturalistic school is forced to admire it. 
The sheer beauty of Pavlowa's appeal cannot but fascinate and 
ultimately persuade him that there are things in art which are 
real and true, even if they do not represent cross-sections of 
daily happenings. And this all the more, because the last 
thing one could ever suspect in her would be a didactic purpose 

[206] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

or a mission, even a mission to enforce the love of beauty* 
As one watches the exquisite harmony of her movements^ 
the varying expressions of her body, now so full of fire, now so 
languid or caressing, it is impossible not to be convinced that 
this is life. Here are the emotions which make life worth while 
and are above the mechanical routine that is the least part of 
living, though it occupies so much of our time and energy* 
Here in this exquisite creature is compact the pure flame of all 
these emotions. She has not experienced them but the spirit 
of them has inspired her. It is our own experience that is re* 
fleeted by her — ^purged of all actualities and made abstract and 
impersonal. 

Her own words express her ideal: "It is the soul, the face 
that should lead the dance. The body is subservient. Yoa 
must forget what you have learned to do with the body. AhT 
but you must first learn it T* 

It is an old story that the face is the mirror of the soul. But 
in the case of too many artists, choregraphic and dramatic, the 
mirror reveals a vacuous monotony; betrays, in fact, the life- 
lessness of the soul. It is here that Pavlowa takes rank with 
the very few great modem artists of expression. Her soul has 
been quickened by study and reflection, until it is capable of a. 
wide range of imagined experiences, among which it flits with 
the spontaneous freedom of a butterfly in a garden, radiant 

[«06] 



ANNA PAVLOWA 

^th variety of flowers. Meanwhile every mood of emotion 
takes instant reflection in the sensitive expressions of her face, 
while every nerve throughout her body spontaneously directs 
the muscles to an obligato of interpretative movement. Every 
passage of the latter is instinct with a virtuosity which the 
habit of practice has made second nature, so that, while there is 
not a gesture, however slight, without its charm of technique, 
they pass one into the other with the fluency of life. Their 
marvellous perfection of detail does but contribute to the finer 
expressiveness of the whole creation. And, what a variety of 
modes ! 

Watch her, for example, as Columbine, beset with the 
amourous rivalry of Harlequin and Gilles. The dance is a "Fas 
de Trois," arranged by M. Legatt, to the music of Drigo; a 
piece as dainty in allurement and baffling in its lace-like com- 
plexities as a web of gossamer jewelled with dew. The music 
exhales the very soul of virginal coquetry and Pavlowa renders 
it momentarily incarnate to the eye; not as a bird caught and 
imprisoned, but as a living energy, modulated with infinite 
variations of shifting light and shade. She is the very spirit of 
young femininity, awakened to a consciousness of her own at- 
tractiveness, dawning to the sense of her own power, glorying 
in both and toying with her new sensations. She palpitates to 
the wooing of each of her lovers, as the strings of an Eolian harp 

[807] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

to the breathings of the wind. To the agile blandishments of 
Harlequin, she vibrates with movements, now supple as waving 
reeds, now swift as a swallow's flight. She darts toward his 
outstretched arms, poises a moment and dips her yielding form 
to his embrace ; then a moment later has flashed from his grasp, 
leaving only the trail of a smile behind her. 

Now the slow antics of the love-lorn GiUes attract her. She 
plays around him with the lingering evanescence of sheet-light- 
ning in a summer sky. His uncouthness awakes a strain of 
tenderness amid her volatile sensations. She would be kind, 
she pats his chin, she pities him and lays her cheek for an in- 
stant to his lips. Harlequin is aflame, he threatens his friend. 
Columbine averts their quarrel. She distracts them from 
themselves in renewed devotion to herself. She plays to each 
in turn, dispensing, favours^^a touch of fingers, a smile, a 
roguish glance, the rare rapture of a wingM kiss. Gradually 
she is aware of the mystery of her own power and is swayed with 
the fascination of exerting it. She leads her would-be captors 
captive; lifts each in turn to expectant bliss and drops him to 
depths of disappointment. She plays one against the other; 
with a glance can raise a storm of rivalry and with a snule 
allay it. Finally through her own veins the magic of her own 
witchery runs like wine; she is raptured with her own allure- 
ment, elate with triumph. Swifter and swifter grows the pace; 

[208] 



Photo, hy White, N. Y. 

ANNA PAVLOWA 



• • 



4 % w •« <. I. ft 



ANNA PAVLOWA 

more and more bewildering the rhythm of her movements, 
while, as her hands float upon the air, they seem to hold in- 
visible strings that guide the antics of her lovers. They are 
puppets beneath the sway of her resistless charm. She is 
youth and mirth and mischief ; more, she is Desiree, the incar- 
nation of Youth's dream of love and loveliness ; aye and more, 
she is the mystery, rendered visible, of Life's eternal Elusive- 
ness. 

She has vanished in a laugh; to reappear, as the spirit of the 
Waltz. The music is Chopin's and the lowered light makes the 
scene rather felt than visible. She floats into view, in company 
with Mozdkine or, it may be, with Novikoff • The forms of the 
two dancers seem to be incorporeal; the spiritual embodiment 
of the music's abstractions; the palpable essence of the ab- 
stract passion and poignancy of rhythm. All that has ever 
captured one's rarefied imagination of the soul of poetry as ex- 
pressed in the melodious movement of the dance, purged of 
any physical distraction, seems to be realised and made more 
consumedly perfect in this inspired interpretation. All that 
one has ever dreamed in youth of the stainless loveliness of 
life, the tenderness, the fragrance and delicious elation of the 
purity of spiritual love, blossoms anew in the memory. 

Now, the music changes I The subtle spell of Chopin passes 
into a Valse Caprice by Rubinstein. In the sparkle of light; 

[211] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

the atmosphere quivers with a delicately fluid devilry. It is 
pungent with scarcely perceptible suggestions of the revel of 
the senses. The dancers become transmitters of exquisite sen- 
sations. Their bodies still preserve their incorporeality; they 
are still personifications, touching the physical apprehension 
with infinite surprises, but ever with a purely abstract stimulus. 
Under the sway of the music, interpreted by this marvellous 
language of choregraphic art, the imagination, piu*ified of all 
alloy, leaps into vivid life; glides upon floorless spaces, turns 
and poises in mid-air, and languishes weightless in the arms of 
ether. It is the ecstasy of the senses, rarefied and heightened 
by the magic of the artist. 

But the music changes to Glazounow's ^'Automne Bac- 
chanale." We are transported into the old, young world of 
primitive instincts and desires. The solitude of a forest dell is 
interrupted by the appearance of a nymph and faun. Gaily 
holding hands and trailing a veil above their laughing faces, 
they are wafted in fleet-footed as a breeze, and eddy round and 
round. Their forms are buoyant with the untroubled joy of 
life; their limbs free in nature^s artless wantonness. It is 
enough for them to be alive and every movement tells their glad- 
ness. Then, suddenly, an instinct stirs. The young female 
thing breaks away from her play-fellow. He pursues her ; they 
dodge and twist in flight, he has caught her and again she has 

[212] 



ANNA PAVLOWA 

escaped his grasp. For a while it is but children's play; then 
gradually the mystery of life envelops them. She becomes 
more coy and timid; he, more persistent and eager. Nature 
prompts her to innocent wiles and him to hotter pursuit ; until 
little by little he turns to hunter and she becomes the himted. 
She flies in terror of herself and him. When he catches her, 
she pants, round-eyed, like a rabbit in the grasp of a young 
faoimd. For as yet he has only the instinct of the chase and 
lets his prey elude him. She escapes with a shriek, the soimd 
of which stirs him with delicious frenzy. And now the dance 
becomes a whirl of sheer mad beauty set to the ever-quickening 
pulse-beats of the two young hearts; till nature's victory is 
won and the nymph, drained of all power to resist the call of 
instinct, swoons at the feet of her love. 

Bravo, Pavlowa I Once again, as in all your dances, you have 
proved yourself the artist who creates ; who snatches us from the 
world of every day into a world of your own imagining, per- 
meated with the beauty that transcends time and place; the 
beauty of the universal. 



[218] 



CHAPTER Xn 



RITA SACCHETTO 



THE art of Rita Sacchetto is marked by qualities dis- 
tinctly her own, and so full of the spirit of the age 
that her contribution to the art of dancing is unique 
and vitaL 

That dancing is the art which unites the sister arts of musi(^ 
poetry, painting and sculpture has been convincingly demon- 
strated by other artists. But into this noble group Miss 
Sacchetto has introduced one more element, that of philosophy. 
The word is used in its simple meaning to signify the 'love of 
wisdom/' as extended to ''speculation on the nature of things, 
existence, freedom and truth/' For all through her dancing 
we find an exposition of one theme, the upward evolution of 
the Soul of Woman; the craving for Beauty and Life and 
Purity of Ideal. This idea is somewhere present in every 
dance. Her art, therefore, involves an aristrocratic aloofness, 
a sort of loneliness of soul, which is the heritage of the proud 
spirit that holds its head high and fights its own battles ; accepts 
its own defeat and asks no pity, but hides its cares behind a 
smile and faces the world anew. 

[2U] 



Photo, br PniDi Ondncr. Uuntch 
RITA SACCHRTTO IN THE CRINOLINE DANCE 



RITA SACCHETTO 

To express all this in the form of dance, without words, 
needs strong intellectual grasp of the mental characteristics of 
her subject and extraordinary sensitiveness of expression in 
gesture, carriage, movement and pose. Her art does not call 
for the wonderful technical execution of specialised exercise, 
but for the absolute response of every part of the body to the 
most subtle shades of meaning. Its intellectuality is never 
thrust on us but is clothed in a garment of plastic beauty, 
which of itself is a joy and satisfaction to witness. But a 
dainty elegance and a high bred deliberateness (if one may as- 
sociate such a word with the airy movement of the dance) char- 
acterise her personality, betokening a thoughtful rather than an 
impulsive nature. 

See her in her presentation of the Crinoline Dance to the 
accompaniment of the elusive, tripping music of Gillet's ''Loin 
du Bal." She is very girlish and dainty, in the spotless purity 
of her elegant white frock, hooped and ruffled according to 
the fashion worn by the Empress Eugenie, whom, by the way, 
she resembles more than a little. Of the daintiest white, it 
maintains, in spite of its voluminousness, the purity and sim- 
plicity and freshness of a summer morning and choicely befits 
the virginal charm of girlhood. 

She sits alone, dreaming of the pleasures of the ball, a slim 
young girl looking out into life, her eyes misty with recollec* 

[217] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

tion of her little triumphs and the antidpation of the mysteries 
of life opening before her. Very tender and sweet she is, 
with just a dash of innocent coquetry and a youthful vanity, 
the unalienable right of dawning womanhood, which loves her 
pretty clothes, the floating sash and touches of jewellery. She 
moves about the room with tripping feet. In her mind she 
goes through a little comedy of caprice, played with a suitor 
who asks most humbly for her hand in the dance. She bestows 
it with outward gradousness and calm but a little inward flutter 
of anticipation. Is it he who presented the roses with which 
she has been toying and which with a little caress are laid aside 
as again she dances? This time it is a few waltzing steps, her 
eyes now raised in simulated haughtiness, then dropping shyly. 
She is very new to this game of hearts, this little girl who ia 
playing her hand alone, guided by her mother-wit. Her 
heart is the stake and it may be that to lose it is the best way 
to win, so paradoxical are the rules of the game. But she will 
not give in without a struggle. 

If he thinks the prize worth while, he must play the game to 
the end. Ah, now he has made a false playl She starts from 
him, head held high, lips curled in dignified scorn, form held 
erect and prim and eyes flashing beneath lowered lashes. No I 
she will not look at him! Her head is averted, figure dravra 
back; the dainty foot stamps with an engaging petulance. The 

[218] 



RITA SACCHETTO 

roses are brushed aside; one is crushed and its petals fall to 
the ground. Is this really to be the end? 

Watch, and read the message of the relaxing form, then a 
softening of the face, not too suddenly. She knows her worth, 
and forgiveness must be sued for very humbly. She and she 
alone can keep the exalted position in which love has placed 
her. If she relent too easily, she knows by instinct that a 
little of the hedge of sanctity, with which love has fenced her 
around, will be broken and can never be repaired. Her heart 
is warring against herself; she knows she must capitulate, but 
not too soon. She even glories in her power to cloud all the 
world in shadow or brighten it with a smile; to play the part 
of destiny and hold in her little hand the life of a man! She 
cannot resist the enjoyment of playing on those heart strings 
a little longer. She must assure herself that they sound true. 
A little mischievous smile dimples the comers of the lips, the 
pose of the body has a suggestion of archness. She is dancing 
now, with just a shade of reserve, but more of teasing piquancy. 
But her nature is too sweet to torture him for long and she is 
too unpractised in coquetry to hide the truth. The steps be* 
come lighter and freer and more rapturous. Ah! the black 
cloud has dispersed and she floats in the clear blue of joy, a 
buoyant, billowy mass of rippling white, radiant with happi- 
ness. Eyes dance, the skirt sways, the little feet beneath it 

[219] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

seem hardly to touch the ground, but all with a gracious queen- 
liness that will command homage as well as longing and a 
crystal dear purity and simplidty which will call forth devo- 
tion and reverence. 

In some ways it is a simple little dance, calling for no mar- 
vels of technique. But in its absolute daintiness, aloofness 
and fragrant purity it is as exquisite a work of art as one of 
Vermeer's pictures of Dutch interiors, lit with a cool light 
streaming in through the open window. In neither is there 
anything dramatic or grandiose; but both exhibit a simplicity 
and sensitiveness of refinement and exquisiteness of craftsman- 
ship that raise them to a high plane of artistic achievement. 

Very different is the character of the dance which interprets 
the wild strains of Chopin's '^Tarantella.'* It is a little drama 
in itself. We see the peasant girl, lively and carefree, until 
she feels the piercing sting of the poisonous bite. She starts, 
confused, astounded. What is it? Her movements hitherto 
have been easy, vigorous ; but suddenly j^he feels a chilly horror 
stealing through her body. The limbs congeal, the face 
blanches, the very lips seem white as the horrible suspicion 
creeps over her. Then with feverish hands she seeks to assiu*e 
herself of the dread truth. Ah I her forebodings were too 
true I It is there, the death-bringerl She wrendies herself 
away from it, and gazes fascinated. She knows the poison ia 

[220] 



RITA SACCHETTO 

working its way through her blood. She looks wildly around 
as though seeking help. Yet she knows there is but one rem- 
edy, that no one can save her but herself alone. She must 
dance, rapidly, frantically, until the violence of her activity 
shall free her from the taint. No one may aid her; she is 
facing death, terrified, distraught, and alone. 

She siunmons all her courage and begins with steps that 
falter at first but gradually become more wild and energetic. 
Backward and forward her body sways, faster and faster ; it is 
a race with death and terror spurs her on. Her eyes are wild ; 
her hair streams loose ; the steps begin to lag, the vigour of her 
movement slackens. But, no ! she dare not stop yet. With a 
heart-breaking sob she starts again. Faster, faster I She is 
not dancing now, but running with short pattering steps this 
way and that. Blind with misery and fatigue, she gropes and 
stumbles but saves herself for a time. It is too hard, too 
cruel. The fear that clutches at her heart clogs her footsteps 
and they drag heavily. Then a false step and again she stum- 
bles and this time falls in a pitiful heap, exhausted, all but 
lifeless. For a moment she lies there, beaten. But the hor- 
ror is driving her again. She drags herself by force, now to a 
sitting posture, then to her feet. She will fight to the bitter 
end in her lonely struggle against the unseen foe. She is 
staggering now. Her feet drag; her form bends like a broken 

[««1] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

lily; her hands are outstretched, groping, warding off that 
terrible something which is lying in wait to clutch her. She 
is mad with the agony of it, but still mechanically drags her 
body, turning and stumbling, the life ebbing down, down« It 
is torture, but she does not stop, because the poor numbed 
brain holds but the one idea — ^to dance and dance and dance* 
Slower, in more and more broken rhythm, she sways and tot^ 
ters; then, shattered and exhausted, without even conscious- 
ness left to will a continuance of the ordeal, falls. The wild 
wailing music is hushed into silence. 

This dance of the ''Tarantella'^ is just as full of fire as the 
other was of winsomeness. But through both we have a peep 
into the true Woman- Soul, as it touches the realities of life^ 
whether fraught with joy or terror. For it is not alone the 
agonised struggle of one peasant girl to save herself from the 
poison of a spider that Rita Sacchetto interprets, but the strug- 
gle of the Woman-Soul against insidious evil which would 
destroy it. It is the Woman-Soul fighting, in spite of despair; 
preferring to die in the struggle rather than tamely submit to 
a ruthless fate. 

And so in all Sacchetto's dances the theme is ever the strug- 
gle toward a fuller life, a higher ideal. Simmonetta, stricken 
with death even as she attains the ideal of vernal beauty, in her 
dance with maidens is determined through all her sufferings 



RITA SACCHETTO IN HER SPANISH DANCE 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

She if silent — she is possessed of herself — thej do not offend her. 
She reoeiyes them as the laws of nature receiyes than — she is strong — 
She too is a law of nature — there is no law stronger than she is." 

(Walt Whitman's Chants Democratic: No. 2.) 



Although this inspuiDg ideal is never absent from 
Sacchetto's work, it must not be thought that the idea is in- 
sisted upon in every individual dance. Into the "Caprice 
Espagnol/' for example, she throws herself with the merriest 
abandon, to the accompaniment of castanets, which she plays 
with much vivacity and fulness of tone. Indeed, when she 
appeared in Madrid her use of this characteristically Spanish 
device evoked much applause and she was declared to have 
surpassed any castanet player of that city. 

Again, the little 'Tierrot and Butterfly Dance'' is full of 
innocent drollery. The mad dashes with which Pierrot at- 
tempts to catch the fluttering white object and his puzzled 
disappointment at his continued failure are spirited and 
piquant. If there is a little philosophy in the remorse which 
overcomes him, when at last he captures his prey and the 
gossamer wings are crushed by his hasty snatching, it is of the 
semi-humorous brand, not too serious for even the gayest 
audience. 

For Rita Sacchetto inherits from her father tiie vivacity of 
the Italian and the artistic spirit of the Venetian, while her 

[««6] 



RITA SACCHETTO 

talent for music she received from her mother, who was the 
daughter of an Austrian composer. She has lived in Munich 
the greater part of her life. Her training for the technical 
side of her art was received from the hallet master of the Court 
Theatre and her d^but was made in the Kunstler Haus, the 
artist's theatre. In this city of many arts, where some of the 
most successful efforts have been made toward the combination 
of the arts of architecture, painting, drama, music and danc- 
ing, Miss Sacchetto holds an honoured position. Her genius, 
not only in performing but in composing and producing her 
dances, has won the admiration of all art-lovers, and dimng 
his lifetime the painter, Lenbach, showed great interest in her 
work. Her costumes and mise-en-sc^nes are studied with 
minutest detail and she has a wonderful talent for reproducing 
the atmosphere and style of the works of painters whose pic- 
tures she interprets in her dances. Velasquez, Botticelli, 
Greuze and Rossetti are some whose works have inspired her. 
In costume, colouring and in the character of all her move- 
ments and poses she carriesr out the distinguishing style of 
these masters, not only as exhibited in the particular picture 
that has inspired her, but throughout their works generally. 

The colouring and movement, for example, of the '^Spanish 
Dance" have the rich blacks and bold patterning of the paint- 
ings of Velasquez and catch again and again a movement or 

[«2T] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

pose which suggest his canvases. Nor need an art-lover con- 
sult a programme to discover the suggestion of Botticelli in 
''Simmonetta's dance" or the colouring, poses and gestures, 
characteristic of Rossetti, in the *Death Scene/' Sacchetto 
has visited the great cities of Europe, everywhere greeted with 
the wannest admiration. Her art is recognised as so individ- 
ual and original, that it fears no rivalry even with the most 
accomplished of her fellow artists. 

It was Loie Fuller who brought her to America in 1909 to 
open up to us one more field of achievement in the forgotten 
art. For, though the motive of the two dancers is widely 
different, the spirit of the American woman felt a kinship 
with the other's ideal. Sacchetto, indeed, gifted in her heri- 
tage and fortunate in her opportunities of developing and re- 
fining her natural genius, has acquired a broadness of outlook 
which has given her art on its serious side an appeal that over- 
flows the distinctions of racial characteristics and embraces a 
Universal Ideal of Womanhood. 



[2S8] 



CHAPTER XIII 

COURT DANCES 

WIT^ the present reawakening of the dance instinct, 
which is shown, not only in the interest taken in 
the art of professional dancers, but also in the 
effort to make fuller use of the dance in adding beauty and 
joy to the lives of the people, there seems to be every hope 
that there will be also a revival of the beauties of the old court 
dances. That they will appear in their old stateliness and 
formality is not likely, as in no way would that be expressive 
of the spirit of our age. The appeal which liiey will make to 
the modem world 13 that of sheer beauty and grace and oppor- 
tunity of self-expression. And, in order to achieve the last- 
named quality it may be necessary to sacrifice some of the 
stateliness and allow greater freedom and simplicity; for every 
age must use its art medium in its own way or its art will lack 
vitality. If we are indeed a race innately vulgar and mindless, 
we shall produce nothing higher than bunny hugs and tiu'key 
trots; but if there is in us some aspirations to beauty and 
grace, we will inevitably turn to something which shall embody 
these aspirations. 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

The heyday of the stately and elaborate court dances was 
found in the Court of France during the seventeenth century- 
We have already noticed the elaborate ballets arranged for 
and danced by the kings and princes of the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries. In these as in the state balls the cour- 
tiers must bear a part with elegance and grace and much gor- 
geous apparel. And indeed these court dances, with their 
slow, carefully balanced steps, were no easy affairs to master. 
On our modern stage we often see what purports to be a court 
minuet, but very seldom do see the original *'Little steps" from 
which the dance derived its name. These call for absolute 
balance on one foot as the other is moved in a slow circle from 
back to front, without, of course, raising the point of the toe 
from the ground. Even the easier form, in which the balance 
is maintained for only half the period, is a task too exacting 
for the ordinary dancer of modern ballrooms. The difficult 
steps became much modified at a later period, in fact the sim- 
ple gavotte step took the place of the intricate minuet, and 
the dance itself was altered to meet the demands of an age 
where elegance and daintiness had taken the place of the gor- 
geous magnificence of the "Roi Soleil." 

But amid the grandeur and state of the Salons of Versaillea 
where the dancers were the kings and queens and princes of 
blood, with powerful nobles and ambassadors from distant 

[280] 



"A PAVANE" ARRANGED BY MURRAY ANDERSON 



• t 



• i* *, 



WW ^ 

>- •- k. 

• • • 



o t 



« ( « 



COURT DANCES 

lands and princely dignitaries of the Church, all clad in the 
richness and splendour of robes embroidered in gold and sil- 
ver, of laces and jewels, these courtly dances were the natural 
and fitting expression of an ideal of luxurious magnificence. 
They were the expression of the aristocratic spirit that made 
of the dancers a people removed and above the common herd, 
to be worked for and admired and obeyed without question: 
their stately actions were just what the common ordinary 
mortal would expect of their dignity and exalted position; 
and therefore they were the fitting art of expression of their 
time. 

What could better exhibit the opulence of the gorgeous vel- 
vets and satins, with their arabesques of gold and silver and 
their couching of pearls or studding of precious jewels, than 
the sweeping circles in which the trains or cloaks of the dancers 
were held in the "Pavane." Well is it called the Pavane or 
Peacock, for its slow deliberate pacing and the manipulation 
of the splendid fabrics of cloak and train form its principal 
object. Surely at those balls of state none would dare to take 
a part in a Pavane whose garments were not of the most sump- 
tuous description. But being assured of this, with what a 
loftiness of demeanour would these exalted beings tread their 
measure, lifting their trains with dainty jewelled fingers, cock- 
ing their cloaks with their swords in arrogant superiority, with 

[288] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

sweeping courtesies, elaborate and prolonged, and salutes to 
the tips of fair fingers, as the plumed hat flourished from the 
head to the floor, and then was laid across the heart of its gal- 
lant wearer. 

For to all these court dances belong the wonderful bows 
and curtseys and kissing of hands, themselves matters to be 
studied and learned by careful practice and increased or modi- 
fied to suit the degree of \he partner and the desire to make a 
favourable impression. Not a little of diplomacy and politics 
were put into these ceremonial dances when the fate of a nation 
might hang on the manipulation of a fan or the shape of a 
silk dad leg. More than once has the choice of a future queen 
been decided at the court ball and grave ambassadors have laid 
deep schemes for alliances, have checked and counter-checked, 
while they balanced and bowed and curtseyed with exquisite 
precision, as though that was the sole thought in their minds. 
Did any of them, I wonder, in these long, elaborate curtseys, 
excel the supple, liquid grace with which not so very long ago 
Ellen Terry used to slip slowly, almost imperceptibly down, 
melting, it almost seemed, to an exquisite gesture full of ex- 
pression and variety till her lovely head sometimes nearly 
touched her knee ; then gradually rising, with no apparent ef- 
fort, till the slim form was once again erect and lissome? To 
have seen her perform one of these grand curtseys was to 



COURT DANCES 

know once and for all that stiff formality was not a necessary 
quality of the courtly dance. 

All balls were not affairs of state and these gorgeous cour- 
tiers were very human and needed expressions of joy and mer- 
riment as much as any other human being. Sometimes they 
must relax and, in our American parlance, 'liave a good time." 
So we find the dances of that period by no means lacking in 
simpler, gayer measures in which all could take part. 

So, to provide enjoyment of a livelier sort, the entertainment 
would include a "Gaillarde." This was a much more merry 
affair, though still one of the "Basse Dances," as contrasted 
with the dance "Baladine," or high dance. This distinction 
was something of \he same sort as the difference in the Spanish 
dances between the "Danzas" and the "Bayle." The Spanish 
Bayle and the old French Baladine are lively and vivacious, 
danced with gestiu*es of arms, heads and bodies and the foot 
well lifted ; while the ''Basse Dance" and Danzas are slow and 
gliding, the foot being never lifted from the floor. 

The Gaillarde was not unlike our modern dances, however, 
in one respect and that is, it refused to be circumscribed in its 
expression. Though it was originally a Basse Dance it grad- 
ually lost its solemn characteristics and became very lively and 
the name of one old Gaillarde, ^'Baisons-nous ma Belle," sug- 
gests that the delights of Ihe kissing dances of the people were 

[286] . 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

not ehtirely unknown to the court. So» after all, the lace ruffles 
and long curls of the gallants and the stiff brocades and heavily 
jewelled trains of the ladies did not mean that they were less 
human than the young people of our own day. And while 
they performed the pantomimic dances such as the '"Courante," 
which called for pretty displays of coquetry from the ladies 
and ardent suing from the gentlemen, there was just as much 
zest in the game of flirtation as was ever put into a modern 
cotillon figure. 

Not formality, then, but grace and elegance expressed the 
prevailing mood of these dances. The Minuet was often re- 
placed by the gayer and simpler "Gavotte," at one time a Folk 
dance but adopted by the court; and even hoop skirts and 
patches and wigs and swords did not prevent the "Allemand" 
being a gay and lively affair. But it was capable of much 
beauty and ingenuity in the variety of its poses, though the 
partners must hold each other by both hands throughout. The 
steps were not complicated, as in the Minuet, so that the 
dancers' whole attention could be focussed on the joy of the 
moment and its expression in pose and gesture. 

Later came the vogue of the "Saraband." Coming from 
Spain it was full of fire and vivacity and became so popular in 
France and England as almost to displace the Minuet. It 
was usually accompanied by the music of guitars, sometimes 

[236] 



COURT DANCES 

played by the dancer, and gave ample opportunity for the 
display of beautiful and skilful dancing. 

Nor does this complete the list, for we have not even spoken 
of court dances of Spain, Italy, Russia, Hungary, and all the 
other nations of Europe. And to all of these we are the nat- 
ural heirs. It seems more than a little strange that we turn 
away from our rich inheritance and busy ourselves with the 
shells and glass beads of primitive savages. It is true that 
the coin of our inheritance is, in some cases, antique and obso- 
lete, but its value is not the less, even if it must be reminted 
for our use. If necessary we can put on it the stamp and 
image of our own modem currency and its value will surely 
be greater than that of the barbarous tokens which we have 
acquired with such childish pride. 

The court dances, shown on the professional stage, have 
usually been introduced in "powder" plays for the sake of 
imparting something of the old stateliness to the atmosphere 
of the play. Consequently, the gayer side of the old time 
social dancing has been somewhat forgotten. For the exag- 
gerated courtliness of these dances modem dress seems out of 
place and modem manners certainly would be somewhat 
strained. But we have had an opportunity of seeing a re- 
vival of some of these old time dances where the livelier 
Gavotte has replaced the Minuet and even that has been quick- 

[287] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

ened up to a vivacious pace more in accordance with the tempo 
of the twentieth century. These dances which have been ex- 
hibited by Mr. Murray- Anderson and Miss Crawford are 
full of a charming mingling of old time elegance and modem 
vivacity. Sometimes the old and the new are placed side by 
side so tiiat we can compare them and learn that we may, if we 
will» retain the charm of the one without abandoning the free 
swing and exhilaration of the other. 

For, arrayed in beautiful costumes not noticeably out of 
date even if a little original for our conventionally dressed 
coimtrymen, these dancers begin a stately dance to the digni- 
fied music of the "Boccherini Minuet.** No item is omitted of 
the formal bow and sweeping curtsey, the fluttering fan and 
flourish of the hat. But the music changes; a lively modem 
dance tune, with a suggestion of the national rag-time, sup- 
plants the formal rhythmic measure of the tune of the by- 
gone day, as indeed it has done only too thoroughly. 

Shall we lose our graceful dances? Will liiey, too, **turkey 
trot" with the uncouth crowd? For one moment they are dis- 
mayed. This is the "y^imger generation knocking at the door" 
with a vengeance. Shall they withstand it, attempt by force 
to stop the outrage? Or shall they withdraw their dignified 
presence from the scene of such unworthy revels and leave the 
grotesque dancers to their own devices? Or shall they just 

[238] 






• • • •• 



• •• • • 



• • 



•••• 

• • • 



• •• •• 

• • •• • 



• •' 



• •••• 

• •• •• 



I 

• ••• 



• • 



COURT DANCES 

drop down to the standard of these less ideab'stie merry-makers 
and join in the scramble? For a while they seem in doubt- 
But then their courage and ideals triumph, and boldly changing 
their step to the changed time, but not altering the form or 
gracefulness of their movement, they continue their dance, sub- 
stituting gaiety for dignity and vivacity for deliberation. It 
is not too difficult for the ordinary lover of dancing, this ele- 
gant movement ; it is not too solemn for the merriest party and 
it is not too conspicuous for this self-conscious age. So let 
us take heart of grace and hope that the time is not far distant 
when we shall see a revival of dances along these lines. 

Mr. Murray- Anderson and Miss Crawford are both of Scot- 
tish origin and have studied these dances from sheer love of 
their dignified beauty. They find them congenial to their tem- 
peramental expression and believe there is a scope for modern 
expression to be found, if not in the minuet, at least in one or 
other of the Court Dances. Miss Crawford has a special 
genius for discovering and working out forgotten forms of 
the dance and imparting to them life and motion. Not only 
that, but inheriting from her father a strong inventive faculty 
she has contrived some novel mechanical devices which promise 
lo enhance the efi^ectiveness of her art. 

In England and Vienna some very charming court dances 
have been exhibited by the three Wiesenthal sisters. But only 

[241] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

one of the sisters came to America, so they have not been seen 
yet in this comitry. Their costmnes were beautiful combina- 
tions of colours and the whole picture suggested a group of 
Dresden china figures. One of the sisters assumed masculine 
attire, while the others, in large hoop skirts and powdered hair, 
combined with her to make a picture of dainty elegance and 
delicate precision. 

For the modem allure of these graceful dances is not in the 
formal stateliness of the old ''Minuet de la Cour'' so much as 
in the gracious, gentle gaiety of the simpler dances. In them 
we find the flavour of the refinement of spacious parlours fur- 
nished in the choice simplicity of Hepplewhite and Sheraton, 
fragrant with the scent of rose leaves and lavender. Brass 
candle sconces hold the wax candles; two or three choice bits 
of porcelain are placed about the room; choice prints on the 
delicately tinted walls, with their white woodwork; a bowl of 
roses rests on a table, spread with delicate white napery and 
exquisite china and glass; nothing lavish nor profuse but every- 
thing well ordered and fitting, designed for true recreation 
and enjoyment with no sacrifice of good breeding or good 
taste. In our modem homes we try to obtain some such at- 
mosphere. In many of the handsomer houses of New York 
are rooms noble enough to be the setting for the stateliest 
Minuet de la Cour, and in the majority there is the attempt 

[242] 



COURT DANCES 

to combine modem comfort and convenience with the dignity 
and refinement of good taste. The attempt is usually suc- 
cessful; for we adapt ourselves quickly to beautiful surround- 
ings. The day of barbaric splendour has passed, and a cul- 
tiu'ed taste has demanded a cultured environment. 

It is therefore inevitable that our social dancing must, in 
time, as we realise that it, too, is an art and a phase of self- 
expression, reach a plane worthy of our cultiu-e and intelli- 
gence. Time was when the beauty of the waltz satisfied us, 
but we need something new, and so far our gropings for it 
have led only to crude results. But, as every people get the 
art that they deserve, we may be sure that something will 
evolve which is beautiful and characteristic and satisfying to 
our desire for expression. 



r«4«] 



CHAPTER XIV 



GRETE WIESENTHAL 



THE music is throbbing with the wild yearning strains 
of Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsodie." The curtains 
part and we gaze at a setting of blank creamy white 
hangings. There is no suggestion of sumptuousness in their 
fabric or sweep of majesty in their folds. They appear plain, 
simple, rather restricted and unexpressive. And here creeps 
out with halting, timid gesture, a slight wistful-eyed child, 
dressed in the simple, useful garments of a little peasant. 
Did the white blankness of the curtains symbolise the life and 
experience of this little maiden? Are all her history, her af- 
fections, her hopes even, still to be written on the blank waUs 
of her life? As yet she knows not what she feels. She has 
not awakened to consciousness of her share of the heart beats 
of the throbbing music. She has lived only in the routine of 
eating and sleeping and dressing and washing with the daily 
tasks necessary to keep the body alive; but she herself has 
never awakened and looked out on the world to know herself 
part of it. She is truly a simple, untaught child. 

Her short pleated skirt is made of dark homespun and fhe 
white sleeves of her bodice are plain and unadorned: her long 

[844] 



f-:,- 



GRETE WIESENTHAL IN LISZTS HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY 



Photo, br Wblte, N. Y. 



V >■ V 



GRETE WIESENTHAL 

dark hair is braided and tied with ribbons. Sandals are on 
her feet but her legs are bare. Her face is grave and wonder- 
ing and she peers around with curiosity. But the world is 
bright, there seems nothing here to harm. She stretches out 
her arms and her body sways a little in a gesture of well being 
and content, the head goes back and the lips part. She has 
escaped from the monotony of indoor life and daily tasks and 
here she is alone in the big world. Shall she not enjoy it? 

Against the rhythmic beat of the melody are those yearning 
vague phrases, those beatings of the wings of the soul for 
flight, upward, upward I And in her heart something re- 
sponds. Slowly she raises herself erect, lifting her body and 
taking a few bounding steps, with arms outstretched, enjoying 
the unwonted freedom but still uncertain of what wonders or 
terrors may lurk in this lonely world. Her long braid falls 
across her hand. Half curiously she holds it, looking at it 
and its gay ribbons. Its soft, warm touch, and glossy bright- 
ness are part of the general well being and she smiles as she 
runs with steps still faltering, but with uncertainty, not fear. 
She does not actively wish for anything but just lets her de- 
licious sense of careless freedom flow all through her body. 
Back and forth, with swaying, lilting steps she strays. Ah I it 
is good to feel the rhythmic sway of limbs and body. 

Now she turns with more conscious vigour, the steps are 

[«47] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF ,TODAY 

more bounding as she lifts herself lightly, filled with the desire 
to soar and soar, ever higher and higher. Like the skylark 
seeking the blue, not flying direct to any precise place but 
just penetrating, seeking, the upper air. But now that de- 
sire is bom in her being, it must grow and knit her more and 
more closely to the heart of nature. New emotions stir her 
every minute and the vague sense of well being blooms into 
deep-felt joy, and joy is only half felt if there is not a touch 
of pain, so apprehension quivers through the figure which 
wavers as a reed in the wind. Ah^ life is truly making itself 
feltl 

The music takes on a more definite melody. The emotions 
only hinted at before call and cry aloud instead of whispering 
and sighing. There is joy and laughter and light and love to 
be grasped at and held close, then given out again, warmed and 
nourished by the contact. Or there are hate and fear and 
gloomy places to be fled from and struggled with even though 
their grip is hurting the heart. All these are life and she too 
will livel 

Oh, yes I But not yet, little girl! All these shall be writ- 
ten on the white walls of your life, but not yet. You have 
come to this place apart and looked for a moment into the fu- 
ture but you are still only the little, untried girl with the long, 
soft shining braids and fluttering ribbons. But you have felt 

[248] 



GRETE WIESENTHAU 

the throb and call of life, you have tuned your feet to the 
rhythmic pulse of the core of the universe, you have whirled 
around in the thrill of passion, so though the music goes back 
to the first vague plodding measure, and your own steps retard 
and grow less sure, as you come back from the vision to the 
normal round of life there is still something difi^erent in their 
movement. Now it is a languor, a conscious waiting, in the 
smile is the memory as well as an expectation, and the flutter- 
ing little sigh which troubles the breath tells that a step has 
been taken in life's journey which can never be retraced I 

A few weeks ago while visiting a family living in the suburbs, 
during the evening a gramaphone was brought out onto the 
lawn to amuse the young children of our hosts. Presently the 
notes of our Hungarian Rhapsodic filled the air. The 
rhythmic beat of the first part is certainly not more suggestive 
of dancing than any other of the airs that had already been 
played, and up to now none of the children had been dancing. 
But at about the fourth bar of the Himgarian Rhapsodic the 
youngest daughter of our hosts, a slim, serious-faced, brown- 
eyed child of about four years, unprompted by any of the com- 
pany, slipped down from the lap of her mother and poised 
herself for a moment on her toes; then, with no consciousness 
of the surrounding company, but simply in response to some 
sensation that the music aroused in her, with arms outstretched, 

[849] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

she began to take long slow, swaying steps, rhythmic but not 
actually timed to the beat of the music. She had never done 
it before, it was a wholly spontaneous response to the inspira* 
tion of the music; she has had no training in dancing except 
such as is given by the usual kindergarten teaching, in which^ 
of course, the rhythmic sense is developed. But in her little^ 
light, unformed figure and faltering steps, rapt eyes and 
outstretched arms, one felt again that awakening in this tiny 
creature of the call of life, of emotion, of expression, of art. 
It was a picture not soon to be forgotten, this graceful little 
elfin figure, with short brown linen dress and bare legs and 
sandalled feet, gliding over the dusky lawn, her serious intent 
face and golden head drooping slightly over one shoulder, her 
lips slightly parted in expectation, her big brown eyes veiled,^ 
withdrawn from the surroundings, intent on some inner emo- 
tion the music had aroused. Is it hidden in this Rhapsodic^ 
this call of life, to evoke this response in sensitive souls, or was* 
this a coincidence? 

In England and Vienna Fraulein Grete Wiesenthal made 
her appearance in company with two sisters. Together they 
danced the old court dances with a daintiness and charm that 
won for them imiversal admiration. Her two sisters did not 
accompany her to this country, and the peculiar delicacy of her 
appeal was rather lost in the surroundings of the Winter Gar- 

[«60] 



i, b V ^ kr »- - 

^ W ^ fc U ^. 



GRETE WIESENTHAL 

den. She seems to belong to out-of-doors. Th^ glare of the 
footlights is not consistent with something wild and timid in 
her natiu'e. She is more akin to those graceful little antelopes 
who stand and gaze at you for a moment as long as you remain 
absolutely still, but, if you try to approach them, have turned 
and bounded away beyond your sight before you have taken 
one step. 

Fraulein Wiesenthars second dance was to the music of 
Strauss's "Blue Danube." It was of great interest to see how 
her conception of this familiar theme differed from that of 
Isadora Duncan. For, whereas the latter was a glad joyous 
creature with moods of pensive melancholy, the Viennese dancer 
suggested an eerie, shrinking sprite, sporting in the shallows 
of the water, hiding in their depths, carried along sometimes 
in a mad rush, then drawing back, veiled in her hair, watch- 
ing, fascinated, the wild whirl of water. But all the time she 
is half fearful, half wondering, a creature of reserve and shy- 
ness; appealing in its sensitiveness, naive in its curiosity; yield- 
ing herself to rather than taking part in the impetuous course 
of the stream and finally plunging, sinking deep into its utter- 
most heart, head bowed to the ground, and flowing, rippling 
hair falling and obscuring face, neck and arms. 

The charm of Grete Wiesenthal's dancing lies, not in the 
technical equipment, for of that her stock does not seem to be 

[«68] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OP TODAY 

very great, or in any profundity of emotional expression, but 
in a delicate sensitiveness of nuance, suggesting rather than 
expressing the reserves and veilings of the mysteries of nature. 
It does not sweep you away with any voluptuous intoxication, 
but is cooling, fragrant and soothing. 

But it is not cold or insipid; it suggests depths and varieties 
of emotional possibility not yet developed and jealously 
guarded from irreverent display. She touches the emotions 
more than moves them, like the light sweep of the harp strings 
after the variety and complexity of the orchestra. Let us 
hope we may see her again, and not only herself but her two 
sisters with whom she appeared in London. She has her own 
individual note in the chord of expression. 



t«64] 



CHAPTER XV 



ECCENTRIC DANCING 



IT is impossible to write about dancing in America with- 
out some reference to the various phases of eccentric 
dancing of which there is such an abundance. Although 
variations in form and style of these dances succeed each other 
with kaleidoscopic mutability there has occurred no renaissance 
of eccentric dancing, because the vogue for it has never de- 
clined. Its ideals of expression, as far as they go, are sincere, 
full of vitality and spontaneity, and of wide appeal. 

**Eccentric Dancing" covers too wide an area to claim for 
it, as a whole, a purely American origin; but there are phases 
of it which have originated in this country and have taken a 
strong hold on the imagination of the public, strongly influenc- 
ing the popular conception of the qualities and technique ex- 
pected in exhibitions of dancing of all kinds. Of these 
qualities those most in request have been agility, inventiveness 
and a humorous rather than serious intention. 

The most notable of the American dances are derived from 
the negro of the old slave days, the buck and wing, cake- 
walks and rag-times. In all these there is the curious mix- 

[266] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

ture of careless gaiety and ultra self -consdousness, the freakish 
vivacity with solemnity of self-importance, the true sense of 
humour with a frank appeal for approbation. These charac- 
teristics were borrowed in the early days of minstrel shows, 
and made popular by the very accomplished comedians and 
dancers which those shows include; who, by their devemess 
and artistry, created the demand for these qualities which has 
become inherent in the public taste. 

That the demand is there is shown by the fact that in nearly 
every vaudeville programme will be found one or more exhibi- 
tions of these phases of dancing. And very neat and agile 
work it is too, and in a general way expressive of its own pe- 
culiar characteristics. There is no attempt at beauty and 
grace, and with some of the buck and wing dancers immobility 
of face is a point of pride, il^ut that does not prevent a 
strongly humorous suggestion in the loose-jointed, careless 
flingings and twistings of the rapidly moving legs and feet as 
they turn and twinkle at seemingly impossible angles. 

To those who know the country well the name 'Hbuck and 
wing" dances will suggest the stevedores and roustabouts along 
the Mississippi River. There you see it in its glory, danced 
on the levees or between decks of the river steamers, by husky, 
wiry negroes, who thus fill in the time between handling the 
freights. Usually two will dance, vying with each other in 

[266] 



• •• 



••• • • 






»••• 
•../ 



• • •• 

: 

: :;•• 

••••• 



•••• 



ECCENTRIC DANCING 

<»iginality, agility and endurance, while their comrades lie 
around, marking the time with clapping hands and stamping 
feet, cheering them on to increased efforts. In method it is 
not altogether unlike the ''step dancing" of the English factory 
towns, but entirely different in spirit and with the added 
quaintness of the rag-time, which gives it an elusive quality far 
more inspiriting than the monotonous beat of the step dance. 

There is not much of the native, primitive buck-and-wing 
dancing to be seen on our stage at present, but there are many 
fine dancers who use its motive in their dancing acts, and its 
influence appears in nearly all of the modem eccentric dancing 
of American origin. 

The cake-walk may include many forms of dancing and into 
it may be infused all the expression of which the dancers are 
capable, for at its best it is a mixture of pantomime and dance 
which is akin to ballet. It is true that the fact that each 
couple dances not only independently of, but even in rivalry 
with the others, prevents any effects of ensemble between the 
different groups, nevertheless each individual couple will pre- 
sent a delightful variety of comedy interludes. 

Anyone who has seen a **cake-walk" performed between two 
good negro dancers does not need to be reminded of its fas- 
cination. It is a comedy lifted from the child-age of humanity, 
notwithstanding that it is costumed in a travesty of modem 

[269] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OP TODAY 

fashion. Its naturalness is entirely unabashed, because so un- 
consciously instinctive; it is crude without being uncouth; in- 
deed, replete with a certain rude finesse, and although brushed 
in broadly, is relieved by an arabesque of light and shade. H 
has its subtleties, however unsuitable such a term may seem for 
a thing so naive; but its subtleties represent the quiver and 
variety of natural instincts. Shall one compare them to the 
trembling diversity of the web of sunlight and shadow, which 
the foliage of a forest tree, swinging in the breeze, weaves upon 
the ground beneath it? The breadth of nature's passion stirs 
the limbs of the dancers to rhythmic movements which have 
the charm of apparent unpremeditation. And correspond- 
ingly natural and instinctive is the coquetry which colours the 
movements of both the dancers. 

Watch them for a moment. The man approaches, prepos- 
terously ornate. A black swallow-tailed coat is buttoned over 
a white waistcoat ; his striped trousers are creased to a knife's 
edge ; his feet are encased in varnished shoes, and his huge paws 
in lavender kid gloves, while a silk hat is set jauntily on his 
head, and a flower, as big as a lettuce, embellishes his button- 
hole. He grins with immense satisfaction at the amazing dash 
he cuts; but this extravagance of sartorial equipment does not 
disguise the primitive child-man beneath it. The very touch 
of his foot suggests his descent from endless generations of 

[««0] 



ECCENTRIC DANCING 

bare-footed ancestry, while every movement of the body and 
limbs inside the sheath of tailoring proclaims his heritage of 
nakedness, sensitive at every pore to the varying contact of 
the atmosphere. As he propels his chest, squares his elbows 
and points his fingers, meanwhile advancing with deliberate 
strut, one may be reminded for an instant of the muscovy 
drake. But the impulse to smile and the incongruity of the 
costume are alike forgotten in the fascination of the man's 
movements as he becomes conscious of the lady's presence. 
With a tread that feels the floor his supple body glides in 
sinuous gyrations, interrupted now and again by a start and 
a quiver through all his limbs. Now he has caught the lady's 
eye and fixes her attention. His gestures become more ex- 
pansive; the action more emphatic; the steps and combinations 
of movement more difficult and intricate. The lady begins to 
echo his attentions in actions of her own. She outstrips the 
glories of Solomon in the lavish gaudiness of her raiment, but 
it does not obscure the natural grace of her figure; pliant as 
a young willow wand, winding as vines, as elastic in its convo* 
lutions as a tendril. With demure, deprecating twists of neck 
and shoulders, and furtive glances, ignoring and challenging 
by turns, she eyes her partner, as though impartially waiting 
for him to prove himself. His tall wiry form, held between 
whiles erect and stately, seems every now and then to disin- 

[261] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

tegrate into a spasm of rapid twirlings of loosened joints. 
Wrists, fingers, hips, knees, ankles, each seems hinged inde- 
pendently and liable at any moment to revolve on its own 
accomit. To these outbursts the lady responds with steps no 

■ 

less rapid though somewhat less disjointed; edging away with 
averted head, but eyes still darting challenges. With finesse 
worthy of a French woman, a subtle twitch of her petticoat 
reveals, apparently unconsciously, a momentary glimpse of 
shoe and stocking, while only a bashful droop of the head and 
eyes direct attention to the action. And then, when her con- 
tinued indifference to his most exuberant flourishes has dis- 
couraged her energetic young partner, with the same apparent 
unconcern the little lace handkerchief was dropped on the floor. 
And oh! what a start of astonishment as, picking it up in one 
whirling action, her partner presented it to her in another 1 
And oh I the variety and elaborateness of the curtsey of grat- 
itude! and the bows of overwhehned acknowledgment, up and 
down the whole length of the stage they extended. And of 
course after that there could be no pretence, on the lady's 
part, of ignoring his presence, but, by an exaggeration of 
politeness, he must be made to feel his position. And the 
man! As is the way of the primitive male, he must show off 
at first and exhibit himself in all his glory, and show what a 
fine fellow he is. His twirlings are diversified by leaps and 

[«62] 



ECCENTRIC DANCING 

bounds and triumphant stampings. But the lady's admiration 
soon flags. It is not enough to admire him. She wants 
adulation and devotion for herself, but she must not make the 
open undisguised bid for them that he does. She must tame 
this self-confident creature until it is of her, not of himself, that 
his mind is full. Very indifferently and gradually she moves 
from him, her whole attention evidently concentrated on the 
correct arch of her toe as she places it on the ground. Pretty 
soon it dawns on the arrogantly prancing male creature that 
he is not creating the impression that he expects. And now 
it is his turn to become embarrassed and bashful and he ap- 
proaches her with lingering, dragging step. But impish hu- 
mour forbids him to be too humble in his approach and for a 
time they play the game of self-absorbed indifference, each 
really jealously watching the other. 

Presently, after a longer spell of self -absorption, they collide. 
And now breaks out a little storm of fury on the part of the 
lady. She is really offended and tosses her head and stamps 
her foot and flirts her skirt away from his contaminating touch; 
while he gives himself up heart and soul to placating the of- 
fended divinity. Round and round her he circles as she con- 
stantly averts her head, until at last he intercepts a glance 
less haughty than at first. The depths of his humiliation 
would be abject if it were not for the mischievous twinkle of 

[26S] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

eye, which just waits to catch the answering gleam of hers 
to seize her outstretched hand and whirl her off into a madcap 
dance of reconciliation and triumph: which ends the little 
comedietta. 

As written, there is little to distinguish it from the little 
Harlequin or Pierrot and Columbine episodes in which both 
French and Italian ballets used to abound. But in the actual 
performance of it there is the elusive sjmcopation which is ap- 
parent in the dancing as well as in the music and the ever 
present element of the grotesque which is fooling even in its 
Uttle comedies. There are none of the airy sentimentalities 
with which the Italian ballets would be filled. There will be 
a certain tricky impishness even in the ladjr's part; gestures 
of shoulder and arm which are entirely grotesque, caricature 
rather than comedy. But that is the native genius of the negro 
brought in touch with our civilisation. For these qualities do 
not belong in the same degree to the aboriginal African, thou^ 
the syncopated music and the love of agile dancing are his, 
native and irrepressible. 

But by no means all the eccentric dances owe their origin 
to the negro dances. Many of them are exhibitions of spon- 
taneous individuality quite impossible to classify and full of 
vital energy. 

Not even an electric spark could excel the vivadousness of 

[264] 



THEODORE KOSLOFF AS FAVORITE ARAB OF ZOBEIDE IN THE 
DANCE-DRAMA "SHIEHERAZADE" 



ECCENTRIC DANCING 

the best of these eccentric dancers. What a marvellous whirl 
of energy is Bessie Clayton. Her suppleness and absolute 
control of muscle and the lightning speed of her movements 
leave one gasping. She is here, there and everywhere, and 
always buoyant, light-hearted, inconsequential and full of that 
restless, tireless, nervous energy that animates so much of 
American life. 

For the mixture of the humorous and grotesque it is impos- 
sible to imagine anything that could surpass Montgomery and 
Stone. Not only are the physical contortions of which both, 
and especially Stone, are masters, subjects of constant aston- 
ishment and a refutation of all theories of anatomy, but every- 
thing is done with a deftness and artistic touch which raises it 
far above mere eccentric contortion. They have invented and 
perfected a language of quaint caricature which is as complete 
as that of any pantomimist and whose vocabulary is constantly 
growing. Their* demonstration of expressive power without 
the aid of words, given in "The Wizard of Oz," as the Scare- 
crow and the Tinman, are unforgettable. 

It is interesting to surmise what might have been done by 
these and other artists of undoubted eqm*pment if they had been 
encouraged to develop the significant side of their art. I do 
not believe that even the lovers of the comical would have been 
Ibe losers. For instance, in the performance of "The Wizard 

[267] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OP TODAY 

of Oz" there was a subtlety of suggestion in their work, a dis- 
play of human feeling, a tenderness for the child spirit that 
was more significant and of deeper appeal than anything in 
which they have subsequently appeared. And yet they were 
no less humorous and certainly their seriousness was not op- 
pressive. But if they had developed that subtle expressive- 
ness of the real emotions which belong to every man, however 
much he may disguise them by laughter or keen worldliness, 
would they not have evolved something of more exquisite and 
at the same time quite as general appeal, than caricature? It 
should be just as full of humour as their present work and not 
less true to the American genius. 

An eccentric of undeniable humour is Mr. Al Leech, whose 
specialty is to portray a pathetic helplessness and lack of con- 
trol of all his limbs, executing thereby manceuvres almost in- 
credibly complicated and unfailingly mirth-provoking. His 
comic pantomime dancing with Miss Nellie Lynch reveals 
brilliant technique on the part of both executants. One of 
them will suddenly, in the midst of a brilliantly executed ''pas 
seul," seem to flounder and only save himself or be saved by 
the other from headlong destruction by a series of counterbal- 
ancings which seem of superhuman execution. The skill of 
the evolutions is carefully hidden behind a veil of bewildered 
clumsiness; but the labour and devotion required to achieve 

[268] 



ECCENTRIC DANCING 

such a technique is worthy of admiration and respect. 

There is absolute lack of artistic intention in these per- 
formances, and it would seem as if that in itself appeals to an 
average audience. The aim is to amuse, purely and simply, 
and the many performers who adopt this form of entertain- 
ment labour hard to achieve their aim and are content if they 
succeed. 

A very neat and effective piece of work is done by Moon and 
Morris, in a dance in which, pressed closely together, they du- 
plicate each other's work with such precision of feeling that 
they seem like one person endowed with double quota of limbs, 
heads and torsos. They differ in size and build, but that only 
makes the imity of feeling more uncanny, so thoroughly do 
they convey the impression of being controlled by one brain 
centre which directs these varying forms. 

The ''Texas Tommy" dancers are perhaps more acrobatic 
than eccentric. Their evolutions require that absolute pre- 
cision and dexterity of movement, that sureness of eye and ex- 
act sense of timing, that are needed in trapeze performances 
and acrobatic displays. There is, however, a certain wild, nerv- 
ous verve, an exuberance of energy and vitality in their won- 
derful tours de forces that suggests the purely physical well- 
being of hardy bodies with muscles all taut, clear eye and cool 
head, of tibe folks who live out of doors, who eat with good appe* 

[269] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

tite, sleep the moment their head touches whatever may happen 
to be the pillow, waken alert and vigorous, work with a zest, 
be it for two hours or twenty, and play with the same zest 
when work is done. Such men and women look death in the 
face without wincing, accept reverses without whimpering, and 
share their good fortunes with their comrades. Their play is 
likely to be as tense as their work, but it can appreciate dex- 
terity and precision of method and enjoy the sense of mastery 
that the superior possession of these qualities enhances. 

It is the sureness of his mastery of the use of his lasso that 
enables the Texas cowboy to sit his pony unconcernedly before 
the onrush of a wild steer with blood in its eye. He is con- 
scious that at just the right moment he can throw the lasso over 
hoof or horns, and guide his pony to just the required angle 
to withstand the jerk which shall land his quarry on the ground. 
His judgment must be quick and cool, his eye sure, his hand 
steady, his knowledge of the amount of energy to put into his 
throw unerring, his sense of time to throw and time to brace 
himself for the pull faultless. His grasp must be firm and his 
hand strong, but he must know too how to make it gentle and 
soothing. And all these points come out in the romping gaiety 
of these Texas dancers. The whirl which spins his partner 
toward the footlights with such momentum that without aid 
she must assuredly fly across them, must be nicely adjusted so 

[870] 



ECCENTRIC DANCING 

that in neither force nor direction shall she escape the restrain- 
ing grasp of his hand outstretched just at the right moment to 
arrest her. His own weight must he hraced to coimterhalance 
hers, for here is no soft earth into which he can dig the high 
heel of his hoot to gain a purchase. Poise and gentleness of 
handling must regulate the seemingly fierce toss of his partner, 
first in air, then toward the ground, otherwise she would be bat- 
tered to pieces across the outstretched leg over which he bends 
her before restoring her to normal balance. And the girl must 
yield herself entirely to the controlling energy of her compan- 
ion, for an unpremeditated movement or a divergence of action 
would be disastrous. Grit, cool-headedness and controlled 
energy, these are the forces that are called into play and that 
make the performance exhilarating. In its essential naivete 
and suggestion of wholesome and careless horseplay it presents 
a marked contrast to the grim "throw-back" to savagery dis- 
played in those dances originating in Paris which depict the 
psychology of the "Apache" of the slums of that city. They 
have been seen in this country usually in the cabarets. 

This dance of the imderwprld is neither comedy nor farce; 
but starkest melodrama. Nor is it an expression of natural 
instincts ; but rather of instincts distorted and polluted by long 
divorce from nature. It reeks of the fetid atmosphere of 
crowded slums from whidb the wholesomeness of nature's suh« 

[871] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

shine has long been excluded. Its emotions have nothing of 
the healthy colouring of natural instincts ; they are the products 
of perverted instincts. But the expression of the dance is 
strangely f orcible, and presents an epitome of the miasma which 
exhales from the crowding together of human beings without 
the restraining influence of social conventions. In the case 
of the man, it represents that most odious result of decadence 
•—contempt of the female; in the latter's case, its horrible coun- 
terpart — ^the abject submission of the female to the male's sav- 
agery. 

And the forms of this dance are inevitably the complete con- 
tradiction of natural movements and rhythms. Their savagery 
has no suggestion of the breezy spaciousness and freedom of 
the natural savage life. Every movement is constrained; 
every gesture stiff, angular and confined, as if bred from con- 
stant jostling with other bodies in a crowded narrowness. 
Corresponding to the crampness of the movements is the lack 
of fluency and continuity in their combinations, the tempo of 
the dance is jerky; with intervals of sluggishness and bursts 
of delirious speed; a very denial of rhythm, every movement 
seeming to be the result of a sudden impulse that disdains con- 
trol. 

Let us picture the scene; it is a small cabaret with marble- 
topped tables extending down the length of it on each side, so 

[872] 






V * V L. 



^ ^ 



^ V 1H k. V 



ECCENTRIC DANCING 

as to leave a promenade in the centre. The dim light of a few 
gas-jets is further obscured by the smoke of cigarettes; the at- 
mosphere hangs like a pall of heaviness. The young men and 
women, seated at the tables, seem to feel its weight. There is 
little conversation, still less laughter ; they sit for the most part 
moodily beside their glasses of beer or sirop. Here and there 
a table is occupied by a youth and girl; but generally the girls 
keep to themselves, while the youths foregather apart. A rat- 
tle-boned piano is labouring with a waltz. It stirs no response 
from the company. 

Slowly, however, a yoimg man pulls himself up from the 
seat. He wears a drab suit, the jacket buttoned tight across 
his narrow chest, a neckcloth, fastened in a knot, and a doth 
cap, close down on one side of his head. He stands with one 
foot slightly advanced, arms hanging down and shoulders lifted 
to the prominent ears. His thin face is pallid and expression- 
less. He saunters down the promenade between the tables. 
Each foot is advanced with the deliberation of a cat's and lin- 
gers on its tread, and as each advances its side of the body 
swings slowly forward; so that the stealthiness of the move- 
ment winds its way up to the shoulders. Only the head with 
its apathetic mask remains rigid. The company eyes him list- 
lessly. 

Suddenly, his body droops into a slightly crouching pose, as 

[276] 






DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

if it were about to spring; the musdes of his face grow tense; 
the eyes become alert, his gaze sweeps the row of tables 
and, shifting over, sweeps the other. It halts and fixes itself 
upon the face of one of the girls. She feels the sway of it, and 
seems to be divided between compliance and repulsion. But 
she cannot resist it, rises sullenly and, as if she were being 
dragged, lagging upon each step, approaches the man. She is 
near him, and he grips her wrist, swings her body against his» 
spins round and round with her and flings her far from him. 
At the touch of his fierceness she appears to be both afraid and 
fascinated; and waits motionless, watching. From his end of 
the floor he advances, and she from hers ; he retires and she re* 
tires, her steps and the swaying of her body reproducing his. 
He seems to be asserting the irresistibleness of his attraction 
over her and she to be gradually acknowledging it. The fear 
is slipping from her, the fascination grows. Her face loses its 
sullenness; becomes animated with a wistful pleasure. The 
man's apathy in turn relaxes; his expression warms to con- 
descension, almost kindly. Her pleasure kindles ; her eyes fol- 
low his movements with admiration; she smiles in invitation. 
He draws her to him, lays his arm with almost a caress around 
her waist, shelters her body with his own, and guides it througb 
the steps and revolutions of the waltz. Meanwhile, her lithe 
figure bends and turns to his slightest suggestion; she looks up 

[276] 



fi. 



ECCENTRIC DANCING 

into his eyes and he feels on his face the warm hreath issuing 
from her parted lips. 

Suddenly, as though it stung him, he sets his hand on her 
throat and forces her head hack. He holds it so a moment, as 
if he grasped a snake; then hurls her from him. He will he 
master; not even the allure of the female shall sap the mastery 
of the male. She crouches, panting, submissive to and fasci- 
nated by his strength, tingling too with pride that she can rouse 
it. He watches her with cold, concentrated stare, as if he would 
pierce her through and through with the consciousness that she 
is only a plaything to his hand. She has risen to her feet, hu« 
mility and pleading in her eyes ; slides towards him with falter- 
ing steps; halts, drops her gaze and bows submissive at his 
feet. He is appeased and raises her ; again embraces her with 
his arm and resumes the waltz. He will make her feel that the 
prerogative to woo is his. He holds her in a grip of steel ; so 
that each body vibrates to the least movement of the other. 
The intricacy of the steps increases, the sway of the bodies be- 
comes more sinuous, the pace grows, while the girl, yielding 
herself to the delirium of surrender, leans back upon the man's 
arms with eyes closed. 

Suddenly, again, he hurls her from him, still retaining hold of 
her wrist, so that they stand at the extremity of straightened 
arms; he cold and rigid, she quivering with excitement. A 

[«77] 



A 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

moment so, and he has wrenched her back into his arms and 
again spins her rouid in the fury of the waltz. Again he hurls 
her from him, and again with increasing violence drags her back 
into the dance. Again and still again. Then he varies his 
ferocity by dashing her to the floor and fiercely pulling her back 
onto her feet; throws her this way and that, interrupting the 
passion of the dance with the evidence of his mastery and her 
impotence; while as she hangs limp in his grasp, bent, broken, 
crushed, the helpless sport of her own desire and his imperious 
will, her absolute submission goads his passionate fury, untQ 
the dance quickens to a mad accelerando; then, on an instant, 
stops. The man has forced the girl's body across his thigh, 
thrust her head back with one hand and with the other makes 
a motion as if to cut her throat. 

No! it is not a pleasant melodrama; but one of weird and 
fearful fascination. 

In one short diapter there can be no attempt to review all 
that is being done in the various forms of eccentric dancing at 
the present time, or to call to mind the names of all who are 
doing admirable work. The few already mentioned here have 
been chosen rather as being typical of the different lines of work 
which are finding favour and evoking such response from the 
public as to make them seem to be the expression of some phase 
of general sentiment. But of one thing there seems to be no 

[278] 



ECCENTRIC DANCING 

doubt, and that is that the dance is looked to at the present time 
with an increasing expectation. A general recognition is 
abroad that there is more in it than mere display of pretty 
figures and agility. As yet there is a large public which does 
not quite know what it is that they may expect from the revival 
of artistic dancing. They have been somewhat misled by the 
various '"Salomes" to think that there must be an element of 
the morbid in it. But even so, people are awakened to the fact 
that there are qualities to be looked for which appeal to some 
innate sense higher than mere appreciation of agility or admira- 
tion of prettiness. They are finding that there is a power in 
the subtle imagery of the dance that speaks to the imagination 
more delicately and more vividly than any literal portrayal of 
facts can do : that there is no human emotion, grave or gay, be- 
yond the powers of this imagery to portray: and that the mere 
mechanism of dancing, robbed of this emotional appeal, is a dead 
thing which may, by its skill, evoke surprise but cannot continue 
to hold the interest or add to our joy of living. 



[1879] 



CHAPTER XVI 



FOLK DANCING 



ONE of the beneficial results of the reawakening of the 
art spirit in dancing is that it has enforced the con- 
sciousness that dancing is not only a beautiful art to 
be enjoyed by the few, but is the natural heritage of all the 
people and especially of the young. It is true that all arts 
should belong to the whole race and happily this fact is becom- 
ing recognised by our educators. But dancing, the simplest, 
most spontaneous and at the same time the most complex and 
all embracmg of the arts, is not only a privilege to which young 
people are entitled but it is a need of their nature. In our 
crowded modern cities, where the dwellings of the people are 
cramped and restricted, the absolute need of this outlet is keenly 
felt and it is one of the most hopeful signs of our modem 
consciousness of the rights of youth that there is a growing 
endeavour to meet this need in a sane and safe way. 

School-boards, settlements, open-air playgrounds, every 
agency in fact that is working for the betterment of living 
conditions, recognise this need and the response to their effort 
is immediate. Nor is it only the yoimg people who seek to take 

[280] 



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FOLK DANCING 

advantage of the opportunity thus offered. It is almost pa* 
fhetic to see the older women, sometimes mothers of families, 
who present themselves as candidates for these classes. They 
are nearly all foreign bom and usually belong to races more 
vivacious in their self-expression than the Anglo-Saxon. Pos- 
sibly some of th^Di remember the dances of their own country 
but are too self-conscious to speak of them. Anyway the de- 
sire for this form of self-expression is natural to them and, 
happily, the day is past when the puritan ascendency is al* 
lowed to bar it out. There is even hope that the old-time re- 
proach, that the emigrant to this Land of Hope forgets how to 
sing and dance, will be obliterated. In time the betterment of 
conditions in this new country may be shown not only in the 
form of a savings-bank book but in the happy sound of singing 
voices and the glad dances of the young people throughout the 
land. 

So here, in this young and vigorous civilisation, we are in- 
viting the children to express their sense of joy and wellbeing, 
in the world-old way in which, with differences only of form and 
manner, their forebears have been expressing themselves all 
down the ages. 

The children are gathering together on the green lawn of 
Central Park. The trees have just robed themselves in their 
freshest, gayest mantles. The horse-chestnut's white or pink 

[S8S] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

spires point upward like candles on a Christmas tree. The dog- 
wood blossoms cluster white and cool. Rhododendrons blush 
and glow in their gorgeous colourings. Beneath the feet is the 
springy emerald turf, overhead the cloudless sapphire sky. 
Winter is past and Sprmg has decorated the great out-of-doors 
to be our playhouse for the Summer. 

The children come in groups and companies in white robes, 
bright ribbons, some with chaplets of flowers on their heads. 
They form into groups, and, what is more natural and inevi- 
table, they dance and sing. Here are little kings and queens 
to be crowned and sceptred with solemn ceremonies. Oh, yes, 
we are good repubUcans, democrats or even socialists; but we 
will not refuse homage to these symbols of the sovereignty 
of Youth and Spring and Merriment. Look at them 1 Do the 
bright eyes and quick eager gestures of the little queen remind 
us of ancient Celtic Limousin where, on the ^^Coudert des 
Maiades'* at Merlines, under the leafy beechtree her ancestress 
was crowned '"Regina Avrilloza" and sang the '^Calenda Maia" 
or Welcome to Spring? 

Or perhaps the blond-haired, sturdy boy, her partner, is 
lineal descendant of some bold Robin Hood, who played a 
valiant part in the old Morris dances on the English village 
green. Maybe the grandsire was one of the champions of the 
dance, who, bells on knees, and short staff in hand, footed it 

[284] 



FOLK DANCING 

smartly, with steps and flourishes, a match for any man for fifty 
parishes^ around. For there was much rivalry in these quaint 
dances among the men of different villages, both in skill and 
costume. No man, therefore, appeared at the dance '"unmor- 
riced'' ; his women folk would see to it that he was equipped with 
feather or posy in hat, garters trimmed with many little bells 
and streamers of long ribbons attached to the arms. Note, 
by the way, the London East-Sider of to-day, the "Arry," as he 
is caUed, going out for an excursion or picnic on his Whitsun 
bank-holiday. In his exuberant joyfulness he decorates his hat 
with a feather, made of cut paper of fanciful hues. Is this the 
poor remnant of his "Morris** bravery? 

Every village evidently arranged and invented its own 
Morris and was proud of its special features. On one occasion 
we find a record of a Morris danced entirely by old men, for 
originally the Morris was exclusively a man's dance, one of the 
group being disguised as a woman and called Maid Marion. 
The youngest of these village ancients on this occasion was 
eighty-five years old and the oldest was over a hundred and 
five I 

There is a stained glass window in Betley, Staffordshire, of 
a period not later than Edward IV, which represents Morris 
dancers, in bells and streamers, showing that the dance was an 
established tradition even in that day. And one of the original 

[286] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

actors of Shakespeare's plays, one Kemp, the creator of the 
parts of Dogberry in "Much Ado About Nothing/* and Peter 
in "Romeo and Juliet/' performed a Morris from London to 
Norwich, a distance of 114 miles* This was called the "Nine 
Days Wonder/' 

The name "Morris" dance implies its origin, for it signifies 
Moorish. It was brought to England from Spain or some 
country near it. Anjrway, the dance is found in Portugal, 
Vendome and the Basque Provinces. The figures difi^er a 
little from the English, especially in the use of the swords in 
place of the short stick which the English dancer holds and 
which doubtless was formerly a knife or dagger. These swords, 
crossed on the ground, are substituted for the long clay pipes, 
around which the English dancers performed a lively step 
skilled to avoid touching them with their feet or in any way jar- 
ring or breaking them. In the Morrises of all countries songs 
are introduced. 

The Morris dance has never entirely died out in England. 
It has survived in remote villages and in the annals of the old 
people. The present writer has seen in one of the coal mining 
towns of Durham a party of Morris dancers, who had come in 
from a neighbouring village, dancing through the principal 
streets of the town. A special study of these dances has been 
made by Miss Mary Neal, of England, who introduced them to 

[886] 



FOLK DANCING 

this country with the aid of Miss Florence Warren. She has 
discovered many a quaint tradition and humorous old song, 
hidden away in the memory of some old grandfather, who has 
imparted to her its mysteries to be handed on to gladden another 
generation* 

For we must come back to our children at Central Park. 
Here are a group, gaily winding the ribbons around a May-pole. 
Bright streamers that can be plaited by skilful intertwining 
into all sorts of gay devices. How many of these are here by 
right of inheritance? The descendants of the Briton, of course, 
for even in the early Colonial days of this country they brought 
their May-poles to the land across the seas, and danced around 
them imtil the stem Puritan frowned them down. And the 
black-eyed, sturdy Italian peasant has a right to the dance which 
her ancestors danced from the time of ancient Rome; and so 
has the happy faced little German whose heart goes out to a 
May-fest by the most natural of inherited instincts; yes, and 
this slim, black-eyed, straight-featured little Greek. Ah! she 
has the best right of all. For centuries and centuries ago her 
forebears greeted the coming of the Spring with joyous dances. 
Moreover, the triumph of Theseus over the Minotaur, whose 
labyrinth he penetrated fearlessly with the clue furnished by 
Ariadne, was celebrated by maidens who, holding in their hands 
cords or streamers, wound them around a central figure in in- 

[287] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

tricate patterns; surdy, the prototype of the May-pole dance. 
So the gay ribbons in the hands of the children, gathered to- 
gether in Central Park, the future citizens of this vigorous, 
young nation, stretch back through the ages, uniting them to 
us with a joyous bond, expressive of the instinct of happiness 
that has kept alive the love of art and beauty to bloom and 
brighten our lives today. 

But there are other dances just as ancient. See that group 
of tiny tots, hardly more than babies, with linked hands circling 
round a little central figure. They do not know it, but they 
are dancing the oldest form of organised dance, the Round or 
Rondo. They are singing as they dance a simple little couplet, 
with many repetitions ; is it a Branle of ancient Auvergne? One 
little one stands in the middle and from thence chooses and 
salutes a partner to the singing of its companions. It is the 
"'Wedding Round'' danced in mediaeval Europe which was so 
beloved that in 1574 a bequest was made by a painter which en- 
dowed annually two young couples from the proceeds of his 
fortune, on the condition that on their wedding day they danced 
the Wedding Round about his grave. The Wedding Round 
authorised the kissing of the selected partner and is the original 
of the old English game of *1dss-in-the-ring." Indeed, in the 
freer manner of those old times, kissing formed a part of many 
of the old Folk dances, especially the ''Branles,'' or, as they were 

[S88] 



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FOLK DANCING 

called in Old England, ''Brawls/' and there was a certain little 
flourish of the pipes or fiddle which was the recognised signal 
to thus "Salute your partner." 

As the mothers and grandmothers watch our tiny dancers, 
circling in the round, do any of them think of those Midsummer 
Nights, when in a far-off country the bonfires were lighted 
outside of the towns and villages at night, and hand in hand 
the dancers wound around them? How many hundreds of 
years those bonfires have flared and flickered as the moving 
forms silhouetted against them, now for one minute showing 
brightly illuminated, now lost in the shadows. There was a 
time, doubtless, that it was a rite, sacred to some Fire God, 
full of mysterious portent. Through mediseval Europe it still 
is "St. John's Eve," but the more ancient faith peopled the dark 
shadows of the woods and mountains with spirits, whose earthly 
sway was of more than ordinary power on this fateful night, 
and who were somehow appeased or subdued by the blazing 
fire and dancing forms. All through Europe we find the 
custom extending back to the remotest times, rich in folk lore 
and tradition, differing slightly according to locality but with 
the main idea unchanged. And here in the new country the 
superstitions must be abandoned, but the circling figures shall 
still remind us of the past and when Midsummer day is here we 
will seek some woody spot and watch the darting fireflies, 

[291] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

weaving their glowing rounds, combining both fire and dancer 
in their own tiny entity. 

The Round or Rondo in all its forms has been appropriated 
by the smallest of our dancers. The kindergarten has taken 
it as the natural primitive expression of the race and uses the 
instinct for the enjoyment and development of these budding 
natures. Some of the dancers advance and retreat in circle, 
singing the while, as in the Sardinian Round and the Douro- 
douro dance of the Arabs. So that even those of the little 
dancers of Central Park whose features betray their Oriental 
origin are not intruders in these dances. 

Now as we watch the dancers we see two lines facing each 
other, performing figures and weaving up and down the line. 
This is the old "Country Dance," or "Contre-Danse" in its 
more stately name. For it was popular in France and 
England not only among the peasant folk but in the court and 
social functions and foimd its way even into ballets. Let us 
look for the blond-haired, straight-limbed Scandinavians in this 
dance. For the swing of it is in their blood and even the most 
recently arrived may have seen it in their own native land. 
Watch the firm robust sway of it. It is a game and dance com- 
bined. Not unlike it is the Bourrfe of Auvergne, with its 
stamp of sabots to the tune of that truly out-of-door music 
maker, the bagpipes. Its tones may be droning and monoto- 

[«9«] 



FOLK DANCING 

nous at times but when it does kindle into fervour what a deliri- 
ous abandon it can express! France, Spain, Italy, as well as 
Scotland have echoed its keening or thrilled with the passion of 
its skirl. 

For it is not unworthy of note that much of the liveliest of 
the Folk dancing has grown up to the tune of the bagpipes. 
The Scottish reels. Highland flings and so forth can hardly 
be surpassed for vigour and spirit and contradict the motion 
of solemnity or "dourness'* with which some people have been 
inclined to invest the character of the Scot. Indeed there is 
no sight more inspiriting than four stalwart Highlanders in 
their tartans, such as may occasionally be seen in the camps of 
Highland regiments, dancing a fling, accompanied by sharp 
cries, the snapping of fingers and the world-without-end dron- 
ing of the pipes and the wild skirl of the chanters with which 
the players urge the dancers on to further efforts. The short 
fluttering kilt, the twinkling of white spats and parti-coloured 
hose, the light deftness with which intricate movements are 
made and the vigour and the whirl of the powerful forms; es- 
pecially when the dance is out of doors, lighted by flaming 
torches, flickering, high in the hands of other kilted giants ; the 
splashes of light throwing the scene into bold relief amidst the 
gloom of shadowy trees, present a picture, vivid, stirring and un- 
forgettable. But though bagpipes may be lacking for the chil- 

[298] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

dren's dances we still have the Scottish reels and Highland 
flings and dances from other lands where the bagpipes wake 
the echoes of the hills. For here are Czardas, Mazurkas, 
Tarentellas, Farandoles, Skoals Syvsprings, and many more, 
representative of every nation in Europe, the symbol of the joy 
and merriment that have kept the hearts of their ancestors 
warm and hopeful through the long centuries. And not only 
the joy; for in many of the countries of the old world even the 
griefs and bereavements were commemorated by a dance, so 
truly was the dance the art expression of their lives. And 
in this connection there is a pathetically quaint little song which 
accompanies a dance belonging to old French Flanders, which 
was wont to be used by her companions at the funeral of a 
young girl. The following translation is found in Mrs, Lilly 
Grove's History of the Dance : 



Up in Heaven they dance to-day, 

Alleluia. 
The young maidens dance and play. 
They dng as they dancing go. 
Benedicamns Domino. 
Alleluia, Alleluia. 
Tis for Rosalie they sing 

Alleluia. 

[294] 



»rns 



FOLK DANCING 

She has done with sorrowings 
So we dance and sing we so. 
Benedicamns Domino. 
Alleluia^ Alleluia. 

Such sentiment allied to dancing shows how far it was from 
being simply a social exercise. It was indeed the art of ex- 
pression of the simple, wileamed folk; and realising this the 
training of our school children in the dance takes on a new 
significance. Far more than literature or painting or even 
music does it make the first general appeal for beauty to those 
whose lives have had too little contact with the beautiful. It 
needs no explanation, it speaks for itself. For we are so con- 
stituted that while we are executing beautiful and graceful 
movements our minds turn subconsciously to the gentle and 
sweeter channels. Watch the faces of the children as they 
dance and see how they refine and sweeten. I do not remember 
ever to have seen a coarse or vulgar expression on any face of 
the hundreds who danced. It is truly a powerful lever that is 
being used, and the only pity is that its use cannot continue 
even after school days are over. 

The teaching of dancing in the Public Schools of New York 
City was originally started by the Girls' Athletic League in 
1905. A similar organisation for boys had been in operation 
since 1908 under the leadership of Dr. Luther GulicL The 

[896] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

problem confronting the organisation for girls was a difBcult 
one. There are very few open-air playgrounds accessible to the 
school children of lower New York so that all recreations pro- 
vided must be thoroughly organised so as to admit of their being 
enjoyed in a restricted space. It was recognised that the 
problem of athletics for girls must be solved in an entirely dif- 
ferent manner from that for boys ; that many sports and exer- 
cises useful and invigorating for boys are injurious and imsuited 
to girls. For this reason Miss Elizabeth Burchenal, the Secre- 
tary of the Girls' Athletic League, early in the evolutionary 
stages of the League, asked for replies from a number of the 
highest authorities in physical education, physicians and educa- 
tors, to a set of questions as to the comparative value of various 
forms of exercise for girls. The result was that of the exercises 
considered ^'especially beneficial and suitable,'' dancing heads 
the list. Of the "best loved, most commonly practised and with 
greatest primitive appeal" the unanimity of the answers in 
favour of dancing was remarkable. 

Of its recognition, then, as healthful and beneficial there was 
no doubt. But even so, it seems probable that only few of the 
pioneers of this great movement realised the wonderful outlet 
that they were opening to the children on the expressional side. 
Miss Burchenal herself knew it and has always worked to pro- 
mote its highest efiiciency on the expressional side, as well as 

[296] 






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FOLK DANCING 

fostering the traditions of the countries from whence the Folk 
Dances were derived. But these qualities and their benefit to 
children whose home lives offer them few if any occasions for 
self-expression in the direction of beauty, has been a surprise 
to many. And that it has been appreciated is shown by the 
fact that the work of teaching has frequently been done volim- 
tarily for the sake of the pleasure that the dancing brings not 
to the pupils only but to the teachers themselves. 

The work of the Athletic League was recognised by the 
Board of Education and made part of the Public School sys- 
tem in 1909. To New York, therefore, belongs the honour 
of having been the pioneer in the introduction of dancing into 
the system of public education. In doing so they formally 
admitted the rights of the children to this their natural in- 
heritance and established the value of the dance as the elemen- 
tary approach to all arts. For it is certain that it will be easier 
to appeal for a sense of form, rhythm, harmony and balance 
to a child who has felt something of all of these laws in her own 
person than to one to whom these are but words. 

Very wisely, the Athletic League discourages anything in 
the nature of a display of these little dancers. They dance for 
themselves, not for an audience. Even on their f^te days in 
the parks no attempt is made to induce the public to attend. 
But there is ever an attendant throng of parents and friends 

[299] 



DANCING AND DANCERS OF TODAY 

whose eager faces show the delight which has been added to 
their lives by the recognition of this impulse toward life and 
beauty. And with what a tone of pride will one of the specta- 
tors say, "'Yes, I know that dance, I danced it when I was a 
girl, way back in the Old Country/' And the children find that 
after all what is beautiful in the Old Country is worthy to sur- 
vive amidst all the modem improvements of the New. 

Many cities have followed the example of New York in add- 
ing dancing to their systems of public education, and through- 
out the land much good work is being done in private institu- 
tions for its study and perfection. Not only Folk Dancing 
but many other of the beautiful forms of the art, especially 
natural and Greek dancing, are taken up by our schools and col- 
leges, much of it being done in the open air. Of course the 
same long arduous study is not expected from these students as 
is given by those who intend to devote their lives to the highest 
exposition of the art, but enough training is given to develop 
the flow of feeling through the body until it becomes a natural 
instrument of expression for the imaginative and spiritual 
forces. 

It is this recognition of dancing among people of all sorts 
as a means of cultivating a sense of beauty as well as an ex- 
pression of the joy of life, quite as much as the presence among 
us of the great artists, that makes for the present Renaissance 

[800] 



FOLK DANCING 

of the Dance. The vital motives of the great dancers are no 
longer set forth in a dead language to uncomprehending ears, 
but, because of the experience of the audience in the art, they 
evoke a response that is understanding and give increased 
pleasure. 

So we find the Dance coming to be once more a part of the 
life of the community, the natural expression of joyousness. 
True we have not yet invested our days of ceremony with any 
ritual of dance, as in ancient days. But it would no longer 
seem to us unnatural or childish to celebrate our national 
anniversaries, our school or college fetes, our individual com- 
memorations with appropriate dances. And if the form of 
these dances should crystallise we may yet develop even these 
ritual dances. For so the cycle turns round and round as the 
world progresses. 

The Dance Spirit is awakening, not as a passing fad of the 
moment, but as a vigorous, vital element of our modem life. 



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