Margaret West Kinney

“ Every one has seen Scotch dances; any detailed analysis of them would be superfluous. Exhilarating as Highland whiskey, sharp as the thistle, they are carried to a high plane of art. Through them all runs a homogeneous angularity of movement that literally translates the sentiment of “Caledonia, stern and wild.” To the dances of Italy and Andalusia they are as wind-blown mountain pines in contrast to orange trees fanned by Mediterranean zephyrs. The theme of the sharp angle is kept absolutely intact, unmodified by any element of sweep or curve that the eye can detect. ”

“ Passion is the principal theme in the life of an Oriental woman, and that sentiment she can vary like a virtuoso....
“You see her quiet, beautiful, relaxed, in the calm of a great fatigue, with softness enveloping face and movements. Suddenly one detects an unusual sound, a look cast, a movement—she is fired, she becomes fierce and wild like all the Nature around her. You see before you a tigress, beautiful, live and strong, ready to spring on the prey, playing and attracting, making mischief and exhausting herself at the same time. ”

“ Well done, this Turkish Sword Dance shows itself a composition of rare individuality and a fine, wild beauty; for good measure, it is a sword combat of a reality that threatens the spectator with heart failure. The two combatants advance and retreat, accenting the music with clashes of sword on shield; the interest is that of a barbarously beautiful dance as long as they continue to face each other. Notwithstanding rapidity, the chances are against a mishap. ”

“ By some telepathy most puzzling to those who know the most about Gipsy dancing, the accompanists are not disturbed by any of the dancer’s changes of mood, however sudden. The instant drop from extreme speed to the opposite never traps the guitarist into a mistake; and his air is remarkable, too, in preserving the sentiment as well as the time of the dance.
Anything like the full scope of Gipsy dancing is rarely revealed to any not of that race; because, done with abandon, it is an intimate revelation of nature. ”

“ Of all the energetic dances of the land of the dance, the one farthest from any concession to physical infirmity is la Jota Aragonesa. Here is no vehicle for Andalusian languor nor yet for the ceremonies of courts. The industrious peasant of Aragon is hard of muscle and strong of heart, and so is his daughter, and their strength is their pride. For indolence they have no sympathy, be it in ermine or rags; and certainly if indolence ever forgets itself and strays into the Jota, it passes a bad five minutes. ”

“ Impudence to emperors and “shooting up” audiences may mean the utmost of either sincerity or hypocrisy; choice of opinion is free. Certainly the Roman Empire’s political intrigues reveal a profound and practical knowledge of the science of publicity; it is an ancient profession.
Artists, advertisers or both, it matters not at all, Pylades and Bathyllus failed to lift dancing from the mire. The self-styled “Eternal City,” the Rome of the Cæsars, held it down to her level till her rotted hands could cling no longer, yet treated it from first to last with scorn. ”

“ The sombre majesty of the pictures, especially those of the search into the future; the reverence-compelling mystery of the somnambulistic movements—a hundred things about this dance raise it to the very uppermost plane of its kind of art. So far beyond mere skill are its movements, so completely alien to anything in Occidental knowledge, that to Occidental eyes they are as unearthly as they are imposing. Reason fails, chloroformed by beauty; the real becomes the unreal, the unreal the real. Imagination is released from the tentacles of fact and time. ”

“ Through this human medium, the movement of all nature runs also through us, is transmitted to us from the dancer. We feel the movement of light intermingled with the thought of whiteness. It is a prayer, this dance, each movement reaches in long undulations to the heavens and becomes a part of the eternal rhythm of the spheres.”
Fifteen years ago a creed of interpreting qualities in the manner above indicated, by means of dancing, was quite as alien to the United States as was the Greek costume that left the legs uncovered and the feet unshod. ”

“ The management of the castanets is a difficult addition to such vigourous foot-work, and important. To sustain, or rather constantly augment the excitement proper to the dance, the crash of the recurrent “tr-r-rá, tak-ta! tr-r-r-á, tak-ta!” must never be dulled for an instant, nor fail of perfection in rhythm. The double control is seldom acquired by any but Spaniards, if ever, and even in Spain it is none too common.
Every lover of dancing probably thinks of his favourite compositions as personalities. “Queenly Sevillanas” inevitably is the way of thinking of that flower of Andalusia. ”

“ Notwithstanding the limitations that accompany an insistence on physical facts, the Gipsy’s rendering of the great emotions is said to be impressive at the moment, even though it fails to record any lasting impression. Love, as in the dancing of almost all peoples, is a favourite motive, with its many attendants of allurement, reticence, jealousy, pursuit and surrender. But the repertoire is limited only by the Gipsy’s scope of emotion—hatred, revenge, triumph and grief—his heart is probably about the same as any one’s else, only less repressed by brain. ”

“ Whereas the ability to grasp the theme of a composition, and then to follow its elaboration through a vocabulary of already familiar steps, is in effect to quicken the vision. Instead of being harassed by a sensation of scrambling to keep up with the argument, the spectator finds himself with abundant time to luxuriate in every movement, every posture. And, like a connoisseur of any other art, he sees a thousand beauties unnoticed by the untrained. ”

“ If the sole aim of Spanish dancing is to express fire and temperament, to astonish and inflame, it is more likely to be realised by a clever Northerner than by a Spaniard. The headlong enthusiast is not bothered by delicate considerations of shading, development, and truth of form; seizing the salient and exotic, an exaggeration of these and the elimination of all else is sure to produce a startling result. Execution at an abnormally rapid tempo will conceal inaccuracies from all eyes but those trained to the dance, and backed by a knowledge of its true forms. ”

“ In the dance the artist ought to show all the richness of his soul; ought to instil into his movements all of that which the sculptor puts into his marble; while above the idea and the mood ought to be felt the beauty and freedom of movements and lines. ”

“ Bakst—and other painters allied with him—revelled, now in a deep and ominous palette that should spell mystery, again in ardent and seemingly impossible harmonies that sang wild opulence.
In short, the secessionists had attained to a point that marked nothing less, and something more, than a re-creation of the mimetic drama of the best days of Athens. They had achieved that at which the early patrons of opera had consciously but unsuccessfully aimed. The Russian achievement is not to be measured except by a glance back into history. ”

“ The Farruca leads the woman up to this turn, or vuelta, through a series of short steps. Now visualise the man’s part at the same time: as the woman enters her flowing vuelta, a mighty leap lands the man in the position of stooping; instantly he starts rising with a spiral movement that takes the form of a pirouette and so continues through the circle. The surprise the eye receives from the harmonised contrast between the extended horizontally moving sweep and the vertical spiral uplift, with its kaleidoscopic change of levels, seems never to grow less. ”

“ Denis invests the Indian representations is, first, the elimination of any movement that might detract from a feeling of continuity. Every action proceeds in waves; a ripple slowly undulates down the body, and even seems to continue on its way into the earth; like a wave running the length of a cord, a ripple glides from body through the extended arms and fingers, to go on indefinitely through the air. ”

“ Of the ballet dancer’s ever-surprising defiance of the law of gravity, the more obvious means are the plié, to soften a descent, and a manner of picking up the weight so quickly that the body seems buoyant. Of perhaps no less value, though not so obvious, is the straight knee. To the eye it gives a sensation of sure architectural support—doubtless through the suggestion of a column. The mechanical importance of the straight supporting knee is no less than the æsthetic, since a firm foundation is essential to perfect control of body, arms and head. ”

“ In response to this demand of nature there exists one class of folk-dancing—the genre of the careless, energetic romp of people bedecked in bright colours, joining hands now to form themselves in rings, or again in interweaving lines, improvising figures, heedless of step except the simplest skipping and balancing.
Acting contrariwise to the influence of daily labour involving skill and attention, is the force of habitual work that does not require enough precision to satisfy the healthy craving for fine co-ordination of muscle, nerve and mind. The latter condition, too, moves to the dance. ”

“ No academy’s hothouse care has been needed to develop or protect it; the hand of the peasant has cultivated without dirtying it. And that, when you look over the history of dancing in some more progressive nations, is a pretty significant thing. The people of Aragon are not novelty-hunters. Perhaps that is why they have been satisfied, while perfecting the dance of their province, not to pervert it from its proper motive—which is to express in terms of poetry both the vigour and the innocence of rustic, romping, boy-and-girl courtship. ”

“ Then came the Russian ballet. It showed that dancing, more completely perhaps than any other action within mortal scope, is a means of expression of every emotion humanity may feel. It showed, too, how inconceivably{270} beautiful may be the human body when it is made to conform to the laws of beauty—which are identical with the laws of choreography. And so perfect was the artistry of these demigods from out of the North that “difficulty” became a forgotten word. Every man thought that he felt within himself at least a portion of the essence that animated Volinine, Mordkin, Nijinski ”

“ Movement conforms to the same manner of thinking; much of it barely disturbs the silken folds of the kimono. A thousand meanings are hidden in little turns and twists of the fan; but, when explained, the connection of act and meaning is often so tenuous that it seems less mysterious, or suggestive, than merely vague. Nevertheless, taking it on its own premise as a demonstration of Japanese-doll prettiness, which is not concerned with any but the lightest emotions, this type of dancing is pleasing. ”

“ Propriety forbade so close an association with an art disfigured and dirtied, the Roman reviling as unclean the image soiled by his own hand. From Spain, Greece and Syria people were brought to dance before gourmands and wasters, degraded to the level of their patrons’ appreciation, and discarded when they had exhausted the scope of novelties suitable to the demand. Several centuries of Roman employment of dancers contributed not one step, gesture or expression to the art; the plastic and graphic records show only that which is Greek, or, on the other hand inane, vulgar, or degenerate. ”

“ Every revue, musical comedy, and other light musical production includes a collection of young women called a ballet; and each year of increased general intelligence in dancing matters adds to the desirability that these ballets should justify the name. The pretty girl, plus coloured lights, drapery, and lively cavorting, no longer constitutes a perfectly secure grip on public approval (except always in burlesque, with which we are not concerned) . The result is an insatiable demand for girls who can even half dance. And that demand, in its turn, is a steady drain on the Opera’s school. ”

“ To a votary, every glance at his own five fingers must seem a temptation to seek a game. For whatever reason, it seems to be a necessary element in the life of the Italian labourer. The moment of the Tarantella given over to la morra is, as it were, an acknowledgment of its place among the people’s recreations.
As castanets are to the dances of Spain, the tambourine is to those of Italy. Like castanets, the tambourine produces an amazing variety of tones when handled by an expert. The effect its jovial emphasis of tempo has on the enthusiasm of dancer and spectator need not be dwelt upon ”

“ An entertainment at once agreeable and becoming—the latter, if for no other reason, because it is Spanish!
To an extent there are grounds for the anxiety, sometimes expressed, that modernism is melting away this tradition-worship. In Madrid there is an English queen; tennis and tea become a cult to be followed with what semblance of gusto one can assume. San Sebastian is the summer resort of royalty, and of pleasure-seekers from all parts of Europe; its modernism is that of Paris or Vienna. Other cities, to the number of perhaps half a dozen, show consciousness of twentieth-century conditions. ”

“ Now the performers advance with undulation so slow, so subtle, that the Saracenic coquetry of liquid arms and feline body is less seen than felt. Mystery of movement envelops their bodies like twilight. Of this perhaps eight measures, when—crash! Prestissimo! Like Gatling-fire the volley of heel-tapping. The movements have become the eye-baffling darting of swallows. No preparation for the change, no crescendo nor accelerando; in the matter of abruptness one is reminded of some of the effects familiar in the playing of Hungarian orchestras. ”