Ellen Terry

“ They do not hammer out steps—it is a false notion of rhythm that there is a hammer-stroke on every strong beat—but take a collection of steps, as a singer takes a collection of notes, and calmly and gracefully phrase them, in the manner of a bird beating the air with its wings, rather than that of a blacksmith hammering on his anvil. Still I doubt whether the Russians would have conquered Europe had they come to us merely as revivers of classical dancing before it became mechanical and ugly. ”

“ She knows a joy in which there is no fatigue, a love in which there is no threat to her virginity. The phantom rose disappears. She wakes. The real rose is at her feet where the dream rose had lain for a moment. ”

“ THE Russian dancers may reasonably pride themselves on their versatility. In their seven-leagued ballet shoes they travel all over the world, and beyond. They bound easily from ancient Greece to a Caucasian camp, from the East of a thousand-and-one nights to a legendary country invented for their playground. It really requires astonishing mental activity to follow them with pleasure from "Le Spectre de la Rose" to "Scheherazade." ”

“ If the fashion in Russian ballet should age elsewhere I feel sure it will not in England, the last country to adopt it. So these notes by an enthusiast have a good chance of being seasonable for many years. Yes, I claim to be an enthusiast, although, perhaps, the fact that I am not an English enthusiast but one who is half Irish and half Scotch makes me more canny than some of my fellow-admirers. I have never opened my mouth and swallowed the new ballet and all its works without thinking. These are, all the same, impressions rather than criticisms. ”

“ I feel sorry for that young girl, who perhaps will wake next day in that queer Bakst bedroom, and think of the partner who gave her the rose, not of the Rose itself, who came to her as virginal as the thought which summoned him. I don't like the idea of the remembrance of an ordinary flirtation at a ball walking in at the door of that room, out of whose window the mystical figure of the Rose flew forth into the night, which was, I am sure, day to him! ”

“ The infantile joyousness with which the dark-skinned youths rush from their silver and gold cages on their loves and on their impending doom has an element of pity. The whirligig dance which follows expresses exactly the happiness, which is short, sharp and sudden, but over which destiny hangs, and for which there is no mercy. ”

“ Where does the difference between the things talent and genius lie if not in the huge personality of the genius?
They used to say of Henry Irving, who expressed himself in a multiplicity of parts, that he was always the same Irving. Certainly he was always faithful to himself whatever he assumed. This is a sign of the presence of genius, not of its absence. In one sense we always have the same Nijinsky, as Miss Pamela Colman Smith has very happily shown in her drawings of him. Yet in another sense we never have the same Nijinsky. ”

“ What would an actor and actress make of it if it could be dramatized? I am afraid to answer these questions. Fortunately they need not be answered, as no dramatist now will be fool enough to rush in where dancers have trodden on such light feet. ("The beautiful is light. All divine things run on light feet.") A young girl returns from a ball. She sinks into a chair and, kissing the rose in her hand, which reminds her of the evening's innocent pleasure, she falls asleep. She dreams that the rose comes to life and invites her to dance with it. She dances in her dream. ”

“ Miss Pamela Colman Smith's drawing gives a very vivid impression of the effect produced by the first appearance on the scene of the Lover and his companions. Here is a very good example of the amazing influence that the color and shape of mere garments can have on the imagination. Those silent, black-coated, black-hatted men, their faces muffled in concealing scarfs, seem to have come from far, from very far. I feel that their horses below are in a sweat, that they have been riding furiously at the summons of a force which their fresh and ardent youth could not resist! ”

“ What has made the Male Dancers word "ballet" a sort of synonym for vice if it is not the idea that it provides an opportunity for women to attract admirers—not so much on account of their dancing as for the sake of their physical charm? I think that a mixed ballet has the effect of concentrating attention on the art of the dance rather than on the seductiveness of the dancers. And the free and noble plastic of the male dancers in the Russian ballet has influenced the plastic of the women, making it far less sexual and far more beautiful. ”

“ There is a deadness about all Renaissance things, whether in architecture or dancing. What always surprises us about the Russian ballet is its life. This vitality came sweeping on to the stage with Russian maîtres de ballet such as Fokine, who used tradition, used the technical perfection of classical dancing, but would not be a slave to them; with Russian composers such as Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Glazounof, Liadoff, Arensky, Stravinsky and Tscherepnin, the conductor of the ballet; with Russian artists such as Alexandre Benois and Leon Bakst; with Russian dancers such as Nijinsky. ”

“ Dancing In General WHAT is dancing? The Russians have done much to show us that it is something more than sauterie, although they can sauter, or leap, with the best. As an actress I salute dancers with the reverence of a man for his ancestors. The dancer is certainly the parent of my own art, but he has other children. All arts, of which the special attribute is movement, descend from the dancer. ”

“ The men are trained on the "ballon" system, not on that which is known as the "parterre," and it is "ballon" dancing which is one of the most beautiful features of the Russian ballet. After we have watched interminable exercises ingeniously performed "sur les pointes," with what relief have we seen Nijinsky, perhaps the greatest "ballon" dancer who has ever existed, bound on to the stage, rise high in the air, descend slowly and with such art that when he touches the ground he can use it again for a still higher flight. ”

“ The Russian Revival ALL who regard dancing seriously, and there is nothing which should be regarded more seriously than an art that is to give pleasure, must be glad that they have lived in a century which has witnessed a very fine and sincere endeavor to restore the dance to some of its primal nobility. ”

“ There are many young men in the Russian ballet who dance excellently with their bodies, even if they cannot leap as high as Nijinsky, but what really separates him from them is the fact that he dances not only with his body, but with his soul. Unfortunately this expression is often used lightly to mean merely "with enthusiasm." But it can be used in a graver sense, and it is in that sense that I use it.
Original
Nijinsky Always a Dancer SO free and yet so disciplined!" ”

“ It is and has always been subsidized by the state. The Russian government supports schools of ballet, where from the age of eight children are given a long and arduous training in the science of dancing, and from which they are drafted into the imperial ballets at St. Petersburg, Moscow and Warsaw. A dancer's first appearance is generally made at the age of sixteen, and at thirty-six his or her career is over. The dancers are then retired on a pension amounting to about one hundred and fifty pounds a year. ”

“ There is much in the results of this endeavor to criticize, there are a few things to deplore, but in any refusal to recognize the magnitude of what has been accomplished, there is probably some pique that it has been the nation which Europe still views as barbarously ingenuous in matters of art which has reformed the ballet on such refined and spiritual lines. ”

“ It does away with the necessity for those feminine travesties of men, known in our pantomimes as "principal boys," who introduce an element into ballet which at its best makes a disturbing demand on our capacity for illusion, and at its worst is a little degrading. ”

“ The Russian ballet has transformed itself in a little over a decade because its guiding minds have been more than national. The musicians, artists, dancers and ballet masters have depended more on invention than on reality. Many stories of widely different character have been drawn on for the new ballets, but all have been treated with an imagination which is neither the property of a nation nor the result of patriotism.
Personality—and Nijinsky THE Russians pride themselves on not having a "star system." Every dancer has a chance of distinction. ”