Ballerina

“ Ballerina is a term greatly misused in the United States, where any little dancer is much too often referred to both in the press and in general conversation in this way. Ballerina is a title, not a term. The title is one earned only through long, hard experience. It is attained only in the highly skilled interpretation of the great standard classical parts. Russia, France, Italy, Denmark, countries where there are state ballets, know these things. We in the United States, I fear, do not understand. A “star” is not one merely by virtue of billing. ”

“ At such performances Master never had been seen in any other costume than a somber black suit of turn-of-the-century European cut, and as a counterpart Madame invariably was clad in a rusty black velvet evening gown which dated to the days when she was a première ballerina. Not an unpleasant woman, Madame surveyed the world at large, but particularly American ballet dancers, with a somewhat jaundiced glance inevitable in one who had been a prima ballerina assoluta in the good old Czarist days. ”

“ In speaking of the English ballet, Mr Max Beerbohm has gaily admitted his inability to master the meaning of formalised gesture: “When a ballerina lays the palms of her hands against her left cheek, and then snatching them away, regards them with an air of mild astonishment, and then swaying slightly backwards, touches her forehead with her finger-tips, and then suddenly extends both arms above her head, I ought of course to be privy to her inmost meaning. ”

“ There, as in England, before the coming of the Russians, the chief function of the man dancer was to rush out at the psychological moment and rescue the ballerina as she fell into his arms, with her eyes staring into the drops and one toe pointing upwards towards the limelight man. ”

“ As a dancer, she is an excellent comedienne; yet for years she fancied herself as a classical ballerina. Her insistence on dancing in such ballets as The Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Pas de Quatre, Petroushka, Princess Aurora, and most of all, Les Sylphides, was so regrettable that it raises the question that, if she is so unconscious of her own limitations as a dancer, what are her qualifications for the directorship of a ballet company? ”

“ It was, in fact, the honest British bread-winners of the corps de ballet, willing but unskilled, that persuaded the British public that ballet was a bore. The result was that popular enthusiasm was directed towards skirt-dancing, and the art of the ballerina fell into undeserved contempt.
Although practically extinct in England the ballet continued to maintain a healthy, if not a flourishing, existence on the Continent. ”

“ The whole fight in Paris raged round the question whether, regardless of period or nation or style of music, the prima ballerina is entitled to wear the scanty parasol skirt and petticoats in which she delights. The ladies of the ballet, with modern tradition on their side, resent any alteration in costume. The matter is not one of propriety in the ordinary sense of the word; the propriety of ballet costumes is out of the range of rational discussion. ”

“ A ballerina is, of course, a “star,” even in a company that has no “stars” in its billing and advertising. A true ballerina is a rare bird indeed. In an entire generation, it should be remembered, the Russian Imperial Ballet produced only enough for the fingers of two hands.
The great ballerina I have mentioned as having come up through the Sadler’s Wells Company, as the product of that company, is more than a ballerina. She is a prima ballerina assoluta, a{220} product of Sadler’s Wells training, of the Sadler’s Wells system, a member of that all-round team that is Sadler’s Wells. ”

“ Considering one after the other, one finds little crisp and spontaneous beauty in the steps and gestures of the ballerinas of the last part of the past century. The umbrella-like stiff dress of the classic ballet has only a momentary semi-sensuous appeal. In the long run it becomes unæsthetic and unpractical, since it hides the natural lines of the human body. ”

“ In the Russian ballet there is a perfect co-operation between the performers and an all-round technical excellence quite unlike anything that has ever been seen in this country.
Moreover the art of the male dancer, which had almost died out in other countries, has not only been kept alive in Russia but has been developed equally with that of the ballerina. The “principal boy” of the English stage is, as we know, always a girl. A note of character and energy disappeared from the ballet when it became solely the medium of feminine dancing. ”

“ But at last ladies of the highest position, with Madame la Dauphine and the Princesse de Conti amongst them, appeared by express desire of the king in the ballets at Versailles; and about the same time several ladies of title taking advantage of the royal permission, joined the opera in the character of ballet-dancers. The first professional ballerina of note at the Académie was Mlle. Lafontaine, who with three other danseuses and a befitting number of male dancers, formed the entire ballet company. ”

“ The gymnastic, and particularly the acrobatic, features occupied the foremost place in the ballet performances. Thus dancers in a ballet were not considered human beings but rather moving figures in a decorative design. Even the celebrated prima ballerinas, Mlles. Sallé, Camargo and Guimard, who are considered as the first accomplished women dancers on the European stage, with their ‘ravishing figures,’ and ‘enchanting appearances’ as Voltaire praised them in his poems, remained acrobatic puppets, as compared with our modern terpsichorean celebrities. ”

“ In our spreading of the gospel of ballet, emphasis was laid on the following: Ballet, repertoire, personnel. Since there were no “stars” whose names at the time carried any box-office weight or had any recognizable association, the concentration was on the “baby ballerinas,” Baronova, Toumanova, Riabouchinska, all of whom were young dancers of fine training and exceptional talents. They grew as artists before our eyes. They also grew up. ”

“ With pretty Kshesinskaya, Bogdanova, Breobrashenskaya, Sokolova, Pavlova, Karsavina, Lopokova and Fokina as the prima ballerinas many new ballets became thrilling novelties to the Russian audiences. The ballet in the eyes of the Petipa school became a mute drama with music, and at once took a high position artistically and poetically. People grew to find the ballet far more alluring than the pessimistic drama. ”

“ Every different entertainment required its appropriate costume, and the costume was frequently the sole pretext for the entertainment. And when the ingenuity in devising both was in danger of becoming exhausted, the supreme resource of these ladies was to turn themselves into ballerinas; not into ballerinas as King Bomba, or the Comte Sosthène de la Rochefoucauld, or M. Rouher would have had them, but into ballerinas with the shortest of gauze skirts and pink silk fleshings. ”

“ No. 390M. Male figure posed after the ballet, right leg crossed, has tail and ram's horns. By Fred Press. © 10Jul46; G2610. Fred Press (A) ; 12Apr74; R574794.
R574795.R574795. Degas ballerina. No. 381. Ballerina after Degas, head bowed, body bent foward from waist. By Fred Press. © 10Jul46; G2611. Fred Press (A) ; 12Apr74; R574795.
R574796.R574796. Rhumba. No. 393F. Female, frilled rhumba skirt and sleeves, bent knees. By Fred Press. © 10Jul46; G2615. Fred Press (A) ; 12Apr74; R574796.
R574797.R574797. Degas ballerina. No. 380. Ballerina after Degas, hands clasped on front of skirt. ”

“ You see although the American girl is smart and sharp, and pretty original in many other things, she is entirely imitative in dancing. She watches the other girls, and although she may not even be fairly grounded in the fundamental principles of ballet dancing, she frequently faces an audience and does well—sometimes astonishingly well in fact. Some of these girls climb up out of the ranks very fast; others who are lazy and give too much time to flirting and drinking wine, remain in the same line, usually the last,262 for years, and are really in a ballet master's way all the time. ”

“ A great many of these lovers, as they are designated, are bold and heartless wretches, who have in some way or other obtained an introduction to or scraped acquaintance with the sometimes fair young creatures who fill in the crevices and chinks of a play, or air their limbs in the labyrinths of a march, or shake them in some strange and fascinating dance. They look upon the ballet girl, whether she be a dancer or merely below the line of utility, as legitimate prey, and without the slightest scruple will waylay or spread a net to catch her in some quiet but successful manner. ”

“ There was an unconscionable confusion in the darkened opera house as the audience rattled down the aisles, chattering, greeting friends, and shattering the spell of the Prologue, disturbing those who had taken the trouble to arrive on time as much as they did the artists on the stage. My concern on this point is as much for the audience as for the dancers. A ballet, being a work of art, is conceived as an entity, from beginning to end, from the first notes of the overture, till the last one of the coda. ”

“ You cannot fancy her fatigued when, with her peculiar softness of motion, she courtesies to the applause of an enchanted audience, and walks lightly away. You are never apprehensive that she has undertaken too much. You never detect as you do in all other dancers, defects slurred over adroitly and movements that, from their anticipating the music of the ballet, are known by the critical eye to cover some flaw in the step, from giddiness or loss of balance. But oh what a new relation bears the music to the dance, when this spirit of grace replaces her companions in the ballet! ”

“ If any man talks to you about the syrens of the ballet, the dangerous enchantresses and cockatrices of the ballet, the pets of the ballet, whose only thoughts are about broughams and diamond aigrettes, dinners at Richmond, and villas at St. John’s Wood—if anybody tells you that the majority, or even a large proportion, of our English danseuses are inclined this perilous way, just inform him, with my compliments, that he is a dolt and a teller of untruths. I can’t say much of ballet morality abroad; of the poor rats de l’opera in Paris, who are bred to wickedness from their very cradle upwards ”

“ Not the staccato propulsion of the "Doll Dance" which, as she observed the swaying pairs, seemed a classroom exercise taught by Miss Klemper, an old maid. She wanted to dance the long free step and whirl of the one-step.
Ballroom dancing is more fun than ballet, she thought. Maybe I ought to be a ballroom dancer like Irene Castle. It's easier too. These women are terrible dancers. What fat behinds. I wonder if it's all right to smile at one of the men so he will ask me to dance? ”

“ The question was would the manager want her when the fatal night of her first stage appearance had come and gone!
In those days of rehearsals, costumes were one of her most vital interests; for a ballet girl's dress is most important, as there is so little of it, that it must be perfect of its kind. The ballet of which the young person was now a member were supposed to be fairies in one dance. ”

“ But we, this untrained ballet, were not Bonfantis nor Morlachis, and we wore our dancing clothes with a difference. In one dance we were supposed to be fairies. We wore flesh-colored slippers and tights. It took one full week of our two weeks' engagement to learn how to secure these treacherous articles, so that they would remain smooth and not wrinkle down somewhere or twist about. One girl never learned, and to the last added to the happiness of the public by ambling about on a pair of legs that looked as if they had been done up in curl papers the night before. ”

“ When I say that the present mode of dress renders waltzing almost as objectionable in a large room as the boldest feats of a French ballet-dancer, I mean that, from what I have heard and read of ballet-dancers, I judge that these girls gyrating in the centre of their gyrating and unmanageable hoops, cannot avoid, or do not know how to avoid, at any rate do not avoid, the exposure which the short skirts of the ballet-dancer are intended to make, and which, taking to myself all the shame of both the prudery and the coarseness if I am wrong, I call an indecent exposure. ”

“ The ballet became a spectacle. It was buried beneath a mass of unmeaning accessories. The stage was encumbered with gorgeous properties and with the crowd of those who did not dance but merely took their place in the pageant. The effect may have been magnificent, but it was not art. At the same time the ballet-dancers, whose business was to dance, were transformed into members of a chorus, whose chief function was to look pretty. They marched and counter-marched across the stage, performing a number of evolutions with a kind of military precision. ”

“ Nothing is more certain than that the dancing girls of oriental countries themselves feel nothing of what they have the skill to simulate, and the ballet dancer of our own stage is icily unconcerned while kicking together the smouldering embers in the heart of the wigged and corseted old beau below her, and playing the duse's delight with the disobedient imagination of the he Prude posted in the nooks and shadows thoughtfully provided for him. ”

“ But ballet-dancing, affected by a tendency in modern entertainment to make less and less demands on the intelligence and intellectual appreciation of the public, and more and more demands on the eye—the sense most easily affected—has gradually developed into a spectacle, the chief interest of which is quite independent of dancing. Thousands of pounds are spent on dressing a small army of women who do little but march about the stage and group themselves in accordance with some design of colour and mass ”