Dancer

“ The sacred dance is solemn enough, and each dancer has a fan and a bunch of bells, from which hang long strips of bright-colored silks. They advance, retreat, glide to right and left, raise their fans, shake their sacred baby-rattles, and, with few changes in the measure, repeat the same figures and movements for a certain length of time. ”

“ The spectator never wearied of watching the transformations of these tissues of living light, which showed in successive visions the dreamy dancer, moving languidly in a chaos of figured draperies—in a rainbow of brilliant colors or a sea of vivid flames. ”

“ And none may refuse him, and none may say no;
When he beckons the dancer, the dancer must go.
You may hate him, and shun him; and yet in life’s ball
For the one who lives well ’tis the best dance of all. ”

“ There are moments when it completes an attitude, giving a suggestion of ethereal lightness, the poise of a winged god alighting for an instant upon the earth. In one brief passage across the stage, the tips of the toes scarcely brushing the dust off the boards, the dancer may capture something of the grace of a bird’s flight. ”

“ The female dancer, lightly dressed, scarcely skimming the earth with her dainty foot, holding on by the hand of her partner, in the twinkling of an eye carried away by several others, and then, like lightning, precipitating herself again into the arms of the first, offers the image of the most happy and delightful creature. ”

“ They diminish the beauty of the arms; they bury, so to speak, the graces. They embarrass and distract the dancer to such a degree that the movement of her panier sometimes occupies her more seriously than that of her limbs. ”

“ According to the traditions of the man dancer, his entire being was transformed into mere feet and legs. His gaze and expression became cataleptic; his body, unbending above the waist, but as light as a cork, bobbed like the same cork dancing on the ripples of a running brook. The beat of his heels and toes pleased you like a snare-drum obligato. The performance ended with an amazing clatter of leather against wood that culminated in a sudden flat-footed stamp, leaving the dancer erect and as motionless as a pillar of the colonial portico of a mansion in a Kentucky prohibition town. ”

“ It may be jumping down a flight of steps on the toes, or a continued hopping on one toe for 16 counts to music, or a swinging of one leg back and forth, like a pendulum, in an acrobatic way while the dancer hops on one toe—such stunts as these are the applause-getters nowadays, and they are well worth applauding, too, for they are pleasing demonstrations of real skill, and are acquired by the dancer only after long and continued effort and practice. ”

“ Before you can learn to dance, you must learn to laugh! You must laugh with your lips, and then with your heart, and then with your feet, Dianidra, for that's what dancing is. And I'm going to send you to the most wonderful dancing masters in the world. Walk straight ahead between these tall trees till you come to yonder gray stone, and on the other side you will see your first dancing-master. He will tell you where to find the others. Good-bye, little Princess. Before the next sunrise you will be the most beautiful dancer in all the ten kingdoms. ”

“ Like every other art, dancing too has its economy and its self-restraint. And the way to this ideal harmony is through the simplifications of convention and the discipline of a graceful technique. The dancer has to learn by painful practice to move her limbs in harmony with the rhythms of her melody, to avoid all that is abrupt or unsymmetrical. Each pose should be that of a statue, emotion poising in a harmony of line and balance. ”

“ If the merit of a theatrical dancer were to consist, as many imagine, in nothing but in the motions of the legs, in cutting lively or brilliant capers, in surprizing steps, in the agility of the body, in vigorous springs, in vaulting, in a tolerable management of the arms, and especially in being well acquainted with those parts of the stage where the perspective gives him the greatest advantage; the art of dancing might be, as it is generally looked upon to be, an art easily acquired. ”

“ By this elasticity pervading the whole person when the dancer moves off, her flexible shape will gracefully sway with the varied steps of her feet; and her arms, instead of hanging loosely by her side, or rising abruptly and squarely up to take hands with her partner, will be raised in beautiful and harmonious unison and time with the music and the figure; and her whole person will thus exhibit to the delighted eye perfection in beauty, grace, and motion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ THERE is a wonderful field for the dancer who can create an appealing dance of his or her own, or who can take some type of dance and by sheer personality so develop it as to be identified with it as the representative of that form of dancing.
Not everyone can be a specialty dancer of this sort, but to be one is well worth the effort of every ambitious exponent of the dancing art. ”

“ DANCING HANDS IT IS not only the rhythmic movements of the feet and legs that constitute a dancer. Every stage dancer employs as well her face, hands and arms in giving expression to grace, beauty, and the many interpretations of her pantomimic art. Watch the next dancer or group of dancers you see at a show, and it may surprise you to discover how much the hands and arms have to do in adding to the effectiveness of the presentation. ”

“ THE BUTTERFLY DANCE.
From a Photograph.
The dancer in private is simply a bonnie, blue-eyed little woman, plain in her dress, and with a sweet frankness of manner and speech which render her eminently attractive. Her rooms boast of no costly luxuries, bric-à-brac, or the thousand and one costly trifles which artistes usually surround themselves with. ”

“ Every step in dancing has its name and value. But not one should be employed in a vague unmeaning manner. All the movements should be conformable to the expression required, and in harmony with one another. The steps regular, and properly varied, with a graceful suppleness in the limbs, a certain strength, address, and agility; just positions exhibited with ease, delicacy, and above all, with propriety, caracterise the masterly dancer, and in their union, give to his execution its due beauty. ”

“ But certainly it is not only to the professed dancer, that dancing in the serious stile, or the minuet, with grace and ease, is essential. The possessing this branch of dancing is of great service on the theatre, even to an actor. The effect of it steals into his manner, and gait, and gives him an air of presenting himself, that is sure to prepossess in his favor. Persons of every size or shape are susceptible of grace and improvement from it. ”

“ A dancer represents in his vibrating body lines the symbolic complex of all the phonetic unities of a composition. He is, so to speak, the unset type. Music is the text that he has to print in such pictorial forms, in such symbols that our mind can grasp it. Throughout his dance, he remains a kaleidoscopic tracer of the musical designs of the composition. The plastic positions of the human body, the mimic expression of the face, the gestures and the steps, are the mediums that can suggest certain phases of emotion and feeling, certain ideas and impressions of soul and body. ”

“ She adored it. At the High School she was recognized as the best dancer of all the younger girls. She was! She knew she was! She was adorable, fascinating, wonderful when she danced. She was! She knew she was! ”

“ The dancer who calls the spirits moves with gliding steps, the arms outstretched, the hands beckoning upward in a gentle, enticing manner. The grace, dignity and earnestness of this dance linger with the writer as a beautiful memory after the lapse of many years.
Properties.—A green scarf for the Caller. Blue, white and rosy scarfs for as many dancers as will personate the three Flowers that respond to the call: Violets, Wild-roses and Daisies. A twisted rope of green to link the dancing Flowers together in the final dance. ”

“ And to secure this free and large, even though vicarious, expression of pent-up impulses to movement is very grateful to us whose whole movement life is impoverished, because restricted by convention and occupation to a few narrow types. But the dance would have little interest for men were it not for another element in its beauty: the expression of the amorous feelings of the spectator. These, although really located in the breast of the spectator, are nevertheless embodied in the personality of the dancer, whose charm they constitute. ”

“ The skill of the dancer is shown most in successive dances, such as the slow progression by merely twisting the feet to right and left, occasionally varied by raising one foot directly above the other, then throwing the head far back and the body in a strained curve, with arms raised fluttering like a flying bird, while the song to which he dances imitates a nightingale. ”

“ But the step in itself is unnatural, and naturalness is above all things essential in the dance. When the part which it plays in the ballet is no longer incidental{59}—the emphasis given to a moment’s pose or the suggestion of intriguing daintiness added to a brief passage—but becomes the basis of all the dancer’s movements, it results in producing a sense of utter weariness on the part of the spectator. ”

“ Brown, quite right. Though how a gentleman made the discovery! Well, well. You are quite right; dancing is the great corrective and tonic of the mind. You never yet heard of a professional dancer marring her fortune by the ill-timed indulgence of sentiment. Dancing, in fact, hardens the a-hems and the heart. ”

“ Immediately a third slave, attired as a drummer, rushes out and catches his flute from the green masque, who jumps upon the stage, and seizing the dancer, savagely—gracefully, about her slim waist, dances with her, at once tenderly and primitively.]
Queen
What agility and strength the man has got. He has made me catch my breath already, which is far better than to laugh. [Pg 49]
Josephine
He dances like a demon over burning altars. ”

“ The dancer stands up and makes a few graceful movements with the arms, as well as limbering at the knee joints, then sits down. Others go through the same motions in their turn, while the audience does the singing. ”

“ The truth may possibly be that that freedom from convention in which she glories is in reality a bondage. In her own words, “dancing is the spontaneous expression of the spiritual state.” The dance is “not an acquired but a spontaneous art, revealing the temperament of the dancer.” She is compelled to acknowledge the necessity for technique, but she fears that if it becomes excessive the art will no longer be able to stir the soul. ”

“ A general acquaintance with the individual steps adds in various ways to the spectator’s enjoyment. Relieved of effort to decipher a dancer’s means and methods, he who understands the mechanics of the steps can surrender himself to a luxuriance in their grace of execution, and be the more susceptible to the hypnotic charm of the rhythmic movement playing upon his eye. ”

“ Yet to accomplish the ballet effects or the character representations exacts of the dancer no special development along strictly ballet or classical lines, when she obtains her Musical Comedy training here, for these features are given the required attention as part of the regular course in fitting the student for this branch of the stage dancing art, and thus our Musical Comedy graduates are qualified for all the variations of effort that naturally come under that head. ”

“ But a dancer may successively represent all the gradations of love; such as surprize at first sight, admiration, timidity, perplexity, agitation, languor, desire, ardor, eagerness, impatience, tumultous transports, with all the external simptoms of that passion. ”

“ With regard to dancing, however, public taste is improving, and both on the stage and in private houses graceful dancing—dancing worthy of being called an art—is increasingly appreciated. A really good dancer is highly paid, though not upon the extravagant scale quoted above. ”

“ The passions and manners of mankind, have all a different expression, which cannot be presented too plain, and too obvious. The adjustment of the motions to the character must be observed through every stile of dancing, the serious, the half-serious, the comic, and the grotesque. The various beauties of these different kinds of dances, all center in the propriety or truth of nature. Looks, movements, attitudes, gestures, should in the dancer, all have an appropriate meaning ”

“ Throughout the Indian dance the feet, like the tuned drums, are means to mark the beats. The time is divided into syllables or bars and the dancer’s beating feet, circled with a belt of jingling bells, must move and pause in the strictest accordance. The right foot performs the major part, the left completes the rhythmic syllable. But further by her dance the singer’s art is to make more clear and more magnetic the meaning of her song. With her attitudes and gestures she accords her person to her melody and sense, till her whole being, voice and movement, is but one living emotion. ”