Dancing school

“ A young girl, in rose-colored kimono and boudoir cap, was at the instrument, while two others, similarly accoutered, in each other’s arms, were parodying a dance never learned at dancing school nor intended by the participants for male eyes to see. ”

“ The dancing school teaches the youngster a great deal more than merely a few dancing steps. From no other source is it possible for the young boy or girl to acquire the grace, the poise, the charm of manner that the dancing school imparts.
The writer knows a very lovely young miss of twelve years, who has so charming a manner that one delights to be with her. Yet, her parents confide, that two years ago she was so nervous and fidgety that they were ashamed to take her anywhere. ”

“ The modern gymnasium has many of the attractions of our dancing schools, but its exercises are often too violent for delicate children. The dancing school has proved physically beneficial to many who have been sent to it as an experiment, at an early age. ”

“ I could not understand why the desire to go to a dancing-school and dance should be a moral transgression, though when I asked permission of my father to accept the offer of an ex-dancing-master for whom I had been able to do some work in the workshop, to give me preparatory lessons so that I might appear less clumsy on entering the class, I was sternly brought to a sense of the enormity of the matter by my father's replying, "William! I would rather see you in your grave than in a dancing-school." ”

“ The dance is for young women what the chase is for young men: a protecting school of wisdom—a preservative of the growing passions. The celebrated Locke who made virtue the sole end of education, expressly recommends teaching children to dance as early as they are able to learn. Dancing carries within itself an eminently cooling quality and all over the world the tempests of the heart await to break forth the repose of the limbs. ”

“ By some chance I got a glimpse of the dancing school at the opening, and was seized with a most intense desire to go and learn to dance. With my peculiar characteristics it was necessary for me to want a thing very much before mentioning it; but this overcame me, especially as the cordial teacher took tea with us one evening before going to his school, and spoke very interestingly of his classes. I even went so far as to beg permission to go. The dance was in my very feet. The violin haunted me. “Ladies change” and “all hands round” 66sounded in my ears and woke me from my sleep at night. ”

“ The history of the dance, which has often been a mode of worship, a school of morals, and which is the root of the best that is in the drama, the best of all exercises and that could be again the heart of our whole educational system, should be exploited, and the dancing school and class rescued from its present degradation. ”

“ There is no reason why boys should not also be registered at the dancing school. A young man who, in childhood learned the little formalities of the dancing school, will not be so likely to feel ill at ease in the formal drawing-room, or at the elaborate dinner. He will know how to conduct himself without embarrassment or self-consciousness. ”

“ The Dance enjoys no immunity from the clash of schools. Indeed, partisanship is the more bitter as principles of criticism are less determined. The respective upholders of the school of the ballet and of the natural or classical style of dancing are barely on speaking terms. To the advocates of the old school the new classical dancer is little better than a freak performer ”

“ One of the most interesting and significant things about the School to me is the number of boys enrolled and their backgrounds. Such is the feeling about male dancing in our Anglo-Saxon civilization that many of the boys have had to be offered scholarship inducements to enroll. ”

“ And these activities, channeled and disciplined by the group-game, are receiving the best possible training for dramatic acting by and by.
We must consider dancing as a form of dramatic gesture, and as a training for it. We may all rejoice in the current change of attitude toward dancing, which bids fair to replace it in education and among the arts. ”

“ The use of the large gymnasium of the Manhattan Trade School for Girls was secured, and every Saturday evening, from eight until eleven, young men and women come in and dance to excellent music, under the instruction, if they need it, of a skilled dancing-master. ”

“ First they done a lecture on temperance; but they didn’t make enough for them both to get drunk on. Then in another village they started a dancing-school; but they didn’t know no more how to dance than a kangaroo does; so the first prance they made the general public jumped in and pranced them out of town. Another time they tried to go at yellocution; but they didn’t yellocute long till the audience got up and give them a solid good cussing, and made them skip out. ”

“ The Metropolitan school furnishes a complete and conclusive test of the possibilities of an opera organisation, as such, in the province of dancing. But even if the Metropolitan ballet were right now at the highest conceivable pitch of perfection, a radical change of policy would be necessary as a preliminary to giving the school its proper power to hold its pupils’ allegiance. That is to say, the opportunity to appear in an occasional divertissement is not sufficient to hold an ambitious and capable young man or woman through long years of study. ”

“ The course in drawing and painting seems to aim at critical appreciation of beauty, as expressed in the abstract qualities of grace in line and harmony in colour; this in distinction to the regulation art school discipline in proportion and anatomy of the figure. The practical value of such training, in sharpening the power of constructive criticism of dancing, is obvious.
To the accomplishment of all this work—and more that need not be detailed—the pupils are not driven; they are led. Everything is fun. Play is made contributory to the general purpose of training artists. ”

“ For the organisation and conduct of such an institution, the Russian ballet and Academy supplies a model that could be followed in most details. American sentiment probably would rebel at so complete a separation of children from parents as the Imperial Academy requires; but a less complete separation would not necessarily be detrimental to results. For actual technical work in dancing, plastic gymnastics, pantomime, music and other courses more than a few hours a day would be beyond the strength of very young pupils, leaving half of each day to attend common school. ”

“ But it is doubtful whether any possible gymnastic arrangement for a high-school would be on the whole so provocative of the wholesome exercise as a special hall for dancing, thoroughly ventilated, and provided with piano and spring-floor. ”

“ Four hours a day are devoted to dancing during the eight years he is at school. While still at school the children occasionally appear on the stage in special ballets d’enfants. They also take part in “crowds” in operas where children are needed, as in the first act of Tchaikovsky’s Dame de Pique. At seventeen they begin their career as members of the corps de ballet, from which the most proficient rise upwards, through the various grades of coryphée, second sujet, premier sujet, première danseuse or ballerina, and ballerina assoluta. ”

“ The method of training the dancers in other countries was centred mainly in training the step technique and was, so to speak, purely choreographic. The Russians took into consideration all the arts that are related to dancing, and made a rule that all pupils in the dancing schools should have at least an elementary training in human anatomy, in sculpture, drama, architecture, painting, music and in general educational subjects. To know every branch of art correspondingly well—this made it necessary that children be educated in an institute from their childhood on. ”

“ If at the end of ten years the children who have danced their quota of minutes per day do not excel in freedom from nervous abnormalities, the children who have not danced; if they fail to manifest a better co-ordination of mind and body, and a superior power of receiving and acting upon suggestion—then let public school dancing be abolished as of no value beyond amusement and exercise. ”

“ The ballet in England has always suffered from the absence of any official school of dancing. In France, in Italy, in Russia, in Denmark, the academies are maintained by the State; the dancers are in a manner civil servants, holding a permanent appointment and receiving a pension on retirement. An adequate training is therefore possible, a continuous tradition is maintained and a high average, at all events in the technique of the dance, is ensured. ”

“ Since I was a little girl in dancing-school I've been criticised by the mothers of all the little girls who weren't as popular as I was, and I've always looked on criticism as a sort of envious tribute." ”

“ In the home, in hotels, restaurants and supper clubs, the dance reigns supreme. Learning to dance has become a part of the boy's or girl's education, along with the ordinary school studies. Not to289 dance is to be distinctly outside of practically all social circles in American cities and towns, and each year finds the number of one's dancing acquaintances increasing. From the select few who are assumed to be "smart society," down to the multitudes who make no social pretentions, everyone dances, and enjoys it. ”

“ The athletic instructor at the seminary had insisted on even the day scholars attending the dancing classes twice a week in the school gymnasium, and Janice knew how to dance some of the more modern dances approved by saner people. ”

“ No girl gets her real training at the Lane. All that is done in one of the dancing schools kept by Madame Katti Lanner, Madame Cavalazzi, John D’Auban, or John Tiller. When they are considered sufficiently proficient they get engagements, and are taught certain movements invented by their teachers to suit the particular production of the theatre itself. ”

“ It is to be hoped that the Dalcroze system of training dancers will be employed as the elementary step in all the dancing schools, for only then we may hope to see the rise of a new art of dancing. Without learning the alphabet thoroughly or without knowing the most elementary rules of a science nothing could be obtained by a pupil in his later studies. ”

“ Many of these formal and informal functions occur every week in the long dancing season, and because they are patronized by boys and girls of high school age are mistakenly called high school functions. Many parents are deceived into the belief that the schools are sponsoring these club dances. For these the schools assume no responsibility and should not be blamed.”
THE JANITOR—HIS RELATION TO THE SCHOOL A few months ago the vice-president of a large manufacturing establishment invited me to accompany him and the president on a trip to their factories. ”

“ Yet we take children from four to seven years of age for specialized training which prepares them properly in the fundamentals and technique that is so necessary. Occasionally some five-year-old dancing marvel is discovered. Young years are learning years the world over, and right training in foundation work for the future great dancer, as taught in our studios, is so attractive in itself and so suggestive of real "fun" to the little learner, that both child and parents give it their hearty approval. ”

“ So with these facts before us, that any dance may be made into a specialty, taken out of the ordinary and individualized, and that no dancer is limited to a single line in this work, but can spread out over the entire field if competent to do so, there is surely ample encouragement to the dancing pupil to make an effort to profit by the opportunity my studio instruction affords, and become not only a good dancer but also a good, better, best specialty dancer—something quite worth while on every stage, European as well as American. ”

“ Most of our pupils recognize this and sincerely strive, with our help, to perfect themselves through incessant patient practice. We have no intention ever to let a small minority of indifferent, "I don't care" pupils, hold back the ambitious ones. Those who merit success shall have every opportunity always.
You, no doubt have been to good shows, seen good dancing and attractive posing and grouping, with rich scenery, proper lighting and appropriate music, and have wished that you, too, might share in the applause of the audience for your own merit as a dancer. ”

“ There is nothing more inspiring to the new pupil than to see our various dancing classes in action. In fact, a view of our classes in progress of work is inspiring to anyone, professional or non-professional. The girls do their class work with a vim and snap that betokens their interest and their intention to make good. They are a smiling happy lot of young ladies that it does one good to look at. Especially is this true of the advanced classes; the beginners' classes are busy learning the A, B, C's of dancing, and these rudiments are absorbing. ”

“ I HAVE never known a graduate of our courses to have a bad case of stage fright. This doubtless is attributable to the fact that our pupils are thoroughly grounded in all their stage work before going before a critical audience. They know their steps and routines perfectly, have mastered the physical side of dancing. Their first dancing is done before their class, their instructor and myself. Once a month we have Visitors' Day, for relatives and friends, here in the studio. Our students appear in action before them, and at other times before some neighborhood or church benefit audience. ”