Danseuse

“ 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. ”

“ When she dances, it is not only dancing, but a complete representation of character, for she plays a rôle by her motions just the same as if she were an actress. I have seen many a ballet, but I never conceived what an art dancing is before. ”

“ 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 ”

“ You've seen her dance—in that white and crystal dress with the silver round her head—it's like the rhythm of Shelley's Hymn of Pan. When I look at her dancing, I long to dance with her; when I dance with her, I long to be looking at her. ”

“ Evidently the dance is nothing except with a master, with an actress who shall abandon herself to the tide of feeling which the music suggests and throw herself into the full passion of it; who knows how to tell a story by pantomime, and to depict the woes of love and despair. All this needs grace, beauty, and genius. Few dancing-girls have either. An old resident of Luxor complains that the dancing is not at all what it was twenty years ago, that the old fire and art seem to be lost. ”

“ Some dancing couples assembled; ladies of various shades of colour, dressed in ragged finery, men (negroes) without any finery, almost without any attire at all, on the upper part of the body. A man took a woman by the hand, and then began to dance, she turning round on one spot, with downcast eyes, he surrounding her with a vast many gambols, among which are most astounding summersets and leaps, remarkable for their boldness and agility. ”

“ We have seen dancing in other countries, and dressing. We have certainly never seen gentlemen dance so easily, gracefully and well as the American. But the style of dancing, in its whirl, its rush, its fury, is only equalled by that of the masked balls at the French Opera, and the balls at the Salle Valentino, the Jardin Mabille, the Chateau Rouge, and other favorite resorts of Parisian Grisettes and Lorettes. We saw a few young men looking upon the dance very soberly, and, upon inquiry, learned that they were engaged to certain ladies of the corps-de-ballet. ”

“ Such a life as I have gotten myself into! If I had any time to ponder at all I might get dizzy, but luckily there is nothing for me to do except use my wits and go on. Since I last wrote [40] you I have been from ballet dancer on the mess hall stage to mother-confessor and staid counsellor of homesick boys. I have been cook and dishwasher, both on a wholesale scale, and I have been hostess at an officers' ball.
I must tell you about the ballet dancing because it was such fun. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A certain married dame, I will not give her name, Is younger than her husband is, Her tastes are livelier than his. As dancing makes her figure trim, She dances not with him! One night she felt quite gay, Took in a cabaret, She found the dancing such good fun, That as the clock was striking one, In wine her sorrows she had drowned, She still was whirling round! ”

“ 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. ”

“ Her brilliant earrings, her necklace, her shapely shoulders and arms seem to proclaim her sex, when suddenly disengaging herself from the embracing arm she turns away with a yawn, saying in a bass voice, 'Emile, why are you so tiresome to-day?' The novice hardly believes his eyes: the ballet dancer is also a man. ”

“ When I had finished studying my dances, I went in search of a manager. I was acquainted with them all. During my career as singer and actress I had served all of them more or less frequently.
I was, however, hardly prepared for the reception which they gave me. The first one laughed me in the face as he said:
“You a dancer! Well, that’s too good! When I want you for a theatrical part I’ll look you up with pleasure; but as for dancing, good heavens! When I engage a dancer she will have to be a star. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is dancing, too, that has made the vogue for the new garters, with their deep lace ruffles, and the little lace pantalets—all to hide those slender ankles that show in the dip. It is dancing that has made the vogue for the Tango slippers, with their ribbons and jeweled slides; and it is dancing that has made the small hat of tulle or lace fashionable for afternoons in place of wide picture-hats. "Big hats are unpleasant to dance in." ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The music swelling into a rapturous tumult preludes the choral climax, wherein the dancers, raising their delicate feet, and curving their arms and fingers in seemingly impossible flexures, sway like withes of willow, and agitate all the muscles of the body like the fluttering of leaves in a soft breeze. Their eyes glow as with an inner light; the soft brown complexion, the rosy lips half parted, the heaving bosom, and the waving arms, as they float round and round in wild eddies of dance, impart to them the aspect of fair young fiends. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To the uninitiated all the dances, and still more all the coplas, seem to be pretty much alike, when danced by girls only. But when one sees these dances performed professionally by a man and a woman together, one realises that every step, every turn of the head, and every movement of the body and arms, has had its origin in a drama of passion, of coquetry, or of courtship. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I say, 'No, you can't dance in a week or two, nor in a month or two; but if you want to practice for several months I can place you on the stage.' And I say this because I know American girls can make good257 dancers if they are in earnest and apply themselves hard; they can make passable ballet girls even if they give only a fair share of their attention to the study. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Dancing girls are generally engaged at public entertainments to amuse the company. They adorn their necks with carcanets, their arms with bracelets, and their ankles with small gold or silver chains. The dance of these women is a cadenced movement, performed to the sound of a drum, (called a tum-tum,) which a person beats upon with his fingers, and accompanies with a song, that, to a person possessed of any taste, is truly barbarous. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She was sick with love of him, and he danced with her as he would dance with any woman, as he would dance with a man who was a good dancer and upon whose arm was tied a handkerchief to conventionalize him into a woman. ”

“ It speaks well for the growing sensibility of mankind that this form of dancing is gradually losing favour. Like the vocal tight-rope dancing of the operatic prime donne with whom ballet-dancers are associated, their art is a mere circus-trick, gaped at as a difficult tour de force, but appealing in no sense to æsthetic sentiments. ”

“ It leans towards her, while its hands make gentle passes that subdue her utterly to the magic rhythm. Obedient to the spell she rises to her feet and, yielding herself to the tender guidance proffered, she joins her phantom partner in the dance.
It is a scene of exquisite beauty, this vision of a young girl’s innocent dream of love and joy. Abandoning herself to the allurement of the moment, she dances long and joyously until, at length exhausted, she sinks once more upon her cushions, with her fantastic ideal—climax of ecstasy—prostrate at her feet. She has but to stretch forth her hand. ”

“ When I state that stage dancing, as taught in the Ned Wayburn courses, is a developer of health and vigor, a sure road to grace, poise and personal beauty of form and face—in a word, a maker of beautiful and attractive women—I am making a statement of fact that is irrefutable, based on actual and frequent occurrence. You never saw a properly trained dancer who was not in perfect physical condition.
Many ladies learn my dances for the benefits to be derived from the training; young ladies and others not so young ”

“ The dancing of the women always expresses a kind of bashfulness, mingled with a desire to charm, whilst, with downcast eyes, she turns herself round upon one spot with an air and a grace very much resembling a turkey-hen, whilst, with a neckkerchief or coloured handkerchief in her hand, sometimes one in each hand, she half drives away from her the advancing lover and half entices him to her—a mode of dancing, which, in its symbolic intention, would suit all nations and all classes of people, though—Heaven be praised—not all the beloved. ”