Jocularity

“ A dance, in which every motion was a word, and rest as eloquent as motion; in which every attitude was a fresh motive for a sculptor of the purest school, and the highest physical activity was manifested, not as in the coarser comic pantomimes, in fantastic bounds and unnatural distortions, but in perpetual delicate modulations of a stately and self-restraining grace. ”

“ The vigorous movements of the pantomime—turn and twist, bend and spring— afford at once a gratifying spectacle to the beholder and a wholesome training to the performer; I maintain that no gymnastic exercise is its equal for beauty and for the uniform development of the physical powers, —of agility, suppleness, and elasticity, as of solid strength. ”

“ The origin of all jocular or semi-serious literature and art is referable, of course, to a stage of human development when the deviation from a certain standard of feeling or opinion could be appreciable ”

“ Many who pretend to understand the art of dancing, confound motions of strength, with those of agility, mistaking strength for slight, or slight for strength; tho’ so different in their nature. It is the spring of the body, in harmony with sense, that gives the great power 60 to please and surprize. The same it is with the management of the arms; but all this requires both the theory of the art, and the practice of it. One will hardly suffice without the other; which makes excellence in it so rare. ”

“ The gymnastic struggles, the peculiar object of the public games, and where the human frame attained a beautiful form and expansion by every species of exercise—the gymnastic struggles had a very close connection with, and may be said to have formed the basis for, the imitative arts, especially sculpture, which, without that habitual contemplation of the most exquisite forms afforded by these games, could never have acquired so bold, free, and animated a representation of the human body. ”

“ Is not the origin of gymnastics, too, to be sought in the tendency to rapid motion which exists in all animals; man, as we were saying, having attained the sense of rhythm, created and invented dancing; and melody arousing and awakening rhythm, both united formed the choral art? ”

“ In the dance the artist ought to show all the richness of his soul; ought to instil into his movements all of that which the sculptor puts into his marble; while above the idea and the mood ought to be felt the beauty and freedom of movements and lines. ”

“ You speak of the movements of a dance as being rhythmic. The artist understands the word to refer to the relation of these movements to each other and above all to the emotion which they express. And to him the whole world is a dance, full of rhythmic gestures. The gesture of standing still, [Pg 108] or of being asleep, is also rhythmic; the body is itself a gesture—he will speak of the rhythm of the line of a lifted arm or a bent knee. Trees that lift their branches to the sky, and rocks that sleep on the ground have their rhythms—every tree and every rock its own special rhythm. ”

“ A dance in action, is not only a moving picture, but an animated one: while to the eloquence of the tongue, it substitutes that of the whole body.
The art, viewed in this light, shows how comparatively little the merely mechanical part of it, the agility of the legs and body, contributes to the accomplishment of the dancer; however necessary that also is. We might soon form a dancer, if the art consisted only in his being taught 97 M to shake his legs in cadence, to ballance his body, or to move his arms unmeaningly. ”

“ The style of dancing is a curiosity, however; a quadrille of these women and their partners is a specimen of the saltatory art worth seeing. There is no slow, measured sliding and dawdling through the figure, as in our cotillons at home; the dancers dance all over—feet, arms, muscles, head, body, and legs; each quadrille, in which there are dancers of noted skill and agility, is surrounded by a circle of admiring spectators. ”

“ This is not a mere metaphor. The dance is the rule of number and of rhythm and of measure and of order, of the controlling influence of form, of the subordination of the parts to the whole. That is what a dance is. And these same properties also make up the classic spirit, not only in life, but, still more clearly and definitely, in the universe itself. We are strictly correct when we regard not only life but the universe as a dance. For the universe is made up of a certain number of elements, less than a hundred, and the “periodic law” of these elements is metrical. ”

“ Shall we now proceed to speak of this? 'What Cretan or Lacedaemonian would approve of your omitting gymnastic?' Your question implies assent; and you will easily understand a subject which is familiar to you. Gymnastic is based on the natural tendency of every animal to rapid motion; and man adds a sense of rhythm, which is awakened by music; music and dancing together form the choral art. ”

“ Firmness of step, a graceful and regular motion of all the parts, suppleness, easy bendings and risings, the whole accompanied with a good air, and managed with the greatest ease of expertness and dexterity, constitute the merit of this kind of dancing. The soul itself should be seen in every motion of the body, and express something naturally noble, and even 76 heroic. Every step should have its beauty.
The painter draws, or ought to draw his copy, the actor his action, and the statuary his model, all from the truth of nature. ”

“ This expectation is frequently realized in individuals when under the dominion of exalted emotions, in insane persons, and in persons when in mesmeric, somnambulic, trance, and other abnormal conditions, who often perform feats of agility, dexterity, and wonderful freedom and precision in the combined contractions of a great many muscles of the body, equaling the nimbleness and mobility of the ballet-dancer, the surefootedness of the rope-walker, and the consummate skill of the trained acrobat, although they had no special training calculated to qualify them for the performance of such feats. ”

“ Walking, kicking, dancing, stamping, swimming—here we have an immense variety of poses. Dancing, the foot rises at a steep angle, the heel clear of the ground, the ball of the foot and the toes resting lightly. ”

“ It would be rash to regard such movements as the basis of every circular dance or ronde on such an occasion; a ring is too obviously the form which a crowd of spectators round any object, sacred or otherwise, must take. But there are many circumambulatory rites in which stress is laid on the necessity for the motion to be deasil, or with the right hand to the centre, in accordance with the course of the sun, and not in the opposite direction, cartuaitheail or withershins [421] . And these, perhaps, may be legitimately considered as of magical origin. ”

“ There are emotions deeply seated in the joy of exercise, when the body is brought into play, and masses move in concert, of which the subject is but half conscious. Music and dance, and the delirium of battle or the chase, act thus upon spontaneous natures. ”

“ As soon as man was man he without doubt began to gesticulate with face, body, and limbs. How long it took to develop bodily gesticulation into an art no one can guess—perhaps a millennium.
In writing of dancing, one will therefore include those gesticulations or movements of the body suggesting an idea, whether it be the slow movement of marching, or the rapid gallop, even some of the movements that we commonly call acrobatic. ”

“ Every Dance is in reality a succession of airs and graces of some kind or other, and of airs and graces which, if I may say so, profess themselves to be such. The steps, gestures, and motions which, as it were, avow the intention of exhibiting a succession of such airs and graces, are the steps, the gestures, and the motions which are peculiar to Dancing, and when these are performed to the time and the measure of Music, they constitute what is properly called a Dance. ”

“ Dancing is, in fact, the universal human expression, by movements of the limbs and body, of a sense of rhythm which is implanted among the primitive instincts of the animal world. The rhythmic principle of motion extends throughout the universe, governing the lapse of waves, the flow of tides, the reverberations of light and sound, and the movements of celestial bodies ”

“ Joculators, 197 their performances ascribed to magic, 198 Asiatic jugglers, 199 their tricks accounted for, 201 Rykell, a tregetour, 202 privileges of king's jugglers, 205 disrepute of modern jugglers, 205 dancing, tumbling, and balancing by joculators, 205, 208 Herodias tumbling, 208, 209 various modes of dancing and tumbling, 211 representations of tumbling, 211, 212 gleemens' dances, 213 sword-dancing, rope-dancing, 214 to 221 Morris-dance, 223 the posture-master, 235 mountebanks, 236 balancing, 231 the tinker, 237 animals trained for baiting, &c. ”

“ Every one of these Lines, or Tracts, may jointly or separately form the Figure of a Dance, on which may be described the Positions and Steps, as in Figure O. The beginning of which Tract, is shewn by the Character representing the Posture or Presence of the Body, which must be join’d to it, to shew the Position of the Body at the beginning of the Dance.
Of the Positions.
There are ten Sorts of
Positions
generally us’d in
Dancing,
which are divided into
True
and
False.
The True, are when the Feet are plac’d uniform, and have the Toes turn’d out equally. ”

“ The life of the forest, the climbing of trees, and the capturing of game qualify him for performances that would prove difficult to a modern art-dancer. All who have witnessed the dancing of men of nature have marvelled at their great skill and dexterity, and especially at their wonderful ability in respect to postures, movements, and mimetic expression. Originally, the dance was a means for the attainment of magical ends, as we may conjecture from the fact that even at a very early stage it developed [Pg 95] into the cult dance. ”

“ The fourth of the basic types of dancing is my Modern Americanized Ballet, a most graceful type of dance which requires and developes beauty and grace of motion of the head, the hands, the arms, the feet and legs, of the whole body, in fact. This Americanized ballet is subdivided into various types of dances—toe dancing, classical dancing, character dancing, interpretive dancing, covering all kinds of National and folk dancing. ”

“ Psychology discovers in the dance the most rudimentary and physical of the arts, and traces it to precisely that overflow of nervous energies shut off from their normal practical ends which constitutes play [528] . And the verdict of psychology is confirmed by philology; for in all the Germanic languages the same word signifies both ‘dance’ and ‘play,’ and in some of them it is even extended to the cognate ideas of ‘sacrifice’ or ‘festival [529] ’. The dance must therefore [Pg 161] be thought of as an essential part of all the festivals with which we have to deal. ”

“ Grace and ease of motion are the extent of its perfection; because these are the natural perfections of the human body. Every circumstance and object by which man is surrounded may be viewed in a philosophical light; and thus viewed, dancing appears to be a recreative mode of exercising the body and keeping it in health, the means of shaking off spleen, and of expanding one of the best characters of the heart,—the social feeling. ”

“ It must be considered that in the ballet the movement of the arms is very important, and to perform it properly requires long study and extreme accuracy. Just as the art of painting blends and composes colors, and by the composition of scenes and figures makes a whole that is125 pleasant to the eye, so the movements of the arms in dancing add many and diverse forms of grace to the body, guiding and regulating its movements so as to result in a harmonious whole. ”

“ Many gymnastic movements will suggest themselves, such as jumping on both feet, jumping forward down the aisle frog fashion, jumping high in place, running in place, stretching the arms out sideways and bending sideways like a walking beam, whirling both arms around like a windmill, taking a dance step, etc. ”

“ Some bear arms—lances, swords, shields and poniards; others are studded with flashing gems; all comport themselves in some freakish manner, which inspires horror even while it moves to mirth. Here is a comic pair who advance with a kind of jog-trot dance ”

“ 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 ”

“ While going through the various motions necessary to depict these actions the movement of the dance is kept up, the body bent forward in a crouching position, the feet leaving the ground alternately in rapid motion but never out of time with the music. ”

“ Dancing and architecture are the two primary and plastic arts: the one in Time, the other in Space; the one expressing the soul directly through the medium of the human body, the other giving only an outline of the soul through the medium of fossilized forms. ”

“ Dancing is composed of Positions, Steps, Sinkings, Risings, Springings, Capers, Fallings, Slidings, Turnings of the Body, Cadence or Time, Figures, &c.
Positions, are the different Placings of the Feet in Dancing.
Steps, are the Motions of the Feet from one place to another.
Sinkings, are the Bendings of the Knees.
Risings, are when we rise from a Sink, or erect our selves.
Springing, is a rising or leaping from the Ground. ”