The Dance

by Unknown

II

Though the ballet lost its previous splendor under the Revolution, yet it became more vigorous in its enforced simplicity. The French writers admit that the ballets performed in connection with the fêtes of the Republic were marked by more serious tendencies and possessed certain profound emotional qualities. Actors and dancers soon accommodated themselves to the new ideals of social life. The Festival of the Supreme Being, conducted by Robespierre himself, was the most important of the itinerant ballets of that time. It was a ceremony of classic nature, performed with slow and march-like steps. Special ceremonial dances were also performed by the colossal statue of Wisdom to the accompaniment of an orchestra. The members of the Convention had their places on a specially erected platform, while choirs chanted a hymn to the Supreme Being. The President set fire with a torch to an image of Atheism. ‘An immense mountain,’ writes Castil-Blaze, ‘symbolized the national altar; upon its summits rises the tree of Liberty, the Representatives range themselves under its protective branches, fathers with their sons assemble on the part of the mountain set aside for them; mothers with their daughters place themselves on the other side; their fecundity and the virtues of their husbands are their sole titles to a place there. A profound silence reigns all around; touching strains of harmonious melody are heard: the fathers and their sons sing the first strophe; they swear with one accord that they will not lay down their arms until they have annihilated the enemies of the Republic, and all the people take up the finale.’

This short picture gives a fairly clear idea of the Revolutionary period, which laid a new foundation to the French arts, including the art of dancing. The historians tell us that scarcely was the Terror at an end when twenty-three theatres and eighteen hundred dancing salons were open every evening in Paris. The costumes worn by the dancers under the first Republic were more or less imitations of those of the ancient Greeks. The women arranged their hair in imitation of the coiffures of Aspasia and Sappho, and appeared with bare arms, bare bosoms, sandalled feet, and hair bound in plaits round their heads. Even during the Terror people danced in every restaurant on the boulevards, in the Champs Élysées, and along the quays. It is said the people danced in order to forget the tragedies of the day. Milon was a celebrated composer and ballet-master under the Consulate. The most popular of his ballets during this period were Les Sauvages de la Mer du Sud, Lucas et Laurette, Héro et Leandre, Clary, Nina, Le Carnaval de Venise, etc. As in their dress and their ideals, so also in their dancing the people showed an outspoken tendency to appear à la sauvage. However, the political turmoils that shook France in these centuries, when the art of ballet crystallized into a systematic shape, assisted its natural development, chiefly by forcing it to swing from one extreme to the other.

The foundation which the French grand ballet laid for the art of dancing still prevails in all the dancing schools of Europe. The ballet codes of all the modern nations use the same French grammar of technique as that which was taught to Mlles. Sallé, Camargo, and Guimard during the past centuries. To the French Academy of Dancing the world owes the principles of the ballet-technique, the pirouettes, jetés, chassés, etc. The French ballet-masters found it necessary to divide dancing into five different positions, which formed the foundation of all dancing; and then classified the various styles of steps. In describing first, the positions, we begin with the right foot, but the movements would be the same if we would choose the left foot. First position: place the heels against each other, the knees and toes turned well out, the legs firm and straight, the body erect and well balanced, standing equally on the two feet. Second position: pass the right foot to the side to the length of the foot, the weight of the body resting on both feet, the right heel turned forward. Third position: bring the heel of the extended foot close to the hollow of the other instep, in the middle. Fourth position: move the right toe to the front, the toe pointed, the heel forward. Fifth position: let the feet be completely crossed, the heel of one foot brought to the toe of the other.

In systematizing the dance steps the French based their technique upon the ancient method. Here we find the pas marché, or the walking step, in which the toe is pointed and is accompanied by a springy gait, for it is often combined with a jeté and a demi coupé, as the primary steps of the ballet. This is followed by the jeté, which means, spring forward on the pointed toe of the front foot so that the weight is thrown on it. To perform this it is necessary first to bend the knee and jump on the foot; second, to bring the toe of the right foot into the above-described third position; third, advance the right foot in small steps; fourth, bring the left foot behind into the fifth position and raise the right.

The pas coupé is a step that requires the raising of one foot to the second position, then bringing it quickly to the other foot, which is then raised. Literally it means a step cut short. A step to the side is called coupé lateral, it is a coupé dessous if the same movement is executed in front or behind. Then there is a demi coupé, in which the step is half made. The chassé is a step in which the feet appear to be chasing each other close to the ground. It requires the advancing of the front foot, bringing the other close to it behind, then advancing the hind foot to the front, with an assemblé round the other foot. The first movement requires a step forward with right foot, bringing the toe of the left to the heel of the front foot. Then step forward, bring the foot back to third position with an assemblé, and let the other foot take the fifth position in front.

The battements is balancing on one foot, while the other is extended to the side, front or back, and returning to the fifth position, in front or at the back. In the petit battements the movements are made with the toe on the ground. For theatrical dancing the leg is raised as high as possible. The arabesque is a step that requires the placing of the foot in the third position, then a slide of the left foot to the second position, turning the face and body in the same direction, the left hand curved above the head. In the second movement the right foot should be well extended behind, and the right hand stretched out behind. Of a quite different nature is the cabriole, which means striking the feet or calves of the legs together in the course of a leap. A demi-cabriole is a leap from one foot to the other, striking the feet while aloft. It requires the feet to be in the third position, sliding the right foot to the side, passing the left foot to the back, springing on the right foot, and turning and leaving the left foot still behind; the fourth movement brings the left foot forward with the right knee to the third position. Executed by trained ballet dancers with both feet in the air while the legs are rapidly separated and brought together, it is an effective trick.

Well known even to social dancers, as the basis of the polka-step, is the pas bourrée. This requires the dancer to stand on the front foot while the back one is raised. In the first movement the back foot is brought into the third position on the toes. The second movement is the beating of the front foot, and third movement the beating of back and front feet. To this step belongs the pas de bourrée emboîté, which requires the advancing of the right foot to the fourth position, the toe pointed and the knee straight, the bringing up of the left foot to the fourth position with the toe pointed behind the right, and the advancing of the right foot with the toe pointed to the fourth position without any raising or sinking of the body; it is all performed on the toes.

Quite acrobatic in character are the celebrated pirouettes—movements composed of a demi-coupé and two steps on the points of the toes. The pirouette starts by bringing one foot to the fifth position behind, the toe touching the heel, then raising both heels and turning on the toe, reversing the position of the feet, and revolving on the toe. A pirouette used in the old dances consists of a turn on one foot and the raising of the heel of the other, stepping with the toe of this foot four times and so getting around the other one. In some of the slow pirouettes the movement seems to consist of the raising of the foot and jumping round as in some of the country dances. To this class belongs the fouetté, which gives a fluid, swinging impression.

Of ancient French origin is the pas de basque, which starts in the fifth position with the bringing of the right foot forward with pointed toe, and passing in a semi-circle to the second position with the weight on the right foot, then with a glissade through the third position into the fourth. The glissade is a slide. Slide the front foot from the third position with pointed toe slightly raised to the right; then bring the left toe to the right heel, and vice versa. The first movement is the sliding of the foot from the third to the second position; the second, the left foot is drawn into the third position forward and repeats.

The fleuret is a movement composed of a demi-coupé and two steps on the points of the toes. Start in the fourth position without touching the ground, bend the knees equally and pass the right foot in front in the fourth position, and so rise on the points of the toes and walk two steps on the toes, letting the heel be firm as you finish. This can be done also at the back and sides. The ‘balance’ is performed by rising and falling on the side of one foot, while the other is brought up close. The brisé and entre-chat are related movements. They occur during the spring while in the air. The feet cross and recross, and assume various positions. The changement de pied is a conventional step. In the first movement the dancer springs upward from the third position with the right foot forward; in the second, he throws this foot back and the left forward, dropping down into the third position, the situation of the feet being changed; this can be done in the same manner starting from the fifth position. The pas sauté is a jumping step, performed by bending the knee and leaping on one foot while the other is raised. Of more or less importance are the assemblé and the ballotté. The movement in the former is that of bringing the foot from an open to a closed position, as from the second position to the fifth. The latter is a crossing of the feet alternately before and behind. Then there is the pivot, in which the dancer revolves on one foot while the other beats time in turning around.

This is briefly the elementary grammar of the French ballet technique, upon which the mechanical part of the art of dancing has been based. This was thought to be of essential value for a dancer in producing the most effective lines of the various positions and gestures of the body. According to the views of the authorities of the French Academy, mental application to physical effort were the chief requirements of a dancer. 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.