II
It was only natural that Miss Duncan’s laureated appearances in various European cities quickly found followers and imitators. The best known exponent of Duncan’s naturalism has been Miss Maud Allan, a talented Canadian girl, whose dancing in England has made her a special favorite of the London audiences, before whom she first appeared in 1908. How favorably she was received by the English audiences is evident from the fact that the late King Edward invited her to dance for him at Marienbad. Like Miss Duncan, Maud Allan has danced mostly barefoot, her body slightly clothed in a loose Greek drapery. The most sensational in Miss Allan’s repertoire has been the ‘Vision of Salome,’ compiled from passages from Richard Strauss’ opera, in which she has tried to give the impression of the ghastly Biblical tragedy by means of plastic pantomime and dancing. Among her artistically successful dances has been the Grieg Peer Gynt suite, of which the London critics speak as of ‘a beautiful art of transposition.’ ‘The faithfulness with which her movements follow the moods of the composer is probably only fully realized by those who are musicians as well as connoisseurs of dance. Her translation of music has not seldom the rare quality of translations of being finer than the original, and there are not a few who, when they hear again, unaccompanied, the music which her dancing has ennobled, will be conscious of a sense of incompleteness and loss,’ writes an English dance authority of her art.
Isadora Duncan’s naturalism has probably made the most powerful direct impression upon German aspirants, first, through the school of dancing of Isadora’s sister, Elisabeth, and second, through the pretended appeal to the moods by means of classic ideals, and yet requiring comparatively little technique. Assiduously as a German student will practice in order to acquire the most perfect technique for being an artist, musician, singer or architect, he lacks the painstaking persistency of a Russian, Hungarian, Bohemian or Spaniard in acquiring a thorough technique for his dance. He is inclined to interpret music by means of the most easily acquired technique, such as seemingly the naturalistic school requires. For this very reason, Miss Duncan has been the greatest dance genius for the Germans, as that is so clearly to be seen in the excellent work of Brandenburg, Der moderne Tanz. This book from the beginning to the end, written in a fine poetic prose, is a eulogy of Duncan’s naturalism, and an elaborate display of the minutest pretty moves of the German exponents of the movement. Among the praised geniuses of Brandenburg are the sisters Wiesenthal, who attracted widespread attention in some of Max Reinhardt’s productions.
The sisters Wiesenthal, Elsa and Grete, were received with unparalleled enthusiasm at home and in consequence made a tour abroad, on which occasion one of them danced in New York. How little she impressed the New York audience, can be judged from what one of the most favorable critics wrote of her as having ‘a pretty fluttering, tottering marionette manner of her own.’ Our impression is that the sisters Wiesenthal proved most successful in the quaint, naïve and simple ensemble performances which they gave in Germany. They displayed some excellent ritartandos and a few successful adagio figures. One could see that their steps and arm twists were not a result of systematic studies but of spontaneous impulses, since in repetitions of the music there was no sign of a well trained art, the wing-like arms of the first phrase being arabesque-like in the repetition, etc. They showed that they possessed a poetic conception of the dance, but failed to grasp and express its intrinsic meaning. They were rather poets than dancers, rather actresses than designers in the choreographic sense. Their acting often interfered with dancing and brought about an unpleasant disharmony with the musical rhythm. They may have danced better on other occasions, but what a number of impartial connoisseurs of the dance saw of them stamps them as talented dilettantes rather than accomplished artists of a school.
A girl who enjoyed a great reputation in Vienna, Munich and in other German cities in the first decade of this century, but of whom was heard nothing later, was Miss Gertrude Barrison, an Anglo-Viennese. Her art was more clever and more in style with the principles of the naturalistic than that of the sisters Wiesenthal. She won the ear of Austria for the new message. With a certain assurance in the conviction of her individuality, Miss Barrison treated her art with freedom and loftiness. She enforced her personality more than her art upon the spectators, and this was, to a great extent, the secret of her phenomenal success.
The best of all the German dancers of this century thus far has been Rita Sacchetto, a pretty Bavarian girl, who made her début in Munich, and was at once recognized as an artist of much talent. Though the Berlin critics did not receive her with the enthusiasm that they had shown to the Wiesenthals, she was by far the biggest artist of all. Her slighter recognition was possibly due to her lighter style of work and an unfavorable repertoire, lacking in music that was of timely importance. This withholding of recognition has always been peculiar to Berlin. Tired out by hundreds of aspiring virtuosi and artists of every description, an average Berlin critic, like one of New York, grows at the end of a season nervous in the presence of the vast majority of mediocrities and press-agented celebrities, so that he is likely to ignore or tear down the serious beginner, if her performance coincides with his ‘blue’ moods. This is what probably happened to Miss Sacchetto. The connoisseurs and authorities of other countries who have seen her dances speak of them in highest terms as pretty and exceedingly graceful exhibitions of poetic youthful soul. What has become of Miss Sacchetto lately the writer has been unable to learn.