II
One of the first among living dancers to realize the truth of the above-described lack of concordance between motion and music in all the ancient and new schools, and to devise, intuitively, a method of her own in expressing only the music, is Lada, a young American girl, who had been assiduously studying dancing in Europe and in Russia. She felt so keenly the discord in the ballet, in the art of Isadora Duncan, in the dances of so many modern celebrities, that she was led to draw her inspiration from the folk-dances of various European countries. Here was something simple and primitive, the simple and naïve harmonic relation between the audible, and the visible, the plastic, conception. It was the concordance of motion and music.
Lada’s New York début in the late spring of 1914 was, in spite of so many unfavorable circumstances, a choreographic triumph such as few dancers have achieved under similar conditions. The New York musical and dramatic critics, though unfamiliar with subtle choreographic issues, declared her an artist of the foremost rank. Yet this girl has not had yet the chance to display the best of her art. Her art may be divided into three different categories: those based on the racial, on the dramatic and on the symbolic principles. Her Brahms’ Hungarian Dance, Glinka’s Kamarienskaya, and Schubert’s Biedermayer are distinct ethnographic plastic panoramas; her Sibelius’ Valse Triste is a masterpiece among her dramatic and realistic dances, while MacDowell’s ‘Shadow Dance,’ Sibelius’ ‘Swan of Tuonela,’ Glière’s Lada, and Rimsky-Korsakoff’s Antar are perfect choreographic gems of unusual symbolic breadth. In the Valse Triste the sad majesty, as if absorbed in infinite grief, overcomes the spectator so irresistibly that he almost forgets the morbidly beautiful music of Sibelius. On occasions, impressively executed with unsurpassed loftiness and freedom, she places before us a visionary being, though on the verge of death, in whose presence everything low falls from us, and our feelings express the same elevation that they do in genuine tragedy.
But, however excellently Lada may interpret the sentimental issues of various ethnographic compositions and how well she may portray the tragic vigor of the dramatic music, the best of her art lies in the symbolic visualization of phonetic beauties. In these she appears like a supernatural being raised above common humanity. Her rendering of Gretchaninoff’s ‘Bells,’ which we have seen so far only in rehearsals, makes an impression as if she were lost in sacred revery. A touch of religious feeling pervades the beautiful panorama. In other dances of similar religious character she seems floating in mid-air, unsubstantial as the moon whose pale beams pour a magic beauty over sleeping Nature—and yet so far removed. Her art is an absolute image of the music. Lada is by no means a mood creator or a believer in genial spontaneity that requires nothing but a stage and orchestra. She possesses in her simplest folk-dance-like choreographic sketches the same technical perfection, the same strenuous practice, as the most accomplished ballet dancer. This is what makes her body seem like a highly strung instrument, whose strings the slightest breath of wind can set quivering. Let us hope that she will not change her views and aspirations for the sake of managerial or timely requirements, as so many successful dancers have done. It would be a loss to the evolution of the art of dancing.
To this school of dancing belongs also Natasha Trouhanova, a fascinatingly beautiful Caucasian girl, whose appearances in Russia and Paris have attracted great attention. Being of semi-Oriental descent herself, Trouhanova’s art has verged on Oriental conceptions. Russian music is rich in excellent Oriental themes; Borodine, Rubinstein, Balakireff, Ippolitoff-Ivanoff and Spendiaroff have written a large number of instrumental works of Oriental cast, which adapt themselves magnificently to dancing. Indeed, the composers of other countries have not been able to approach the Russians in the treatment of Oriental subjects. Mlle. Trouhanova has specialized in a romantic Oriental symbolism, in which she has succeeded more than any of the other living dancers. There is an enchanting, exotic atmosphere in Trouhanova’s plastic expressions, something that breathes of the Thousand and One Nights, seductive and saturated with passion, yet beautiful in every detail. Her best performances have been those which she has given in Oriental surroundings, in the atmosphere to which such expressions belong. Like Lada, Trouhanova seeks the solution of choreography in the music itself. She has been inclined to a kind of symbolism that pertains to the romantic emotions, and in this particular field she stands supreme.