III
Though none of the above mentioned dancers of Germany has pretended to be a follower of Miss Duncan, yet all belong to the new movement that was brought into being by her persistent efforts. They all defy the principle of the classic ballet, they all pretend to interpret music in their ‘plastic art,’ as they have preferred to term the dance. Traditionally the German music has been either inclined to classic abstraction, or to strictly operatic lines. The spectacular ballet of Richard Strauss, ‘The Legend of Joseph,’ belongs more to pantomimic pageantries than a class of actual dance dramas, of which we shall speak in another chapter. The music of a foreign school and race is always lacking in that natural stimulating vigor that it gives to those who are absolutely at home with racial peculiarities choreographically. In this the Russians have been lately more fortunate than other nations. A great number of talented young Russian composers have written an immense amount of admirable dance music, ballets and instrumental compositions that could be danced. They have an outspoken rhythmic character, which is the first requirement of the dance. In this the recent German composers have remained behind the Russians. The compositions of Richard Strauss, Reger, Schönberg and the other distinguished musical masters of modern Germany offer nothing that would inspire a new school of the art of dancing. In the first place they lack the instinct for rhythm, and in the second, they lack the plastic sense so essential for the dance. This circumstance has been most detrimental to those of the young German dancers who attempted to follow the naturalistic movement.
How much better than the German Duncanites have been those of Scandinavia, Finland and France in this direction is difficult to say authentically, though they have had the advantage over the Germans, of having at their disposal the works of some of the most talented young composers of dance music. Grieg, Lange-Müller, Svendsen and many others have written music with strong rhythmic and choreographic images. But superior to all the Scandinavian composers, in the modern dance music or music that could be danced, are the Finns: Sibelius, Jaernefelt, Melartin, Merikanto and Toiwo Kuula. Many of Sibelius’s smaller instrumental compositions offer excellent themes and music for dancing. A few of them are real masterpieces of their kind. But the Finns have shown up to this time little interest for the modern dance movements. The Danes, Swedes and Norwegians have been more affected by the new ideas that are connected with the stage, though none of them has shown any marked achievement that would be known in wider circles. Ida Santum, a young Scandinavian girl in New York, has given evidence of some graceful plastic forms and idealized folk-dances. Thus far she has not shown anything strikingly appealing to the audiences. Aino Akté’s Salome Dances are purely operatic and have no bearing upon our subject.
Among English and American girls who have followed the footsteps of Miss Duncan are Gwendoline Valentine, Lady Constance Stewart-Richardson, Beatrice Irvin, and a number of others, but the writer has been unable to gather any sufficient data for critical arguments.
Undoubtedly the most talented dancer of the naturalistic school whom we have known among the Russians is Mlle. Savinskaya of Moscow. In power of expressing depth and subtlety of dramatic emotions Savinskaya is supreme. She is an actress no less than a dancer. Her conception of naturalistic dancing is so deeply rooted in her soul and temperament that it often acts against the plastic rules and grace, often displayed by the dancers for the sake of pleasing effects. Miss Duncan herself strives to create moods by means of classic poses, but Savinskaya’s ideal is to express the plastic forms of music in her art. She is romantically dramatic, more a tragedian than anything else. Her dance in the graphically fascinating ballet Chrisis by Reinhold Glière, in Moscow, revealed her as an artist of the first rank, and perhaps the first thoroughly trained Duncanite whose technique and dramatic talent rival with any ballerina, of the new school or the old.
Probably the lack of suitable music has been thus far the greatest obstacle in the way of the naturalistic dancers, though they pretend to find their ideals in the eighteenth and nineteenth century’s classic compositions. No doubt some of the old music can be aptly danced, such as the light instrumental works of Grieg, Mozart, Chopin and Schumann, but the proper music has yet to be composed. The phonetic thinking of past music was involved, hazy in closed episodes and often disconnected in structural form. There is one single theme of a poem in a whole symphony. To illustrate this plastically is a physical impossibility. Maud Allan’s and Isadora Duncan’s attempts to dance symphonies of Beethoven and other classic idealists have been miserable failures. Those who pretend to see in such dances any beauty and idea, are ignorant of musical and choreographic principles.
To our knowledge Reinhold Glière, the genial young Russian composer and director of the Kieff Symphony Society, is the first successful musical artist in the field of naturalistic ballets. His ballet Chrisis, based on an Egyptian story by Pierre Louis, is a rare masterpiece in its line.
Though built on the style of the conventional ballets, its music is meant for naturalistic interpretation and lacks all the pirouette, chassée, and other semi-acrobatic ballet music forms. Like the principles laid down by Delsarte and his followers, Glière’s music ‘moves with the regular rhythm, the freedom, the equipoise, of nature itself.’ It has for the most part a slow ancient Egyptian measure, breathing the air of the pleasant primitive era. It suggests the even swing of the oar, the circular sweep of the sling, the rhythmic roar of the river, and all such images that existed before our boasted civilization. It gives a chance for the dancer of the naturalistic school to display pretty poses, primitive gestures and ‘sound’ steps. Like all Glière’s compositions this is exceedingly lyric, full of charming old melodies and curved movements that occasionally call to mind Schumann, Schubert and Chopin. The ballet begins with Chrisis in the majestic valley of the Nile spinning cotton on a spinning-wheel, which she stops when a soft music, coming from a far-away temple, comes to her ears. It is the music of the morning-prayer. She prays, dancing to the trees and the clouds. At this time Kise, another little maiden, is passing with food for her parents and Chrisis calls her. They dance together and spin for a while. There is in the background a sacred tree. Chrisis approaches it in slow dance and utters her secret wish. During this time Kise meets on the river shore a blind musician carrying a lyre. He plays a gay dance to the girls, to which they dance so exquisitely that phantom-like nymphs and fawns emerge from the river, and stop to watch. Finally a shepherd, who has been looking on from the top of the hill, becomes interested in the dance and makes friends with the girls. There ensues a passionate love scene and dramatic climax for the first act, Chrisis going into a convent. The second act takes place in an ancient convent, Chrisis as a dancing priestess. The last act takes place with Chrisis as a courtly lady with every luxury around her. It is a magnificent piece of work musically and choreographically, and should find widespread appeal.
We may count as belonging to the naturalistic school of dancing the exponents of idealized and imitative national dances, though they do not belong among the Duncanites. Particularly we should mention Ruth St. Denis, who is widely known through her skilled imitation and idealization of the Oriental dances. As Isadora Duncan sought by the ancient Greeks the ideal of her ‘natural’ dances, so Ruth St. Denis attempted to find choreographic beauties in the art of the East. In this she has been strikingly successful. Her Japanese dances can be considered as real gems of the Orient in which she has made the impression as if an exotic old print of the empire of the Mikado became alive by a miracle, though it was in the Indian sacred dances that she made her reputation. This is what a dance critic writes of her:
‘Clad in a dress of vivid green spangled with gold, her wrists and ankles encased in clattering silver bands, surrounded by the swirling curves of a gauze veil, the dancer passed from the first slow languorous movements into a vertiginous whirl of passionate delirium. Alluring in every gesture, for once she threw asceticism to the winds, and yet she succeeded in maintaining throughout that difficult distinction between the voluptuous and the lascivious. The mystic Dance of the Five Senses was a more artificial performance and only in one passage kindled into the passion of the Nautch. As the goddess Radha, she is dimly seen seated cross-legged behind the fretted doors of her shrine. The priests of the temple beat gongs before the idol and lay their offerings at her feet. Then the doors open, and Radha descends from her pedestal to suffer the temptation of the five senses. The fascination of each sense, suggested by a concrete object, is shown forth in the series of dances. Jewels represent the desire of the sight, of the hearing the music of bells, of the smell of the scent of flower, of the taste of wine, and the sense of touch is fired by a kiss. Her dancing was inspired by that intensity of sensuous delight which is refined to its farthest limit probably only in the women of the East. She rightly chose to illustrate the delicacy of the perceptions not by abandon but by restraint. The dance of touch, in which every bend of the arms and the body described the yearning for the unattainable, was more freely imaginative in treatment. And in the dance of taste there was one triumphant passage, when, having drained the wine-cup to the dregs, she burst into a Dionysiac Nautch, which raged ever more wildly until she fell prostrate under the maddening influence of the good wine. Then by the expression of limbs and features showing that the gratification of the senses leads to remorse and despair, and that only in renunciation can the soul realize the attainment of peace, she returns to her shrine and the doors close upon the seated image, resigned and motionless. So she affirmed in choice and explicit gesture the creed of Buddha.’
Very strange yet effective are the dances of Ruth St. Denis in which she exhibits the marvellous twining and twisting art of her arms, which act as if they had been some ghastly snakes. Her arms possess an unusual elasticity and sinuous motion which cannot be seen better displayed by real Oriental dancers. The hands, carrying on the first and fourth finger two huge emerald rings, give the impression of gleaming serpents’ eyes. Miss St. Denis is apparently a better musician than Miss Duncan, while in her poetic sense and in the sense of beauty she remains behind. However, as a musician she is excellent, and always acts in perfect rhythm with the composition. But unfortunately all her dance music is just as little Oriental as Miss Duncan’s is Greek. Ruth St. Denis seemingly is ignorant of the numerous Russian Oriental compositions which would suit her art a thousand times better than the works of the Occidental classics. In justice to her efforts it must be said that she is a thorough artist in spite of the fact that she has never studied her dances in the East. Her slender tall figure and semi-Oriental expression give her the semblance of an Indian Bayadere. It has always impressed us that she minimizes her art by affected manners and an air that lacks sincerity. We believe her to have very great talent, but for some reason or other, she has failed to display it fully.