A Book About the Theater

by Brander Matthews

And there was a further defect in these efforts to revive the classic dances and to devise more modern interpretations of poetry and music. Success, if possible at all, would be possible only to a highly trained performer, mistress of every device of the terpsichorean art and elaborately schooled in pantomimic expression. Now, it is not unfair to say that no one of the performers of these so-called classic dances had undergone this severe schooling. No one of them had the lightness, the ease, the perfect mastery of method, the floating grace of the true dancer, who has been taught from childhood, until all the tricks of the craft are second nature. Without this arduous training any one who attempts an ambitious display can scarcely fail to reveal instantly the lamentable fact that she is not mistress of the technic of the art she has undertaken to practise. She does not know how to get her effects; she does not even know what effects are possible. She is almost certain to appear amateurish, and she is likely to seem awkward also, not to say ungainly. As Pope put it tersely: "Those move easiest who have learned to dance."

These well-meant attempts to link dancing with poetry and music could be entirely satisfactory only to those who have given little consideration to dancing as an art, or who have small opportunity to see any really beautiful dancing. There is no wonder that any effort to spiritualize dancing, to give it a soul, to elevate it to the lofty level of the lyric, should be welcomed by those who have been disgusted by the ugly and vulgar high-kicking of the so-called pony ballets. The acrobatic contortions of these athletic performers were wholly without charm, as unalluring as they were violent. And equally unacceptable are the frequent exhibitions of toe-dancing, sheer gymnastic feats, difficult, indeed, but essentially uninteresting. Of a truth, these pony ballets on the one hand, and these toe-dancers on the other, are exponents of eccentricity. What they accomplish lies outside the true art of dancing. It is not inspired by Terpsichore, and the saddened muse must veil her face when she is forced to behold these crude exhibitions of misplaced energy.

II

The true art of dancing is entirely free from all apparent effort. No matter how difficult may be the feat that is accomplished, it must seem easy. Every gesture must be expressive, every movement must be beautiful, every step must have ease and lightness and grace. Forty years ago and more, the 'Black Crook' brought to America three or four dancers trained in the best schools of Europe—Bonfanti and Betty Rigl, Rita Sangalli and Morlacchi. One of this quartet, Rita Sangalli, was afterward the chief dancer at the Paris Opéra, where she was followed in time by Rosita Mauri, a dancer who added beauty of face and of form to a masterly accomplishment. They were all gifted pantomimists; they had all of them the perfection of technic; they were all of them capable of the most varied difficulties of the art; and they all of them vanquished these difficulties with unobtrusive ease. They had attained to that perfection of art, when the art itself is hidden, and when only the consummate result is visible. Each of them had absolute certainty of execution, and each of them could float across the stage the embodiment of grace, exquisite in its ethereal delicacy.

For those whose memories cannot recall the haunting remembrance of the days that are gone there is abundant compensation in the opportunity which has been afforded of late to behold the dancing of Mlle. Genée and of Mlle. Pavlova. They are, at least, the equal of any of their predecessors, and it may be doubted whether Taglioni or Fanny Elssler surpassed them in mastery. They are the perfection of effortless ease; altho they suggest only the lightness of the butterfly, they have the steel strength of the gymnast. Behind their marvelous and bewildering accomplishment there is a native gift, rich and full; and there is also the utmost rigor and perseverance in training. What they are able to do with seeming spontaneity and with apparent freedom is the result of indefatigable industry and of merciless labor.

But tho this schooling sustains them, it is never paraded—indeed, it is scarcely perceived. There is not the faintest suggestion of hard work about their performances; there is nothing that hints at effort; their art is able to conceal itself absolutely, and to delight us only with the perfect result of their long apprenticeship. Capable of the most obstinate feats of strength and of agility, Mlle. Genée and Mlle. Pavlova never "show off"; they are never guilty of parading a difficulty for its own sake, and their conquest of technical obstacles serves only to support and intensify the continuous suggestion of aerial elevation and of ineffable lightness. It is to be noted, also, that as they scorn the task of the mere gymnast, they do not wear the scant costume of the acrobat; they are enveloped in ample draperies, which fall into lines of beauty with every movement.

Nothing more exquisite than their dancing has ever been seen on the American stage. Theirs is the dancing which is graceful—which, indeed, is grace itself. Here is the art at its utmost possibility, purged of all its dross. When they are floating effortless thru space we cannot help recalling the possibly apocryphal anecdote which records the visit of Emerson and Margaret Fuller to the theater to see Fanny Elssler. They gazed with increasing delight, until at last Margaret Fuller could not contain her enthusiasm. She turned and said: "Ralph, this is poetry!" To which the philosopher is said to have responded: "Margaret, this is religion!"

Perfection is always rare, and there is now only one Mlle. Genée, and only one Mlle. Pavlova, as there was only one Rosita Mauri a quarter of a century ago. It is a pity that the Danish dancer has had to appear here in an ordinary musical show and not in a framework more worthy of her and of her art, and better fitted to display it. She has revealed herself only in two or three entrées de ballet, as the French term them—incidental dances; and she has not yet been seen here in a ballet d'action, a complete story told in pantomime. It was the poet, François Coppée, who devised the plot of the 'Korrigane' for Rosita Mauri; and he had had Théophile Gautier as a predecessor in the preparation of a ballet-libretto. All those who are interested in every manifestation of the art of the drama, must find pleasure in the ballet d'action, with its adroit commingling of dance and pantomime; it gives a delight possible to no other form of the drama; and at its best it is more closely akin to pure poetry. Being her own manager, Mlle. Pavlova has been seen in a series of ballets more appropriate to her extraordinary gifts than those in which Mlle. Genée has been permitted to appear.

III

There was one scene of the 'Source,' a ballet popular at the Opéra in Paris during the exhibition of 1867, which must linger in the memory of all who had the good fortune to behold it—a scene so beautiful that it was borrowed for the 'White Fawn,' which was the successor of the 'Black Crook' here in the United States. It represented a silvery glade in the lone forest, with a mysterious lake, on the surface of which the spirits of the springtime came forth to disport themselves. It was a vision of airy grace and of haunting legend; and it is only one example of the poetic possibilities of the contribution of dance and pantomime in a coherent story. It may be well to recall the fact that the plots of these ballets d'action are often strong enough to enable them to serve as the basis of a libretto for an opera. It was a ballet of Scribe's, for example, which was taken for the book of the 'Somnambula'; and the book of the favorite opera 'Martha' began its existence as a libretto for a ballet.