Sur les Pointes
I FRANKLY confess that I have a dislike to ordinary dancing on the toes. It may be because in my youth it had degenerated into something so stilted, distorted and unrhythmical that it conflicted with all my ideas of beauty. And when the Russians give some of their older ballets, such as "Giselle," which bears the mark of Italian influence—it was, I think, arranged by an Italian maître de ballet —I feel that all the improvements that the Russians have made in this so-called "classical" dancing cannot uproot my prejudice, although they can, and do, modify it. The Russian ballerinas accomplish the feat of being fluent on their toes. They do not hammer out steps—it is a false notion of rhythm that there is a hammer-stroke on every strong beat—but take a collection of steps, as a singer takes a collection of notes, and calmly and gracefully phrase them, in the manner of a bird beating the air with its wings, rather than that of a blacksmith hammering on his anvil. Still I doubt whether the Russians would have conquered Europe had they come to us merely as revivers of classical dancing before it became mechanical and ugly. They owe this revival to a great extent to Tschaikowsky.
How Far a Native Ballet?
TSCHAIKOWSKY was patriotic; he wrote music for the Imperial Theatre ballets, and was the first man of any position in Russia to protest against the importation of Italian dancers and Italian methods. Undoubtedly he gave good counsel in advising a return to the French style of classical dancing, the style which was at its best under Louis XIV. But if the Russians had been content to stop at an imitation of ballet as it was under the "Grand Monarque" they would still be giving us only a dead perfection of steps. There is a deadness about all Renaissance things, whether in architecture or dancing. What always surprises us about the Russian ballet is its life. This vitality came sweeping on to the stage with Russian maîtres de ballet such as Fokine, who used tradition, used the technical perfection of classical dancing, but would not be a slave to them; with Russian composers such as Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Glazounof, Liadoff, Arensky, Stravinsky and Tscherepnin, the conductor of the ballet; with Russian artists such as Alexandre Benois and Leon Bakst; with Russian dancers such as Nijinsky. Is this ballet, then, distinguished from all other ballets by being a native ballet? When we see "Tamar" or "Scheherazade" or the dances from "Prince Igor" we may answer, "Yes." But what about "Les Sylphides," "Spectre de la Rose' ' or "Le Carnaval"? Are they typically Russian? I think they rather transport us into a country which has no nationality and no barriers, the kingdom of dreams. The Russian ballet has transformed itself in a little over a decade because its guiding minds have been more than national. The musicians, artists, dancers and ballet masters have depended more on invention than on reality. Many stories of widely different character have been drawn on for the new ballets, but all have been treated with an imagination which is neither the property of a nation nor the result of patriotism.