A Treatise on the Art of Dancing

by Giovanni-Andrea Gallini

of theory and practice cramps the faculties; and gives either an unpleasing faulteringness to the air, steps, and gestures, or wrong execution. And as the minuet derives its merit from an observation of the most agreeable steps, well chosen in nature and well combined by art, there is no inconsistence in avering that art may, in this, as in many other objects of imitative skill, essentially assist nature, and place her in the most advantageous point of light.

The truth of this will be easily granted, by numbers who have felt the pleasure of seeing a minuet gracefully executed by a couple who understood this dance perfectly. Nay, excellence in the performance of it, has given to an indifferent figure, at least a temporary advantage over a much superior one

in point of person only; and sometimes an advantage of which the impression has been more permanent.

But besides the effect of the moment in pleasing the spectators; the being well versed in this dance especially contributes greatly to form the gait, and address, as well as the manner in which we should present ourselves. It has a sensible influence in the polishing and fashioning the air and deportment in all occasions of appearance in life. It helps to wear off any thing of clownishness in the carriage of the person, and breathes itself into otherwise the most indifferent actions, in a genteel and agreeable manner of performing them.

This secret and relative influence of the minuet, Marcel, my ever respected

master, whom his own merit in his profession, and the humorous mention of him by Helvetius, in his famous book De L’Esprit, have made so well known, constantly kept in view, in his method of teaching it. His scholars were generally known and distinguished from those of other masters, not only by their excellence in actual dancing, but by a certain superior air of easy-genteelness at other times. He himself danced the minuet to its utmost perfection. Not that he confined his practice to that dance alone; on the contrary, he confessed himself obliged for his greatest skill in that, to his having a general knowledge of all the other dances, which he had practised, but especially those of the serious stile.

But certainly it is not only to the professed dancer, that dancing in the serious stile, or the minuet, with grace and ease, is essential. The possessing this branch of dancing is of great service on the theatre, even to an actor. The effect of it steals into his manner, and gait, and gives him an air of presenting himself, that is sure to prepossess in his favor. Persons of every size or shape are susceptible of grace and improvement from it. The shoulders so drawn back as not to protuberate before, but as it were, to retreat from sight, or as the French express it bien effacées, the knees well turning outwards, with a free play; the air of the shape noble and disengaged; the turns and movements easy; in short, all the graces that characterise a good execution of the minuet, will, insensibly on all other occasions, distribute through

every limb and part of the body, a certain liberty and agreeableness of motion easier to be conceived than defined. To the actor, in all characters, it gives, as I have just before observed, a graceful mien and presence; but, in serious characters, it especially suggests that striking portliness, that majestic tread of the stage, for which some actors from the very first of their appearance so happily dispose the public to a favorable reception of their merit in the rest of their part. An influence of the first impression, which a good actor will hardly despise, especially with due precaution against his contracting any thing forced or affected in his air or steps, from his attention to his improvement by dancing, as the very best things may be even pernicious by a misuse. Whatever is not natural, free, and easy, will undoubtedly,

on the stage, as every where else, have a bad effect. A very little matter of excess will, from his aim at a grace, produce a ridiculous caricature. Too stiff a regulation of his motions or gestures, by measure and cadence, would even be worse than abandoning every thing to chance; which might, like the Eolian harp, sometimes suffer lucky hits to escape him; whereas affectation is as sure forever to displease, as it is not to escape the being seen where it exists.

Among the many reasons for this dance of the minuet having become general, is the possibility of dancing it to so many different airs, though the steps are invariable. If one tune does not please a performer, he may call for another; the minuet still remaining unalterable.