KATE VAUGHAN
Photograph: W. & D. Downey
“Mr Johnny D’Auban,
He’s so quick and nimble
He’d dance on a thimble—
He’s more like an elf than a man.”
In a short sketch with the unpromising title, Ain’t she very shy? in which he appeared with his sister, he first introduced the Skirt Dance to the public.
Perhaps the fortune of the Skirt Dance would have been different if it had not at once found an exponent who has no small claim to rank with the great dancers of the century. This was Kate Vaughan. She alone in the host of dancers who obtained a passing fame in this style of dancing possessed a touch of real genius. The fact that she satisfied the discriminating taste of two men of such artistic perception as Ruskin and Burne-Jones is enough to establish her reputation. Burne-Jones called her “Miriam Ariadne Salome Vaughan,” and his wife in her biography of her husband relates how he and Ruskin “fell into each other’s arms in rapture upon accidentally discovering that they both adored her.”
Kate Vaughan was the daughter of a musician named Candelon, who earned a meagre living by playing in the orchestra of the once famous Grecian Theatre. At the Grecian she studied dancing under Mrs Conquest, and it is significant that, unlike most other skirt-dancers, she was thoroughly grounded in the careful method of the ballet. One of her first successes as a dancer was in the Ballet of the Furies at the old Holborn Amphitheatre in 1873. Dressed in a black skirt profusely trimmed with gold, she created a great sensation in the rôle of the Spirit of Darkness. After the contortions of the gymnastic dancers, whose popularity testifies to the lamentable condition of the dance at this time—the name of one of the favourites, “Wiry Sal,” is a sufficient commentary upon the school!—the exquisite grace of the new dancer, whose style was both precise and refined, was no less than a revelation.
The old Gaiety Theatre was at this time just entering upon its career of phenomenal popularity, and its ingenious manager, Mr John Hollingshead, was not slow to perceive that the new dance would quickly oust the step-dancer and the contortionist from their place in the popular favour. He was among the first to recognise the genius of Kate Vaughan, and he had the means of presenting her to the public to the greatest advantage. From the day in which she appeared in the famous Gaiety Quartet, in Little Don Caesar de Bazan, her success was established. She was as supreme in her time as Taglioni, Elssler, Grisi and Cerito had been in theirs. Not only was she the popular idol of her generation, but in spite of the tawdry glitter of the Gaiety stage she was able to engage the interest of serious artists.
Her career is full of pathos if not tragedy. Although she possessed the born instincts of a dancer she had an ambition to excel as an actress. She left the Gaiety and spent most of her life with touring companies. She lived long enough to outstay her welcome. London tired of her; only the provinces remained faithful. Ill-health rendered her performances more and more painful. Her dancing became a torture to her, yet she had the resolution to go through with it even although she frequently had to be carried off the stage for very weakness and pain. Worn out with failure and illness, she left England for South Africa, where she hoped that her fame as a dancer would make her season a success. But her name had no magic for the younger generation that had sprung up in the colony. Neither as a comédienne nor as a dancer was she received with any degree of enthusiasm. Almost broken-hearted, she fell ill, and died in great loneliness and distress in Johannesburg in 1903.
In spite of her adoption of a new mode of dancing, Kate Vaughan belonged primarily to the school of Taglioni. Although of course she never reached the perfection of her predecessor, it was to her careful training in the school of the ballet that she owed the ease and grace of her movements and the wonderful effect of spontaneity with which she accomplished even the most difficult steps. She danced not only with her feet, but with every limb of her frail body. She depended not merely upon the manipulation of the skirt for her effect, but upon her facility of balance and the skilful use of arms and hands. Her andante movements in particular were a glorious union of majesty and grace. It is true that she