Modern dancing and dancers

by J. E. Crawford Flitch

During all this time the Imperial Ballet closely followed the academic Italian tradition. It was in no way distinctively Russian. Fifty years ago, and even less, most of the principal dancers in Moscow and St Petersburg were Italians—a complete reversal of the state of affairs at the present day, when Preobrajenskaya, one of the greatest dancers at the Marianski, appears as prima ballerina at La Scala, the home of the ballet in Milan.

The excellence of the Russian ballet is the direct outcome of the system of State maintenance and control, which has been in vogue for a century and a half. The large expenditure necessary for its upkeep is met by the funds annually set apart for the Minister of the Court. The Imperial Ballet provides all the dancers for the operas given throughout the season at the Marie Theatre in St Petersburg and at the Opera House in Moscow. On two evenings a week, Wednesday and Sunday, it gives a special performance devoted entirely to the ballet. Moreover, some of the less distinguished dancers perform from time to time at the People’s Palace in St Petersburg. The country, therefore, may be said to get good value for its money.

Attached to the great theatres, primarily reserved as homes of ballet, is the Imperial School of Dancing, which is of course supported by the State. The pupil—boy or girl—is entered at the age of about nine or ten. After the necessary nomination has been secured, a stringent examination with regard to health, intelligence, beauty of form and natural gracefulness has to be passed before the child is finally accepted. Mr Rothay Reynolds, who has an intimate knowledge of Russian life, gives an interesting account of the training:

“The school contains a great room for dancing, with a floor sloped at the same angle as that of the stage at the Marinsky Theatre. Here one may see a class of merry boys instructed in their art. A master, usually one of the best dancers in the theatre, shows them the steps and movements to be learnt, and half-a-dozen do their best to copy him. After ten minutes they go and rest, and a second batch comes forward. The boys seem to enjoy the work, and even when they are supposed to be resting some of them will continue to practise and give each other friendly hints. In another and similar room is the girls’ class, where the method is the same. Then there is a room with many toilet-tables on which grease-paints are set out and with mirrors and electric lights arranged exactly as at the theatre. Here the pupils assemble for lessons in make-up. A boy has to learn to transform himself into a Chinese or an old man or a beautiful young Greek, and he has to pass examinations at different points of his school career in this art. I remember once meeting a young man in the waiting-room of a Polish dentist” (he goes on to relate). “He told me he had toothache and a nervous break-down, brought on he believed by the strain of a difficult examination. I asked what were the subjects of the examination. ‘French,’ he said, ‘because we must be cultured, dancing, the history of dancing, and painting my face.’ I had the curiosity to ask where this unusual curriculum was followed. ‘At the Imperial School of Ballet,’ he said, mentioned his name with the air of one who felt that he ought to have been recognised, and added: ‘Thank heaven I’ve passed, and now I am a premier danseur. It is a delightful life, and when I am too old to dance the State will give me a pension.’”

THE RUSSIAN BALLET

AN UNDRESS REHEARSAL

The pupil at the Imperial Ballet School receives in fact a sound secondary education. Four hours a day are devoted to dancing during the eight years he is at school. While still at school the children occasionally appear on the stage in special ballets d’enfants. They also take part in “crowds” in operas where children are needed, as in the first act of Tchaikovsky’s Dame de Pique. At seventeen they begin their career as members of the corps de ballet, from which the most proficient rise upwards, through the various grades of coryphée, second sujet, premier sujet, première danseuse or ballerina, and ballerina assoluta. The dancer retires, after eighteen years’ service, at thirty-five—only artists of exceptional merit are permitted to continue after that age—and receives a pension of from one hundred and twenty pounds to two hundred and sixty pounds a year.

The fine quality of the performances of the Russian ballet is undoubtedly due in the first place to the prolonged and thorough training, not only of the principal dancers but of each individual performer. An average of five or six hours’ dancing a day is the rule rather than the exception; for a ballet that is to be performed at night is always rehearsed during the day, however many times it may have been given before. The counsel of Carlo-Blasis, the eighteenth-century ballet-master is fulfilled to the letter: “Il faut encore étudier,” he wrote, “lors même qu’on sera tout-à-fait formé.... Dans la musique, dans la peinture, etc., l’on n’a pas besoin d’un travail aussi opiniâtre pour conserver ce que l’on sait. L’art du danseur, comme tous ceux d’exercice, ne jouit pas de cet avantage.” In the Russian ballet there is a perfect co-operation between the performers and an all-round technical excellence quite unlike anything that has ever been seen in this country.