Modern dancing and dancers

by J. E. Crawford Flitch

of Théophile Gautier. It is the story of a young girl who falls asleep in her chair, worn out with the fatigue and excitement of the ball. In her dream the rose which she holds in her hand becomes a genie, who dances with her, kisses her and disappears at break of day.

Here again Leon Bakst has created a scene of grave yet tender simplicity, with the fine, strict lines of a Beardsley drawing. The girl’s bedroom is a scheme of white and blue; on one side an alcove with a bed, on the other a plain white dressing-table. The windows open upon a garden. Moonlight falls upon the floor. It is all very intimate, reposeful and virginal. The girl wears a simple white frock, the spirit of the rose a fantastic costume of crimson and purple petals.

The pas de deux is executed by Nijinsky and Karsavina. Nothing could be more graciously conceived than Mme Karsavina’s representation of the girl dancing in her dream. With half-closed eyes she rises slowly from her chair and sways across the room in a kind of swoon, following the gentle guidance of the flower-spirit. Then as her dream becomes more vivid she recovers a little strength and dances of her own motion, but always with a suggestion of unconsciousness, as though less to the music of the orchestra than to some dimly remembered melody of the brain. As in the manner of episodes in a dream, she darts into swift movements, which pass again into languor. For an instant the kiss awakens her, she looks round upon the familiar aspect of her room, then the tired head sinks again upon her breast. It is a very gentle rendering of the mood of recollection and happy, unperturbed trance.

In this dream-ballet Nijinsky is a being of amazing agility and grace. He is as light upon the air as a rose petal. He contrives to bring into his dancing something of the gentleness of the moonlit night and the fragrance of the dawn. He shows himself as capable of delicate and almost womanly motion as he is of masculine vivacity and vigour. And when he floats out through the open window back to his rose-garden, he almost persuades one for the moment that he has discovered the secret of human flight.

In Les Sylphides the producers have been daring enough to forget to be modern. They have rehabilitated a form of ballet for which a few years ago one would have said there could be no resurrection. The piece has no action, no colour, no idea, almost no sentiment—it is choregraphy pure and simple, as abstract as mathematics. It is described vaguely as a romantic reverie. The romantic note is sounded by the dim backcloth of ruins and moonlight by M. Benois. The score of dancers wear the traditional costume, pure white, the skirt rather long, as Taglioni might have worn it.

The piece, however, has no connection with the ballet of a similar name in which Taglioni made her great success. It is an adaptation of various compositions of Chopin, which have been orchestrated by Glazounov and other composers. The orchestral version is less faithful to the original than that of Schumann’s Carnaval, but the additions are all in the spirit of the whole. Nijinsky and Karsavina each danced a mazurka, and together in the Valse in C sharp minor they executed a pas de deux that was a perfectly finished artistic achievement. For the finale there was the Valse brillante in E flat, in which the grouping of the dancers displayed the skill of M. Fokine at its highest.

Les Sylphides is somewhat in the nature of a challenge, and it must be admitted that it is a successful challenge. In it the producers claim that the purely musical and choregraphic interests are sufficient. Of its kind it is no less than perfect. It is from beginning to end a rhythmic flow of flawless gestures, which make a rounded whole of a chaste and immaculate quality like that of the finest sculpture. More remarkable than the steps is the purity of the lines of the arms, interweaving like the overarching branches of a forest glade or the groining of the aisle of a Gothic cathedral. Yet was there not perhaps a moment when the disconcerting thought intruded itself: Supposing the ballet were always to move in this atmosphere of perfect calm? Without a doubt Les Sylphides gained some of its charm from its place in sequence of the ballets. As an interlude among pieces of more violent action, it had the repose of a statue in the midst of canvases hot with colour and tumultuous with movement.

LES SYLPHIDES

Photograph: Bert, Paris.