Modern dancing and dancers

by J. E. Crawford Flitch

Although “finish” in a technical sense is the peculiar characteristic of Genée’s art, it is not marked by those almost indefinable nuances which give the dance, no less than the painting or the poem, a quality with which not even the finest workmanship can endow it. These refinements belong to the region not of the intelligence but of the spirit, and cannot be laid hold of by analysis. They depend upon a very delicate perception, upon a subtle responsiveness to the rhythm of life. Underlying the precision of her work is a kind of crudity. There is no mood of creative beauty. The outline is firm rather than tender. The emotional qualities of the dance are explicit, simple and wholesome, but they are never subtle, nor do they appear to be nourished by a great depth of spirit. We miss the suggestion of those moods that are elemental and incalculable. There is a gladness that cannot show itself in frolicsomeness, and there is an ecstasy too near to tears to have any likeness to high spirits. Perfect within its own domain, we feel that beyond the frontiers of her art lie tracts of the spirit unexplored.

To Adeline Genée England in particular owes a debt greater than to any other dancer. It was she who continued, or rather restored, the tradition of the great dancing of the earlier half of the last century. She aroused enthusiasm for the ballet in an age when that enthusiasm had grown cold. She helped to put an end to a perverted form of dancing. Her example shone out with a clear light in that thick darkness just before the dawn, and for more than a decade she remained true to her ideals through good report and ill. It is safe to say that when the devotees of many other deities of the dance have ceased to kindle their tapers, her own shrine will always be brightly illuminated.

Mr Max Beerbohm has paid her a notable tribute, which has all the more value seeing that he confesses that for him the ballet has no meaning. “No monstrous automaton is that young lady,” he said, writing of her performance in Coppelia in 1906. “Perfect though she be in the ‘haute école,’ she has by some miracle preserved her own self. She was born a comedian and a comedian she remains, light and liberal as foam. A mermaid were not a more surprising creature than she—she of whom one half is as that of an authentic ballerina, whilst the other is that of a most intelligent, most delightfully human actress. A mermaid were, indeed, less marvellous in our eyes. She would not be able to diffuse any semblance of humanity into her tail. Madame Genée’s intelligence seems to vibrate in her very toes. Her dancing, strictliest classical though it is, is a part of her acting. And her acting, moreover, is of so fine a quality that she makes the old ineloquent conventions of gesture tell their meanings to me, and tell them so exquisitely that I quite forget my craving for words.... Taglioni in Les Arabesques? I suspect, in my heart of hearts, she was no better than a doll. Grisi in Giselle? She may, or may not, have been passable. Genée! It is a name our grandchildren will cherish, even as we cherish now the names of those bygone dancers. And alas! our grandchildren will never believe, will never be able to imagine, what Genée was.”

Is there a young English dancer of promise who will one day vindicate the honour of England and succeed to the place which Genée now triumphantly holds in the popular favour? Miss Phyllis Bedells is a possible candidate for fame. She has recently taken the principal rôle in Sylvia at the Empire in the absence of Madame

ADELINE GENÉE

IN A Dream of Butterflies and Roses

Photograph: Dover Street Studios, Ltd.

Kyasht, but she danced more happily in her original subordinate part. Her dancing has a charm which in some measure is enhanced by its very faultiness. It is the charm of immaturity, the suggestion of the delightful gambolling of a young animal at play. Her training, so far as it goes, has been painstaking, but what chiefly distinguishes her performance from the routine work of the average English dancer is an unaffected zest, almost a vividness of delight, which the obvious troublesomeness of the technique is unable to depress. The main difference between the would-be dancer and the born dancer is that the dance of the former is always the repetition of a lesson, whereas every dance of the latter is like a new creation. So far as it is already possible to judge, Miss Bedells belongs to the latter class.