The art of Miss St Denis is not free from adventitious elements. It is too much concerned with the expression of ideas to give itself up wholly to the creation of beauty. It is symbolic, but not in the large, suggestive way in which Isadora Duncan’s dancing is symbolic; the symbolism is somewhat limited, artificial and literal. Her dancing, moreover, with some exceptions, tends to be static, an affair of postures and poses, and in some cases these postures are more learned than beautiful. Miss Denis is an imitative rather than a creative artist—that is to say, she attempts to interpret the East with both fidelity to the letter and the spirit, rather than to use its gestures freely, with the bold grasp of an artist, as elements of design. Her treatment of the East is in direct opposition to that of the creators of Scheherazade, who have been reckless of accuracy of detail, who have sought only for the materials to build up a gorgeous pattern, and have passed every concrete fact through the fire of a transforming artistic imagination. If, as has been said, the art of the future lies in a West that is conscious of the East, the recognition of the East will be in the manner of Monsieur Fokine rather than in that of Miss St Denis. Nevertheless, Miss Ruth
LEONORA
AS A SPANISH DANCER
Photograph: Dover Street Studios, Ltd.
St Denis duly ranks as one of the most cultured dancers of the time, and, in her special sphere, certainly the most learned. Her dancing is penetrated with the finest spirit of Indian art in much the same way in which Isadora Duncan’s is imbued with the art of Greece. She has explored a new tract of the vast country which Miss Duncan opened up, and by interpreting the art of the East she has perceptibly broadened the scope of dancing in the West.
Probably those who are trying to revive the Classical Dance would succeed in getting closer to its spirit if they were to add to their study of the figures on ancient vases and frescoes an observation of the living Spanish dance of to-day. The gesture of a people has a more ancient and unchanging history than its speech, and it is unquestionable that much of the gesture of the ancient world has been preserved among the Spanish people, who still retain something of the inner spirit as well as of the outward circumstances of the ancient civilisation. Many of the poses found in the Greek figurines are essentially those of Spanish women; the play of the arms and hands, the sideward movement, the extreme backward extension of the head and body, are movements common both to the Greek and the Spanish dance. The castanet, which is invariably associated with Spanish dancing, was also used in Greece. The dancing that persists in Spain is almost certainly of a kind that was once common all round the shores of the Mediterranean. It has of course been modified by an Oriental influence, but it possessed its special characteristics long before the coming of the Moors. In the early days of the Roman Empire the dancers of Cadiz created a furore in Rome comparable to that which the Russians have aroused in the Paris and London of to-day.
Spanish dancing has been made familiar to French and English audiences by several dancers of repute, of whom the best known are Carmencita, Otero, Guerrero and Tortajada. There are some kinds of dancing, however, which are untranslatable into the terms of the art of other countries. The Spanish dance is intensely national. The snapping of the castanets, the short and insolent skirt, the exciting rhythm of the music, do not alone suffice for the performance of the jota or the fandango, as some foreign artists would appear to suppose; nor even when the dancer has caught the trick of the swaying of the hips, the lightning of the eyes, the arched back and provocative gestures, has she caught the spirit of the dance. She must first transform herself into a Spaniard. The Spanish dance depends almost wholly on personality; and not on the personality of the dancer alone, for it is one of those dances which seem to require an indefinable “rapport” between the dancer and the spectator. Mr Havelock Ellis has drawn attention to this feature in an interesting passage in “The Soul of Spain.” One of the characteristics of Spanish dancing, he says, “lies in its accompaniments, and particularly in the fact that under proper conditions all the spectators are themselves performers. In flamenco dancing, among an audience of the people, every one takes a part by rhythmic clapping and stamping, and by the occasional prolonged ‘olés’ and other cries by which the dancer is encouraged or applauded. Thus the dance is not the spectacle for the amusement of a languid and passive public, as with us. It is rather the visible embodiment of an emotion in which every spectator himself takes an active and helpful part; it is, as it were, a vision evoked by the spectators themselves and upborne on the continuous waves of rhythmical sound which they generate. Thus it is that at the end of a dance an absolute silence often falls, with no sound of applause: the relation of performer and public has ceased to exist. So personal is this dancing that it may be said that an intimate association with the spectators is necessary for its full manifestation. The finest Spanish dancing is at once killed or degraded by the presence of an indifferent or unsympathetic public, and that is probably why it cannot be transplanted but remains local.”
The success of La Carmencita was primarily due to this free play of personality which the Spanish dance permits. Mr John Sargent’s picture, by which she will always be known to posterity, admirably displays the bold carriage, the somewhat defiant attitude, the suggestion of suppressed fire, which are characteristic of her type. As a dancer pure and simple, she was surpassed by many who never attained her wide reputation. She had gone through