What shall be the technique of ballet, and to what extent shall it be influenced by that of the dance?
To-day, the forms of dancing are various, but there are three main divisions: first, all popular forms of “step,” or, to adopt an old and useful term, “toe-and-heel” dancing; secondly, the traditional “toe”-dancing of classic ballet, capable of every nuance of expression; and thirdly, the various forms of rhythmic movement and effects of poise, which seem to approach nearly to the ancient Hellenic ideal of the Dance, and of which Miss Isadora Duncan was perhaps the first exponent in England, as Mrs. Roger Watts is the latest; while yet another phase of the same ideal is seen in the Eurhythmic system of Jacques Dalcroze, which has had, and will have, great influence in many directions.
We have seen on the London stage ballets in which the dancing was almost wholly “step”-dancing, toe-and-heel—such as “On the Heath,” at the Alhambra; we have seen numberless ballets in which the traditional “toe”-dancing was paramount, from “Coppélia” to “Roberto il Diavolo,” or the later productions of the Russians; we have not yet seen a ballet composed entirely, or even mainly on the lines of the Hellenic revival, though we have had hints of it in concerted dances by pupils of Miss Duncan and others, and the complete thing may yet come, though, personally, I question the advisability. We have already had some curious, interesting, and not quite illogical attempts to suggest scenic effect by means of living people performing appropriate and rhythmic movements, as in the production of Mr. Reginald Buckley’s poetic drama “King Arthur.”
In one or other of these three divisions of the dance and the respective technical advance in each, lie the chief means of artistic expression for the master of ballet in the future, and it may be that the traditional “ballet”-dancing, with its marvellous flexibility of expression, will, so long as the present standard of technique is sustained, always maintain its supremacy over the purely popular forms of dancing, and the newer modes of rhythmic movement and gesture. It has at least stood the test of time, as a definite and logical medium of artistic expression.
As to the master-mind that is to select one or other of these forms of the Dance, and combine it with miming, music and scenic effect to achieve a ballet that shall be the medium of ideas, worthy to range as a work of art alongside the tried masterpieces of painting, music, drama or literature, it may be questioned if we shall see anything worthier than the past has given us at its best. Some new Noverre or Blasis, Wilhelm or Fokine may yet arise, of course; but until such a one come forth we may be well content with the standard which the Past has managed to achieve.
To that standard this volume is a willing tribute; a faithful record, which may have novelty for some, unaware of days before their time; while for others, whose memory of more recent—but yet receding!—events, grows dim, it may come as a friendly reminder of pleasant hours spent, by writer and by reader, in contemplating from the auditorium the varied examples seen at London theatres of the protean Art of Ballet.
THE END