INSPIRATION
WHEN you present yourself as a pupil it is to be inferred that you are already inspired with a desire to become a dancer of the first quality. That is good and as it should be. Without inspiration no one has ever accomplished anything worth while in any line of endeavor. Stage dancing is never a matter of luck or breeding; it is the direct result of hard work under competent instruction, with your being inspired to bring forth the very best that is in you.
All of us here at the Ned Wayburn Studios are inspired with a desire to create a career for you, if you desire one. Whether we succeed in our endeavor or not depends upon you. We will do our part faithfully, earnestly and joyfully, and furnish you such an opportunity as no other generation of aspirants for stage honors and success ever possessed. Our courses themselves, as well as our scientific method of developing you, are really inspiring to the new student with the primary inspiration of desiring a successful, honorable and profitable career.
As you approach the studio building from Broadway you note that its appearance is attractive. It is new, clean, impressive; and on the large second and third floor main windows, and on the Broadway and 60th Street corner windows, you note the signs, the lettering that stands out, to tell you that you have arrived at the haven of your dreams and hopes.
You step off Broadway and enter the corridor of the studio building through the main entrance on 60th Street, where elevators await you, to convey you the single flight up to the second floor, and you step directly into our main business office. Here is found further inspiration, for stage dancing is here treated as a business and in a business-like way, and our business office indicates that fact to the newcomer at the very first glance.
The prospective pupil approaches the long counter. She is greeted by Mrs. Wayburn, who acts as hostess, or chaperon, or it may be by some other principal or employee, whose business it is to welcome and greet the new arrivals who come to us daily. Your introduction of yourself is followed naturally by your questions as to this or that which you wish to know about our terms and methods, to confirm your own understanding of the matter. These are answered fully and courteously. Our greeters welcome your inquiries. Ask us just what you want to know, and their response will be politely given. Anyone behind the counter thoroughly understands dancing.
Are you from out of the city, and do you wish to be directed to a suitable hotel, boarding house, studio apartment or private residence for your domicile while here? We have a list of desirable and investigated places to suit all purses and all needs, and are glad to pass the information on to our students.
Your questions being answered to your satisfaction, you decide to enroll. The booking secretary invites you behind the counter, where an enrollment card and contract is made out and signed. This contract stipulates the number of lessons you are to receive and the kind of stage dancing you are to take. You take the work just as I have personally laid it out in the courses. The matter of tuition is arranged, and you, as one of us, are invited to accompany a guide to the various classrooms, studios, offices and other departments of the two large floors—and absorb inspiration for your future work from what you observe in the way of modern facilities and actual instruction being given to live classes.
There is nothing more inspiring to the new pupil than to see our various dancing classes in action. In fact, a view of our classes in progress of work is inspiring to anyone, professional or non-professional. The girls do their class work with a vim and snap that betokens their interest and their intention to make good. They are a smiling happy lot of young ladies that it does one good to look at. Especially is this true of the advanced classes; the beginners' classes are busy learning the A, B, C's of dancing, and these rudiments are absorbing. But to watch the beginners today, and then see the same pupils a few weeks later as they advance in ease of movement and in a completer understanding of their work, is most inspiring of all—inspiring to you who see them and to the progressing pupils themselves. If it were possible or practical to let the public in to look at our classes at work, our present large quarters would soon prove inadequate to give foot room to the great number of inspired ladies who would wish to enroll here and join in the gayeties. There is contagion in watching our best students at their "play."
Our new pupil is escorted also into my private office, there to be welcomed by me personally. A large and richly furnished room is this, its walls decorated with photographs of stage stars of universal fame who have been developed by me, and incidentally helped up the ladder of fame. Here is inspiration on every hand.