You are no doubt familiar in a general way with the Musical Comedy type of dancing, which is really an exaggerated form of fancy dancing. It includes the now popular but simpler "soft-shoe" dances, dainty, soft, pretty movements with many effective attitudes of the body, all sorts of "kicking" and "fancy" steps. As a matter of fact, this type of dancing is perhaps the most difficult of all to define exactly, because often musical comedy dances include a few tap steps and sometimes simple ballet movements, or combinations, as we term them. Our musical comedy dances are arranged in routines, or sequences of not less than ten steps, including an entrance, eight steps to the dance, and an exit movement. The entrance is a travelling step, a step which gets you onto the stage; then comes the dance itself consisting of eight steps; then the exit which must include a step which will make a decided climax to the whole dance. I have already explained the importance of making an effective exit. In a subsequent chapter, I will describe more in detail a musical comedy routine.
Perhaps Acrobatic Dancing is the most difficult of all the types to master—that is, it most certainly requires a degree of strength that the other dances do not demand; sufficient strength in the arms to support the weight of the body in the hand-stand and the cartwheel, flexibility of the muscles in order to do the "limbers" and back-bends. All of the acrobatic tricks—hand-stands, cartwheels, splits, roll-overs, back-bends, front-overs, inside-outs, nip-ups, "butterflies," flip-flops, Boranis, somersaults, etc., are very difficult and require special adaptability and inexhaustible patience, but almost any normal human being between the ages of four and thirty can learn even the advanced tumbling tricks in time, but only by keen application and persistent practice.
The fourth of the basic types of dancing is my Modern Americanized Ballet, a most graceful type of dance which requires and developes beauty and grace of motion of the head, the hands, the arms, the feet and legs, of the whole body, in fact. This Americanized ballet is subdivided into various types of dances—toe dancing, classical dancing, character dancing, interpretive dancing, covering all kinds of National and folk dancing. These have attention elsewhere in this volume.
Exhibition dancing constitutes the fifth type, and is varied in its possibilities. It is the kind you see exhibited by a dancing team in public and private ballrooms and at social or club functions, and may take the form of the exhibition fox trot, the exhibition one-step, the tango, the exhibition waltz or the whirlwind dance. It is very pretty and very profitable work for those who are adapted to its interpretation. This type of dancing is not taught in classes in the Ned Wayburn Studios, but is given special attention under qualified private tutors, in private lessons, and has prepared some remarkable dancers in this field. Two of the popular dances which I have conceived and arranged and which have lately swept the world are the ballroom "Charleston" dance and the exhibition "Charleston."
As my pupil you will discover in the course of your advancement that you have a particular preference for one of these types of dancing, or perhaps two, or three. Each person has his or her own personality, and certain personalities are better suited to the Tap and Step style of dancing than to the Ballet, for instance. But in order to meet the competition in stage dancing in the future, you require a knowledge of the five basic types, as outlined.
I cannot emphasize too strongly the importance of personality in a successful stage career. Along with the actual mastering of the dancing steps and acquisition of health and a beautiful body, comes just as surely the development of personality. And since each individual has a distinct personality it is advisable for everyone to select the type of dancing best suited to that personality. It is because of this quality that the performance of stars like Evelyn Law, Marilyn Miller, Ann Pennington, Gilda Gray and Fred and Adele Astaire leaves a lasting impression. Every step, every movement is designed to drive home the characteristics of their individuality. Even more important than the actual dancing steps they do is the manner in which they execute them—the individuality which gives expression to all that they do. It is the almost indefinable factor called personality which lifts one out of the ranks of the chorus and makes the solo dancer. In this book I am trying to help you develop your personality, in the way that I have discovered and developed the personalities of so many of today's stars.
Most emphatically I want to impress upon you that it is not "chorus work" that you learn in my courses. It is professional, individual dancing, taught thoroughly and completely.
Anyone who masters the dances takes on a certain confident feeling in time, after exercising great patience in practice. With this confidence the happy pupil radiates a new magnetic personality which the audience feels. But more about this later on, when you will learn just how one's self is injected into the dances until they are vitalized and made living exponents of a beautiful art.