denying gravity, is wrong. The Greeks usually danced without shoes; bare went the feet of Miss Duncan.
Let it not be supposed that her ideal contemplated an imitation of natural actions, or had any relation to realism. Natural qualities, not actions, she proposed to interpret, not imitate, by means of natural movements. That is at least the inference pointed by the essay referred to, confirmed by her work. “Natural movements” would be defined, if the same process of inference may be followed, as movements whose execution are possible by a normal body without special training. From this it does not follow that uncultivated movements would be acceptable by the terms of the proposition. To raise an arm is a natural movement, hence acceptable to this code. To learn to raise it gracefully, a Duncanite would need to put in just as much time and thought as a ballet student, standards of grace being equal. It does, however, follow that any gravity-defying step would be unacceptable by the terms of the proposition. Without special training it cannot be executed, badly, or at all; which, from the Duncan point of view, would throw it into the class of unnatural movements.
To fix the meaning of the idea of interpreting natural qualities, nothing better can be done than to quote a paragraph of Miss Duncan’s own words: “These flowers before me contain the dream of a dance; it could be named: ‘The light falling on white flowers.’ A dance that would be a subtle translation of the light and the whiteness—so pure, so strong, that people would say, ‘It is a soul we see moving, a soul that has reached the light and found the whiteness. We are glad it should move so.’ Through its human medium we have a satisfying sense of the movement of light and glad things. Through this human medium, the movement of all nature runs also through us, is transmitted to us from the dancer. We feel the movement of light intermingled with the thought of whiteness. It is a prayer, this dance, each movement reaches in long undulations to the heavens and becomes a part of the eternal rhythm of the spheres.”
Fifteen years ago a creed of interpreting qualities in the manner above indicated, by means of dancing, was quite as alien to the United States as was the Greek costume that left the legs uncovered and the feet unshod. The costume probably was as surprising on the stage then as it would be in a ballroom now. And right there comes in the complete artist. Miss Duncan knew she was right, and she went ahead. Perhaps she anticipated the snickers with which a new idea is usually greeted; more likely she was sublimely heedless of immediate effects.