The Dance: Its Place in Art and Life

by Troy Kinney; Margaret West Kinney

Certainly the taste for dancing of a high class is no less worthy of indulgence and cultivation than the taste for the sister art of music. If music’s dependence upon endowment was once more evident than is that of dancing now, then so much less is the difficulty of financing a ballet institution; proportionately less, too, are the hazards and delays to be undergone before the institution arrives at a paying basis.

For the organisation and conduct of such an institution, the Russian ballet and Academy supplies a model that could be followed in most details. American sentiment probably would rebel at so complete a separation of children from parents as the Imperial Academy requires; but a less complete separation would not necessarily be detrimental to results. For actual technical work in dancing, plastic gymnastics, pantomime, music and other courses more than a few hours a day would be beyond the strength of very young pupils, leaving half of each day to attend common school. As the pupil advances, his hours per day in the academy could increase; he could acquire general education after his technical education is accomplished with just as good results as accompany the present reversal of that sequence.

The weak spot that appears in the plan is the possible interference of parents with the school’s discipline. The training of a dancer involves hard work and a great deal of it. Although the work be demonstrably beneficial in all ways, the American parents’ attitude toward that work and the accompanying discipline would be the question to be settled. Boys, to be sure, are sent sometimes at an early age to military schools, and there brought up under a more or less exact régime. But public sentiment favours the indulgence of the girl in all her wishes. It would be a matter requiring adjustment, and probably susceptible of adjustment. Far greater difficulties have been overcome.

Against the prevailing tendency to abandon the training in order to accept outside engagements, by which the Metropolitan Opera School of Ballet has been too often victimised, the academy could protect itself by requiring each pupil to file a bond as a condition of entrance, the amount to be forfeited if the pupil violates his agreement. Questions of payment, ranking of performers, amount of pensions and the like are details needless to consider in the general plan.

Proper equipment would represent a considerable expenditure: a modern theatre, or the liberal use of one; drill halls, music rooms, gymnasium, baths, etc. As to instructors, the right kind are available. At the outset, ballet-master and most of the dancers would have to be engaged from outside, their number decreasing as the school’s products reached the proficiency to take their places. The employment, at the beginning, of finished dancers, would be of advantage in establishing standards for students. Scenery, costumes and orchestra are to be had at the cost of thought and money. Medical and other expenses, taxes, etc., are minor considerations. Now to returns. In considering which, it is understood that such an undertaking may not make expenses at first. But it is not impossible that good management should reduce the losing years to a very small number.

Assuming (say) thirty performances in the home city during the first year: the prestige of that number of performances, kept up to a consistent pitch of excellence, would be nation-wide. As a result of that prestige, a long tour and several short ones would undoubtedly return an excess over salaries and costs. Bear in mind that a commercial undertaking of the sort must figure on recouping a heavy initial expense, and transportation of a company from Europe and return.

Special engagements of artists, in groups or individually, would net the institution a greater or less part of the receipts, according to the terms of individual contracts.

Considering conditions as they are, and looking at the history of music as a fair analogy, it would be safe to assume that local interest in dancing and the mimetic ballet would increase steadily after the institution’s first year, increasing income proportionately. On the other side of the account, expenses should begin to decrease after the third year. A wardrobe and a stock of scenery would have been accumulated, their cost reduced to upkeep and occasional additions. More important, pupils by that time would begin to qualify for the ballet, decreasing the pay-roll of European dancers. In eight years, if the institution has been reasonably fortunate, it should have a ballet recruited principally from its own school. These alumni, of whatever grade, it would have at low salaries; salaries at the same time satisfactory to the recipients, whose popularity as private teachers would be about in ratio to the quality of work with which they identified themselves in performances. Stated hours of exemption from duties connected with the ballet and the school would open the way to such extra revenue. The pay of the première danseuse of l’Opéra of Paris is small, in relation to the requirements of her position; but teaching and outside performances are said to yield her a comfortable income.

Pension payments would represent a loss more apparent than real, since many pensioners could, with adjustments, serve as teachers and aides in various capacities.

So far as can be learned, the foregoing covers the principal elements of expense and possibilities of revenue. The difficulties would be heavy, but less so than those that have been met and overcome. The ballet institution, achieved, would be a contribution to the fine arts no less glorious than any this country has yet received, an organism whose service to broad æsthetic cultivation has been equalled by few.