The developpé above referred to is a usual means of bringing a leg to horizontal, as a preliminary to further work. It is the opening step of many a dance-poem, and a pretty accurate index of the class of work to follow. If the leg rises without hurry or faltering, and unfolds with its proper sense of proud elegance; if always the body keeps the serene relaxation that accompanies only the perfection of equilibrium, there is coming a feast for the gods. Far from the least of Genée’s manifestations of virtuosity is the legato poise of her entrance stepping down from a picture frame: so deliberate and even is her developpé that the eye at first fails to discern movement, as though it were watching the opening of a morning glory. Never the twitch of a muscle, never an impulse of hurry, never the suspicion of hesitation—through bar after bar of music, the ethereal one makes that first step reverence-compelling in its incredible beauty of movement.
Analogous to the developpé in execution is the pas de cheval, the latter, however, serving to change the dancer’s place on the floor. It is proud, strong, triumphant; used in an advance of a corps de ballet toward the spectator, the motive of dominance is strongly felt. Though effective, it is not one of the structural parts, like the steps heretofore described. It is, rather, a decorative unit superadded. The same may be said of the pas de chat, which is a jerky, short and very rapid simple alternating step; bending the knees sharply, but not bringing them high; the feet crossing at each step. It is not the physical locomotion of a cat, but it is a good interpretation of the spirit of an especially capricious one. It expresses well the idea of witchcraft or mischievous spirits.
Going to the extreme contrast of this step, a fortissimo effect is attained by the male dancer’s form of extended jump. It is necessarily high; but it emphasises especially its effect of length horizontally. (See figures 74 and 75.) Auguste Vestris, the eighteenth-century virtuoso, owed a part of his reputation to his power in this step; “suspended in the air” was the phrase attaching to his performance of it. Its function is, in great part, to astonish. Women accomplish its effect with the aid of a supporting man; the change of level attained by this leap aided by a “lift” is indeed a harmonised explosion, especially if it follows an arrangement of little steps.
Stories of the impression created by Vestris’ leap would be quite incredible were their possibility not confirmed in our own time. In Scheherazade Volinine jumped a distance that seemed literally more than half the width of a big stage. An illusion, of course. The world’s record in the broad jump is less than twenty-five feet, and the broad jumper’s covered distance does not look so impressive in actuality as it does on paper, at that. Whereas the dancer’s leap seems to be under no particular limit—when adequately performed, which is rare. Being typical of the trickery by which dancing plays with the eye, it may be worth analysing.
The magic is based on two illusions. First, horizontal lines are insisted upon and preserved as continuous; while lines not horizontal are “broken up” into short lengths, to the end that they make comparatively little impression on the eye. The pose itself, then, is horizontal, which practically coincides with the direction of the dancer’s flight. Every one has seen the experiment of apparently shortening one of two equal pencil lines by means of cutting short lines across it: the converse of the same principle governs the jump. As the pencil line was shortened by cross lines, the jump is lengthened by long lines parallel to its direction.