position that symbolises prayer for the divine light—the hand below the chin emphasising the upturn of the face, the upper hand suggesting the flame. With awe the new intelligence gazes upon the world, open-eyed; then it must draw aside the veil of the future. Fulness of life is seen awaiting, which the dancer expresses by a gesture representing roundness, the accepted Oriental representation of completeness and richness. But wait! she will grow old, and with bent back will walk stumbling at the heels of a camel. But a defiance to age and the future! Now she is young; her body is straight and her limbs round. A defiant expression of the joy of life follows, yet undertoned withal with unforgettable sadness; movements of happiness, a face of tragedy.
The sombre majesty of the pictures, especially those of the search into the future; the reverence-compelling mystery of the somnambulistic movements—a hundred things about this dance raise it to the very uppermost plane of its kind of art. So far beyond mere skill are its movements, so completely alien to anything in Occidental knowledge, that to Occidental eyes they are as unearthly as they are imposing. Reason fails, chloroformed by beauty; the real becomes the unreal, the unreal the real. Imagination is released from the tentacles of fact and time. The future? It could be seen for the trouble of turning the head to look; but what profit foreknowledge either of cuts or caresses? Curiosity is for the very young. Better and wiser the lot of ignorance....
Hypnotism of a kind? Granted. Finely rendered, this dance represents the utmost development of the co-ordination of rhythm, sentiment, and appropriateness of movement. That combination in its turn is undoubtedly the essence of the Oriental magic that, since the world was young, has enabled men to dream dreams and see visions. Among the newer civilisations the emotional power of rhythm is as unknown as it is untried.
The Egyptian’s passion for decoration is served by the dance, no less ably than is his love of the metaphysical. In the homes of the rich there is said to be a form of decorative choreography, like a ballet in structure, that duplicates and animates a painted or sculptured frieze on the walls of the room. The dancers enter one at a time, taking their positions in turn under the figures of the frieze, copying each in pose as they come into place under it. The intervals between poses are of course enriched by carefully related movements, so that the line of dancers, advancing together from figure to figure, shall move as a harmonised unit. The scheme creates a manifold interest: the line of dancers represents an animated version of the frieze; though it is seen to move, its figures remain in a sense unchanged; yet to watch any one performer is to see her change constantly. The human line and the mural frieze collectively form a background for the work of a leading dancer, who flits from place and duplicates the poses of such figures as she may choose.
In another entertainment, descriptions tell of huge vases carried in and placed back of the dancing space, as though they were decorative adjuncts forgotten until the last moment. They are placed, and the servants retire, just before the first dancer opens the programme. A spectator unfamiliar with the diversion would notice that the vases were elaborately ornamented with carved figures. These one by one relax their archaic severity