found dances of ceremony, pantomimic representations of wide variety, and eccentricities that almost trespass on the domain of sleight-of-hand. The best known is a Dance of Eggs. The performer, as she starts whirling, takes eggs one by one from a basket that she carries, and sets them into slip-nooses at the several ends of cords that hang from her belt. Centrifugal motion pulls each cord taut as soon as it receives the weight of an egg. Finally all the cords, numbering from a dozen to twenty, are extended, each bearing its insecurely fastened egg. The dance is completed by collecting the eggs and returning them unbroken to the basket.
Another diversion is the Cobra Dance popularised in America by Miss Ruth St. Denis—assisted by numerous imitators. One hand is held in a shape to suggest the form of a cobra’s head, and huge jewels add a striking resemblance to the creature’s eyes. The performer of the cobra representation sits cross-legged. The hand suggesting the snake’s head glides over the body, with frequent sudden pauses to reconnoitre; the arm following it—in the case of Miss St. Denis so amazingly supple and so skilfully made to seem jointless that it suggests the snake’s body almost to reality—takes the appropriate sinuous movements around shoulders and neck. The free hand completes that which at times is almost an illusion by stroking and semi-guiding the head. Miss St. Denis herself watches the hand with just the alertness and caution to convey an impression of latent danger of which she, the snake charmer, is not afraid, but which she must anticipate with keen attention. Withal she never for an instant slips from her high key of grace, rhythm and style.
It is to Miss St. Denis that America and western
