One of the weird ancient Egyptian dances that has survived and is practiced by several Oriental races, particularly in Arabia, Persia and Sahara, is the Graveyard Dance. It is known that the Almeiis used to perform this dance at midnight on the graveyards of rich Egyptians, frequently around the pyramids. Though semi-religious, it did not belong to the classified sacred dances performed under the supervision of the clergy. Prof. Elisseieff thinks that this dance probably originated in lower Egypt and belonged there to a recognized temple ceremony, but the priests in upper Egypt failed to recognize it, so the Almeiis monopolized it with great advantage.
The Graveyard Dance performed in the East to-day is wild, weird and ghastly. It is performed by women, dressed in long robes, which cover even their heads. It is danced on moonlight nights by professional Almeiis. These are hired by the relatives or descendants of the rich dead to accompany the wandering soul until it reaches that sphere which belongs to it. There is much strange symbolism and morbid beauty in the Graveyard Dance. Just as weird as the dance is the music, produced from pipes and drums, often accompanied by hooting or sobbing voices. It begins in a slow measure, the dancers marching like spectral shadows in a circle around the musicians. Gradually the music grows quicker, as does the dance. It ends in a wild fury after which the dancers drop unconscious to the ground.
The dances of the living Almeiis and Hawasis and their imitators give little idea of the high art of dancing that was practiced thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt. The modern axis and stomach dances that are practiced by the daughters of the various tribes of the desert are crude acrobatic feats and vulgar degenerations of the graceful and highly developed art that has vanished with the whole ancient civilization of Egypt. In 1900 there appeared in Paris a supposed-to-be descendant of the celebrated ancient Almeiis, La belle, unique et incomparable Fatma, giving performances of ‘Egyptian Wedding Scenes’ and a ‘Dance of Glasses,’ which created a sensation among the decadent artists and writers. However, her success was more due to her beautiful body and its vivid gestures in suggesting certain erotic emotions, than to any real art. On the other hand, Isadora Duncan, Mme. Villiani and Desmond have attempted to arouse interest in the Egyptian dances by giving performances that they have claimed to be the genuine classic art of the Nile. According to them, all that a modern dancer needs in becoming Egyptian is to dress as the Egyptians did and produce poses, if possible, with the fewest possible garments, that are to be seen in the ancient fresco paintings, sculptures and hieroglyphs. Then again, the Russian ballet, touring in Europe, announced in its repertoire an Egyptian ballet Cleopatra, which was to be a revelation of unseen beauties of the lost ancient civilization. However, all efforts of the modern imagination are unable to lift the veil of the ages.
Though posterity can catch more accurate fragments in the degenerated dances of Almeiis, Hawasis and the few folk-dances of Young Egypt than in the artificial imitations of various choreographic modernists, as a whole we know but a microscopic part of the vanished age of the Pharaohs. The few scarce records that we possess of the Egyptian dancing speak eloquently of an art far superior to anything which our boasted civilization has yet reached.
CHAPTER III
DANCING IN INDIA
Lack of art sense among the Hindoos; dancing and the Brahmin religion; the Apsarazases, Bayaderes and Devadazis; Hindoo music and the dance; dancing in modern Indian; Fakir dances; philosophic symbolism of the Indian dance.
The civilization of ancient India was, with the exception of China, the only rival to that of Egypt. But it is remarkable that the Indian mind took a totally different direction from the Egyptian. The tendency towards spiritual expansion that manifested itself in Egypt and Greece became in India a tendency towards concentration. The Indian mind lacked the gift of observation and mathematical proportions, so essential in art, that was possessed by the subjects of the Pharaohs. For this reason we find a magnificent Indian philosophy and mystic science, but an undeveloped feeling for æsthetic values. With the exception of weird and bizarre architecture, that manifested itself most powerfully in the pagodas and temples, the Indian sculpture, painting, music and dancing are too primitive for our taste, as they probably were for that of the ancient Egyptians and Greeks.
In all the Indian constructive arts, in their temple decorations and frescoes, we find very few dancing figures, still fewer graceful reproductions of the human body. Their gods and goddesses look to us like monsters. The Indian Venera, to be seen in the Pagoda of Bangilore, looks like a caricature, as compared with the Greek Aphrodite. The Indian goddess of dancing, Ramble, who, according to the legend, was a courtesan of Indra, and gave birth to two daughters, Nandra (Luxury) and Bringa (Pleasure), lacks all the loftiness and charm which surrounded the dancing goddesses of Egypt and Greece. There is neither life nor grace in any of the Indian temple art. Even the smile of Indian gods is stupid and inexpressive. The lack of humor and joy mirrors itself best in the art of the Bayaderes, the celebrated dancers of India. Their gestures and movements are void of that exultant gaiety and optimism that predominates in dances of other nations. An air of gloom and pessimism emanates from all the Indian art.
There is no doubt that the peculiarities of Indian music have been obstacles to the development of the national dance. Although it is full of color and feeling, yet the division of their scale into so many more tone units than ours makes it extremely difficult for a dancer to catch the delicate nuances and lines and reproduce them in movement. A few dancing designs here and there give the impression that this art has not changed during the four thousand years of the nation’s existence. Since the whole Indian civilization is the same to-day that it was thousands of years ago, we are pretty safe in our assumption that the dances of the Bayaderes exhibited at Calcutta or Benares now were pretty nearly the same during the life of Buddha. The modern dances, like the old ones, show similarity in the fact that the Indian dancers stand nearly at one spot and hardly move their feet, while mimicking, and moving their body, arms, hands and fingers. The individual peculiarity of all Indian dances lies in the impressionistic poses of their hands and the body.