CHAPTER X
THE FOLK-DANCES OF EUROPE
The rise of nationalism—The Spanish folk-dances: the Fandango; the Jota; the Bolero; the Seguidilla; other Spanish folk-dances; general characteristics; costumes—England: the Morris dance; the Country dance; the Sword dance; the Horn dance—Scotland: Scotch Reel, Hornpipe, etc.—Ireland: the Jig; British social dances—France: Rondé, Bourrée and Farandole—Italy: the Tarantella, etc.—Hungary: the Czardas, Szolo and related dances; the Esthonians—Germany: the Fackeltanz, etc.—Finland; Scandinavia and Holland—The Lithuanians, Poles and Southern Slavs; the Roumanians and Armenians—The Russians: ballad dances; the Kasatchy and Kamarienskaya; conclusion.
The greatest factor in the stimulation of European art, particularly music, drama and ballet after the bloody Napoleonic wars, was the rise of nationalism, vigorously manifested in the folk-art—dresses, customs, decorations, buildings, songs and dances—of various nations. The first steps in this direction were taken by the Scandinavians: Grieg, Ibsen, Björnson and August Bournoville. What Noverre was to aristocratic France that Bournoville was to Scandinavia. Instead of searching for models and inspiration in the aristocratic traditions of the past centuries, these men turned to the inexhaustible treasuries of the national folk-art. And they truly discovered new beauties in the simple racial traits of the people. In the previously despised peasant art they found unexpected æsthetic gems, out of which they began to form the individual beauties of their new art.
The Scandinavians were soon followed by the young Russian dreamers: Glinka, Dargomijsky, Seroff, Balakireff, Moussorgsky and Tschaikowsky in music and also in ballet; Gogol, Turgenieff, Dostoievsky and Ostrovsky in drama and literature, turned in their creations to the rich and unexploited folk-lore of the people. Russian music, perhaps more than any other, is a true mirror of the racial soul. There is fire, gloom, sorrow and joy, remodelled and expressed in the same racial spirit as that in which the moujik sings his Ai Ouchnem, or builds his izba.
The electrifying effect of the Russian dancers upon the European audiences is not due to the influence of the French Academy, on the model of which the Russian Imperial Ballet School was formed, as many music and dance critics of the old and new worlds seem to think, but to the primitive racial spirit, to the great stage geniuses of the Russian Empire, who began their work on the basis of ethnographic principles. It is therefore in the folk-dances that we must look for the solution of future dance problems, it is in the ethnographic element that is laid the foundation of the modern art dance.
I
While taking into consideration the folk-dances of various European nations, we find that those of Spain are the richest in racial individuality, most passionate in their æsthetic conception, and most powerful in their dynamic language. With their mediæval mystery, magic passion, merciless fury, angelic grace and seductive plastic forms the Spanish folk-dances remain the most impressive examples of folk-art. The centuries of Inquisition, romantic tragedies of the Moors and the silhouettes of an Alhambra are all expressed in the voluptuous lines of a Jota or Fandango, regardless of whether they are performed by an Andalusian or an Aragon beauty.
So manifold is the Spanish folk-dance and so rich the Spanish imagination that each province has its own peculiar dance, of which, as in the case of the Zarzuelas, the inhabitants are immensely proud, and which they dance on the occasion of the fêtes of their patron-saints. The Andalusians boast of their Bondinas, the Galicians of their Muynieras, the Murcians of their Torras and Pavanas, etc. Dancing is the great pastime of a Spaniard. A dance of distinctly Moorish traits is the Polo. This is performed to the music of the gaita, a kind of bagpipe, and to the songs accompanying it. Devilier tells us how the male dancer looks over the girls present and, smiling on one of them, sings: ‘Come hither, little one, and we’ll dance a Polo that’ll shake down half Seville.’ ‘The girl so addressed was perhaps twenty years of age, plump, robust, strapping and supple. Stepping proudly forward, with that easy swaying of the hips which is called the meneo, she stood in the centre of the court awaiting her cavalier. Then castañets struck up, accompanied by the gay jingle of tambourines and the bystanders kept time by tapping the flags of the yard with their heels or their sword-canes, or by slapping the backs of the fingers of the right hand, and then striking the two palms together. The dancer, marvellously seconded by her partner, had little need of these incitements; now she twisted this way, and now that, as if to escape the pursuit of her cavalier; again she seemed to challenge him, lifting and lowering to right and to left the flounced skirt of her calico dress, showing a white starched petticoat and a well-turned, nervous leg. The spectators grew more and more excited. Striking a tambourine, some one cast it down at the girl’s feet; and she danced round it with redoubled animation and agility. But soon the exhausted dancers had to sink upon a bench of the courtyard.’
One of the most typical of the Spanish folk-dances is the celebrated Fandango, that surpasses in its wild passions and vulcanic vigor everything of its kind. If you see it performed in the shadows of the ruined Moorish castles and mosques to a measure in rapid triple time, and hear the sharp clank of ebony or ivory castañets beating strange, throbbing rhythms, you stand spellbound and electrified, a mute witness of striking ethnographic magic. You seem to feel the pulse of the semi-tropical, semi-African race. The flutter and glitter, passion and quivering seductiveness, are a glimpse into the æsthetic depths of a national soul. The dance seems to inflame the dancers as well as the spectators. A Spanish poet speaks of the Fandango as of an electric shock that animates all hearts. ‘Men and women,’ he writes, ‘young and old, acknowledge the power of the Fandango air over the ears and soul of every Spaniard. The young men spring to their places, rattling castañets, or imitating their sound by snapping their fingers. The girls are remarkable for the willowy languor and lightness of their movements, the voluptuousness of their attitudes—beating the exactest time with tapping heels. Partners tease and entreat and pursue each other by turns. Suddenly the music stops, and each dancer shows his skill by remaining absolutely motionless, bounding again into the full life of the Fandango as the orchestra strikes up. The sound of the guitar, the violin, the rapid tic-tac of the heels (taconeos), the crack of fingers and castañets, the supple swaying of the dancers, fill the spectators with ecstasy.’