Art of Stage Dancing — Chapter 1: A Bit of Ancient History

[Illustration: Overture] A BIT OF ANCIENT HISTORY

Every age has had its ways of dancing; every people has expressed itself in some form of rhythmic motion.

The dance originally was the natural expression of the simple emotions of a primitive people.

Triumph, defeat, war, love, hate, desire, propitiation of the gods of nature, all were danced by the hero or the tribe to the rhythm of beaten drums.

Over six thousand years ago Egypt made use of the dance in its religious ritual.

At a very early period the Hebrews gave dancing a high place in their ceremony of worship.

Moses bade the children of Israel dance after the crossing of the Red Sea.

David danced before the Ark of the Covenant.

The Bible is replete with instances showing the place of the dance in the lives of the people of that time.

Greece in its palmy days was the greatest dancing nation the world has ever known.

Here it was protected by priesthood and state, practiced by rich and poor, high and lowly born.

One of the nine muses was devoted to the fostering of this particular art.

Great ballets memorialized great events; simple rustic dances celebrated the coming of the flowers and the gathering of the crops.

Priestesses performed the sacred numbers; eccentric comedy teams enlivened the streets of Athens.

Philosophers taught it to pupils for its salutary effect on body and mind; it was employed to give soldiers poise, agility and health.

The dance was undoubtedly among the causes of Greek vigor of mind and body.

Physicians prescribed its rhythmic exercise for many ailments.

Plato specifies dancing among the necessities for the ideal republic, and Socrates urged it upon his pupils.

The beauty of harmonized movements of healthy bodies, engendered by dancing, had its effect on the art of Greece.

Since the days of classic Greece, scenery, music and costume have created effects then undreamed of, but notwithstanding the lack of incidental factors, the greatness and frequency of municipal ballets, the variety of motives that dancing was made to express, combine to give Greece a rank never surpassed as a dancing nation.

The Greek stage of this age was rich in scope, and for its effects drew upon poetry, music, dancing, grouping and posing.

Then came the Dark Ages of history, and in a degraded world dancing was saved and taken under the protection of the Christian church, where it remained for the greater part of a thousand years.

The vehicle that carried the ballet through this period was known as the "spectacle."

These sacred spectacles, in grouping, evolution, decoration and music, possessed qualities that entitle them to a respectable place in the annals of opera ballet.

The steps were primitive, but they sufficed for the times.

However, the organization of the first real opera ballet conforming to standards of modern excellence did not come till the latter part of the fifteenth century, when Cardinal Riario, a nephew of Pope Sixtus IV, composed and staged a number of important ballet productions.

But the greatest development of the modern type of ballet received its impetus under the reign of Louis XIV of France, who founded the national ballet academy at Paris in 1661, and often played prominent parts himself.

Under this influence great performers began to appear, artists whose work, by grace of beauty alone, attested that perfection in ballet technique was approaching.

The growth of the ballet since the time of Louis XIV has been the contribution of individual artists, who by giving expression to their own original ideas have thus advanced the art to the pinnacle attained by the modern Russian ballet of today.

The above outline of the history of the dance is made brief intentionally, with no attempt to touch upon the various forms of dancing as practiced by the many nations and tribes.

Numerous books have been written covering all aspects of this subject, and giving in detail the steps and rhythms of the people of every age, and of every continent and the isles of the sea; and as matters of interest, education and research they are competent and complete, and especially edifying to the student of Terpsichore.

But the subject that interests us is not concerned with ancient lore nor with historical data, however delightful they may be.

I am writing for the American of today about present-day matters in the American theatrical world, and to that end choose to ignore all other phases of the subject.

In our day the development of the dance has reached its greatest heights, in both the social circle and the stage picture.

The advance made in stage dancing within the last generation has been very pronounced, yet so gradual has been this growth and improvement, that only the elders of the present time can visualize its progress, and that only by a backward look to the period of paucity and monotony that ruled in their junior years, and contrast the dearth of then with the abundance of now.

For really, whether in our multitude of revues or in our many musical shows, the dance, the pose, the rhythm and the melody that enhance our delight are all parts of the modern art of stage dancing.

And it is of this art that the writer seeks to tell the story in the present volume.

Both the theatre and the dance have had their abundant historians.

The dance is ages older than the theatre.

The time of the coming of the dance to the theatre and their fitting union ever after has been recorded.

They have advanced together hand in hand through the years since their first meeting and are closer companions at this hour than ever before.

Stage dancing is no longer the haphazard stepping of feet to music that it was in the beginning.

From its earlier crude efforts it has developed into a modern art, a profession of the first class, calling for brain and ability at their very best, its devotees giving years of labor to perfecting themselves in their chosen art.

[Illustration] [Illustration: ONE VIEW OF GRAND BALL ROOM] [Illustration: NED WAYBURN REVUE]