THE DANCE.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1885, 20 October 1913, Page 5

THE DANCE.

SOMETHING OF ADELINE GENEE AND THE RUSSIAN BALLET. [Br Sylvius.] 'At last wo are to see a ballet! Plenty of people who have never Riven much attention to the subject may perhaps express astonishment when they aro told that we have never yet wit- ♦ nosscd the ballet proper in New Zealand, because times out of number they have seen announced on play-bills '"Grand Corps du Ballet" with perhaps o "Premiore D'anseuse" to give weight and circumstance ■ to the pronouncement. But theso only refer to massed dances incidental to comic opera and tnusical comedy, dances that in many cases have given us" that brightest of definitions of the dance, "the poetry of motion," up to a point, but iavo but seldom sought to convey any deeper meaning, pootical, .dramatic, or emotional. Though for a* decado past the ballet proper has been in the ascendant in tho Old World, it luis not touched theso shores. Even Australia has not had anything worthy to be dignified as a ballet since '"Turquoisette, A Study in Blue," was danced in Sydney and Melbourne, some fifteen years or so ago (in conjunction with ■ an Italian opera company) Bartho, a Russian dancer, in tfie premiere role. The last five or six years have seen wonderful developments in the dance, mainly due to the great' fillip given to the art by the coming before tho world of the Imperial Russian ' dancers, whose efforts were hitherto confined to their own domains with perhaps an occasional visit to Berlin. In 1910, however, they wore induced to visit London, where they created nothing short of a furore. Paris lost its head completely over the peerless art of the Russians, aiid America Worshipped at their feet. They swept the world in triumph until they came to Australia in company-with the incomparable Gence. Australian taste is somewhat degenerate. It is rare, in- • deed, that any performance boasting any degree of genuine artistry makes a wide popular appeal in Australia. "Peter Pan" was a ghastly failure there: so was "The Bluo Bird," so was "Man and Superman," so' have been a hundred other shows of tho better sort. Australia did not understand, or, if it did, failed to appreciate ( the art of • Genee and the Russians, and stayed away with the greatest enthusiasm,much to the depletion of tho Williamson treasury, as the Genee organisation costs something in the vicinity of £1500 a week to run. Auckland rose to tho occasion last week, and packed in joyously to see "the top bead in the champagne of life" (Genee), and the skilled Russians, headed by Halina Schmolz and M. Volinin. Mad on Dancing. Those who find time and recreation in following the various trends of arts appertaining to the theatre will long ( beforo this have realised that the world has gone mad on dancing. These are . the days of a wonderful renaissance of tho dance immortal. For the- dance never dies. It was tho earliest means of expressing any agitation of tho emotions—joy, grief ; gratitude, passion, . religious ecstasy, triumph. These jwero all symbolised and dignified in the dance by the ancient Greeks, and long before that age of artistic refinement primitive man twisted and twirled, and jumped and wriggled to th© rhythmic beat of forgotten instruments, to work off his surplus energy and emotional promptings. . It was from\ tho Greeks tliafc the ; modern skirt dance- was evolved,'-but,then,, as.-now, it was regarded as- too spectacular to be high white art. Loie Fuller degraded it still further with the use of startling fabrics; and vari-coloured lights, and it died after a brief reign, as all things die that are not true art. After the sk,irt dance, degeneration progressed through the medium of tho serpentine dancers, and those terrible higli-kickers, who took their rise from the tip of Miss Lottie Collins's shoe, who initiated the rather, vulgar craze in the now silent song "Ta-ra-ra-Boom-do-ay." As this form of dancing expressed nothing save a certain vulgar s'uggestiveness,> , its Teign was sliort. Still, the high kick is practised (not always performed) as' an exorcise inducing suppleness of limb by the best of ,dancers. _ Then Geneo! To restore the art of Terpsichore to . Its rightful pedestal, came a ray of brilliant sunshine across the grim North Sea from Jutland—Genee, the' little Danish girl with inspiration in her toes, and a personality that glows with the joy of life. Genee came to resuscitate tho buried art of Taglioni, Cerito, and I'anny EUsler—-camo to London to show that tho dignity and glory of the dance was being trailed in the mud by acrobatic vulgarity and splits. Discerning critics hailed her as a prodigy, and despite the indifference of tile public she triumphed. The blinded people soon began to realise that thef were witnessing one of the greatest dancers of the age, and she became the fashion.' Queen Alexandra commanded ' her to appear at T Windsor, and finally that beautiful ballet "Coppelia" set the seal on her triumph. Her succoss in London was repeated in America, where ■6he incidentally piled up a fortune. Other Dancers, Once tho vulgar and meaningless had been shattered camo other interpretive dances of skill and insight. Maud Allen created something like a sensation as a bare-foot dancer in "Salome," criticised somewhat narrowly because of hor sartorial ideas, but in such dances as Men- „ dcisshon's "Spring Song" and Chopin's ''Funeral March" she stood forth as an intellectual. Miss Ruth St. Denis bios- ' somed as an pxponent of Hindu dances, the Weisenthal Sisters, of Vienna, in interprctivo dances, and Mile. Willy specialised in Egyptian fancies, a trace of which was seen recently in the production of "Kismet." The snaky, ..sinuous, yot graceful movements of the hands and arms smack of Egypt and the languorous Near East. We will get a more vivid impression of this style of dancing' in "Tho Arabian Nights" by the Russian dancers (danced under the title of "Scheherazade" recently in New ii'ork.) Tho Russian Invasion. Finally came the Imperial Russian Ballot, headed by tho great Pavlowaand Mikail Mordkin. Theso wcro brilliantly illuminative dancers, whose every move- ' ment was grace and movement personified. They could not speak English, but ; they could express themselves with the greatest understanding through the medium of the art of which they are such marvellously-finished exponents. The Russians created a furoro in London and Now York. Then camo lothers from Russia —Mme. Karsavina and M. Vaslav Niiinksky, Mile. L.vdia Lopoukowa and M. Volinin (tho lastnamed to be scon in Wellington with Gence on Saturday evening next), Gortrudo Hoffmann (whose -appearance in "Cleopatra" was hailed with such delight), Jllles Cochin, Gluck, Baldina. Trouhanowa! and Napierkowska, and M. 'Adolpo Bolm. ■ This brings us right up to the present—and our first ballet. Narratives In Dance. The ballets to bo performed in Wei-' lingt-on include those which' have delighted the rest of the civilised world (Australia, perhaps, excepted). "Coppelia" is a comic tragedy. Old Dr. Coppolius, the doll-makor, has created wonderful life-size doll, so human in appearance that he (like Pygmalion and ]us statue) believes it not impossible to endow it with life. The doll is seen by. Franz, the sweetheart of Swanilda,

who straightway falls in lovo with it to the neglect of his lover. Swanilda, becoming awaro of her sweetheart's in- ? fatuation, steals into Dr. Coppelius's J place, to inspect this wonderful piece of work, and, having removed the doll from its place, has not timo to restoro it before tho owner returns, and so decides to tako its place. From his mutterings, the fair Swanilda gathers tho • idea that tho old man is bewitched with tho fancy that his doll can be endowed with life, and promptly she acts up to '' it, to the delight-of Coppelius. Finally 11 she runs off with Franz to tho intense grief of the doll-maker and tho joy of •V her lover. "The Arabian Nights" is a sceno laid l " in tho harem of tho King of India and y China. Tho King and his brother 3 leave their wives under tho charge of s tho chief eunuch to go on a journey. 4 As soon as they disappear the wivo3 r persuade the guard to let them have' d the keys, and, opening the doors, they d allow the men slaves to enter. There V ensues a noisy revel, at tho height of J which tho King and his brother return'. ' Soldiers are summoned, and all aro kill- ' cd save the King's, subject. She begs r for mercy, and when the King, refusing, " orders hor execution, sho kills herself 3 with a knife snatched from ouo of the ' soldiers. J "Les danced to Chopin's fc music, belongs to the more conventional 3 _ school of ballet dancing, with tip-toe J posturing and filmy white skirts. } * i