STUDY OF DANCING

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 202, 11 September 1937, Page 7

STUDY OF DANCING

Miss Jean Ballantyne's Experiences Abroad MANY BRANCHES Amusing anecdotes about travelling in foreign lands wlien one cannot speak foreign languages were told ' by Miss Jean Ballantyno in the course of an interesting and entertaining talk which she gave to the members of the Hastings Townswomen's Guild at their meeting on Thursday afternoon. " 'Miss Ballantyne' s-p'oke with such a natural charm that much of the plea-i sure which she enjoyed during her rocent travels in England and on the Continent were shared by her listeners, She was fortunate enough to- visit Berlin at the time of the Olympic Games and at this time there was also a festival of daneing in which 16 countries took part. "When we first arrived in Berlin WQ thought that the first railway porter that we saw must surely be Herr Hitler," said Miss Ballantyne, "but we soon discovered .that nearly all the young men dress' like Hitier, Jiave a littie moustache like him and wear their hair straight across their foreheads. "We had great difficulty with the language and everywhere we went had to nave the name of the place writteaj on a piece of paper to present to bus dnvers. Once when we thought we had ordered afternoon tea we were served with boiled eggsl" Qn another occasion there was a lcnock at oUr bedroom door and the postman appeared with our mail, apparently quite unconcerned at dedivering it to us wliilo ip. bed." The main reason for Miss Ballantyne's trip was to enable her to further her dancing studies abroad, and sh« described the various branches of dancing which she studied. Wliile doing this several of her pupils illustrated the pomta which she emyhasised. German dancing was the first branch, anl im connection with this the speaker said that the Germans have the most marvellous brains with great creativo power s and imaginatiox.. ^he said that while watchjng tlie ballet master of the Berlin fcstate upera House she saw him teach one gii) i'our steps and then give her ten minutes to put it into a ballet and teach the others. ' 'The Germans attack their dancing in quite a different way from the English," said Miss Ballantyne. "They teach you to ii.se your body, to exeroise ifc and have control pf it, Tliejr movenientg aro impuises and they emphasise yelaxing." The Misses Fay Hall and Betty Ross demonstrated impuises pt the head, shoulders, ribs, waist, hips, knees and toes aud then relaxes pf the hancls, elbows, head, waist, and the whole body. Later they gave an irnpressioii or' trees and tlie movement of the seas. Miss Ballantyne attended for a month a summer dancing school in Devon and was tlie first New Zealander wjio had been there. At this school there were two inside theatres and an outside one with trees cut t.o form wings and back of the stage and terraces up the liilside forming seats. That there were 22 wardrobe mistresses to look after the ballet clothes gives soine idea of the size of the school. While in London Miss Ballantyne studied many branches of dancing. ineluding operatic, classical, tap, ballroom, mime and national. Every morning from 7 o'clock till 9 o'clock for three months she practised at her flafc before going to classes, Operatic dancing was then demonstrated by two pupils, Betty Shirley and Betty Ireacher, 1 who showed exercises for straight backs and supple legs, turning their knees out and forming good insteps and pointed toes as well as raising their arms in front and lowering them at the side, This was foliowed by an operatio dance ineluding all the points learnt in the exercises. "In classical dancing it js necessary to make the knees supple, feet flexible and cultivate poise and balance," said the speaker. "Self-expression should be shown in tbe arms which move from th© shoulders. This was shown by Itosaline Moller and. Bettina Smith. Wonderful experience in ballroom dancing was gained by Miss Ballantyne at Josephino Bradley's (school of ballroom dancing, but space would not permit a demonstration of this. Another importaut branch was the study of mime, using actions instead of speaking. This helped expression and assists pupils to lose self-consciousness and is used chiefly in eliaracter dancing. Several samples of mime, gardening, sewing and buying a hat were cleverly shown by Maxine Pbillips, Nora and Mary Blntekmore, Betty Nimon and Kathleen Riley. "Tap dancing classes in London were most efficient and very swift,'' said tbe speaker, "and I made quite certain that before 1 went to classes I always knew perfectly what I had learnt the day before. lthythm and time are tbe most important points in tap dancing." The various steps used, straight taps, forward and back taps, shuffles, ball changes, shuffle ball cbanges, and forward springs were demonstrated by Alison and Ram Lackyer who later eaeh gave a splendid tap dance, the former a slow tap, and the latter a quick one. The final branch was the national dancing jvhicli had as its foundation operatic dancing. As an example of thia an English hornpipe was excellently danced by Joan Rotter and Merle Deyers, ln concluding her most interesting talk Miss Ballantyne said that dancing was an ari with great deptli and she lioped that she had been able to make lier listeners realise tliis.