EXPRESSIVE DANCING

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 400, 21 February 1947, Page 30

EXPRESSIVE DANCING

N.Z. Girl and a New Art Form HONA DUNLOP, daughter of the late Professor Rev. F. W. Dunlop, one time Professor of Moral and Mental Philosophy at Knox College, University of Otago, called at The Listener office the other day to talk about what she called the "modern expressive dance" which she has studied professionally, But here, first, is something about M.ss Dunlop herself. She is one of the two principal dancers in the Bodenwieser Ballet shortly to visit New Zealand (the other is Hilary Napier, an English girl who, during the war, appeared in England and India with ENSA). Miss Dunlop left New Zealand in 1935, and studied dancing first in Vienna, under Gertrud Bodenwieser, then in Paris and Riga: When war ap« proached she persuaded Madame Bodenwieser to settle in Australia. The dancing party toured South, America in 1938 and after that’ worked in Australia for CEMA, which was organised by the singer Dorothy Helmrich. "Moving Sculpture" Discussing the new dance form, Miss Dunlop said, "We don’t accept the classical form of dancing, that is, the traditional type as originally created by the past masters. We believe that, as the world is full of deep problems, it is possible to express them through the dance. Ours is quite a new form of the art; it is the expression of an adventure of the soul in a given form, So the artistic dance is an expression of human feeling in a sequence of movements. We build a structure from chaotic materials just as, in the hands of a sculptor, plastic work emerges from rough clay, Out of human movement, there should rise the moving sculpture we call ‘the dance,’ " "Do you think New Zealand audi-ences-or spectators-are likely to accept the ‘expressive dance’ as enthusiastically as your party does," we asked. Miss Dunlop replied that she had "made a hurried trip to New Zealand partly to find that out and partly for a short holiday. "It’s like this," she went on, "every epoch has its own characteristic art. You cannot ask people of our century to express themselves in a like manner to the people of the past. You cannot ask a painter of to-day to paint in the style of the rococo period. So why ask a dancer to-day to express himself in the same way as the dancer of that period when classical ballet became the style? We have lived through t changes and developments. The status of women, . especially, has altered rane. since that time." Tradition is a Guide "Then, as you don’t admire the present ballet’ form, we can’t describe you as a ballerina?" "No, not ballerina. We admire, of course, the documents of the past in so far as they are artistic, but we try to (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) build up our own documents expressive of our own generation. Tradition, as Somerset Maugham says, should be a guide, not a gaoler." She was frequently asked, she said, whether the new style had any relationship to classic forms. It was slightly related to these, though now far removed from them. "You see, we no longer express lightness and harmony alone, but al] the human emotions and attributes — vigour, strength, madness, revolution, and so on." "Is there an educational value in this new form?" "Of course; the new dance is based on physical education without contradicting the laws of anatomy or physiology, and the great value of physical education need hardly be stressed. The dance gives a child an opportunity to express itself; it gives it liberation of the soul and helps to overcome inhibitions. -And it is valuable in the development of personality." The work of the party would be quite new to New Zealand, added Miss Dunlop, who will tell listeners more about it in talks which she will give from the main National stations some time in March.