|I FRANKLY confess that I have a dislike to ordinary dancing on the
toes. It may be because in my youth it had degenerated into something so
stilted, distorted and unrhythmical that it conflicted with all my ideas
of beauty. And when the Russians give some of their older ballets,
such as "Giselle," which bears the mark of Italian influence--it was, I
think, arranged by an Italian _maître de ballet_ --I feel that all the
improvements that the Russians have made in this so-called "classical"
dancing cannot uproot my prejudice, although they can, and do, modify
it. The Russian ballerinas accomplish the feat of being _fluent_ on
their toes. They do not hammer out steps--it is a false notion of
rhythm that there is a hammer-stroke on every strong beat--but take a
collection of steps, as a singer takes a collection of notes, and calmly
and gracefully phrase them, in the manner of a bird beating the air
with its wings, rather than that of a blacksmith hammering on his anvil.
Still I doubt whether the Russians would have conquered Europe had they
come to us merely as revivers of classical dancing before it became
mechanical and ugly. They owe this revival to a great extent to
Tschaikowsky.
How Far a Native Ballet?
|TSCHAIKOWSKY was patriotic; he wrote music for the Imperial Theatre
ballets, and was the first man of any position in Russia to protest
against the importation of Italian dancers and Italian methods.
Undoubtedly he gave good counsel in advising a return to the French
style of classical dancing, the style which was at its best under Louis
XIV. But if the Russians had been content to stop at an imitation of
ballet as it was under the "Grand Monarque" they would still be giving
us only a dead perfection of steps. There is a deadness about all
Renaissance things, whether in architecture or dancing. What always
surprises us about the Russian ballet is its _life_. This vitality
came sweeping on to the stage with Russian _maîtres de ballet_ such as
Fokine, who used tradition, used the technical perfection of classical
dancing, but would not be a slave to them; with Russian composers such
as Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Glazounof, Liadoff, Arensky, Stravinsky
and Tscherepnin, the conductor of the ballet; with Russian artists
such as Alexandre Benois and Leon Bakst; with Russian dancers such as
Nijinsky. Is this ballet, then, distinguished from all other ballets by
being a _native_ ballet? When we see "Tamar" or "Scheherazade" or the
dances from "Prince Igor" we may answer, "Yes." But what about "Les
Sylphides," "Spectre de la Rose' ' or "Le Carnaval"? Are _they_
typically Russian? I think they rather transport us into a country which
has no nationality and no barriers, the kingdom of dreams. The Russian
ballet has transformed itself in a little over a decade because its
guiding minds have been more than national. The musicians, artists,
dancers and ballet masters have depended more on invention than on
reality. Many stories of widely different character have been drawn on
for the new ballets, but all have been treated with an imagination which
is neither the property of a nation nor the result of patriotism.