about two feet apart. Bend back, touch the wall with the palms and
walk down the wall with your hands until you touch the floor. Then
walk up with your hands until you are erect.
[Illustration: _The Back Bend on the Flat, and Near a Wall_]
HAND STAND
Take a wide step forward with the left foot, place both hands flat on
the floor at least eighteen inches apart in front of the left toe,
fingers open and pointed directly front, right leg perfectly straight,
extended straight back. Swing the right leg up and over and follow it
with the left leg, and when you come down bring down the left leg
first, then the right leg, bringing the left knee close up to the
chest. Do not kick hard or you will go over.
_How to do a hand stand while standing near a wall._
Advance whichever foot comes natural to you to do this act (people are
right and left footed as well as right and left handed); let us say
your right foot. Stand facing the wall with the right foot advanced to
within about two feet of it. Place both hands on the floor, about
eighteen inches apart, in front of left foot, fingers open and pointed
front, right leg extended back and straight. Kick up with the left
foot over your back so as to bring the soles of both feet against the
wall, the left foot reaching the wall first; knees straight, heels
together.
[Illustration: _The Hand Stand on the Flat (A, B), and Near a Wall_]
CARTWHEEL
The cartwheel is the hand stand done sidewise. Instead of kicking up,
as in the hand stand, put one hand down and then the other, going
sidewise, kicking your feet up. Keep your head back, so as to retain
your sense of direction.
[Illustration: _The Cartwheel_]
One of my star pupils in acrobatic dancing is Miss Evelyn Law, a
principal dancer of the "Follies," and in "Louie the Fourteenth." She
came to me four years ago, a little girl fifteen years old. There are
few girls who have worked so hard to succeed as has Evelyn, and there
are certainly few who have achieved the top line in their profession
as quickly as she has. In every respect, Miss Law is a credit to the
American stage. She started in her first appearance in an engagement
which I got for her at a salary of $75.00 a week. Then her salary
jumped to $125.00 a week, in "Two Little Girls in Blue," plus her
mother's fare; later, as a featured member of the "Follies," which
engagement I was also very happy to secure for her, her weekly salary
reached the $750.00 mark. But Evelyn deserves her good fortune,
because she has worked hard. Indeed, no girl could do the remarkable
work which she is doing were she to live anything but a life of
rigorous attention to every detail pertaining to health and physical
fitness. She not only has ability, but she has the capacity for
putting her heart into her job. She writes: "The encouragement which I
have received urges me on to greater effort; and I am constantly
trying to improve myself. I realize that only by constantly striving
can I hope to win the recognition of producers and at the same time
please the public." She writes of her present work that it is "a
privilege which must be honored by my unflagging effort to put forth
my best."
There's inspiration for all my dancing pupils in Evelyn Law's success.
[Illustration: NW]
[Illustration: EVELYN LAW]
MR. WAYBURN ADDRESSES A CLASS IN ACROBATIC DANCING
I have watched this class with a great deal of interest. You really
are getting a physical foundation here for wonderful dancing; you are
beginning to handle yourselves in a scientific way. I congratulate
you.
To make a success at acrobatic or any other dancing you must not
strain yourselves. Train, but don't strain. Be patient and keep
practicing, and you will go far.
You are very wise to develop your ability along the line of acrobatic
dancing rather than as an acrobat. There is a vast difference. As a
mere acrobat one has to be a top-liner and wonderfully expert to get
any kind of a salary at all, but as an acrobatic dancer you can
command a place in the very best stage productions, high class musical
comedies, musical revues, vaudeville, etc., and also in the better
grade motion pictures and presentations, and get a very good salary.
But if you let the acrobatic tricks dominate your dance, you will be
classed as an acrobat, and not as an acrobatic dancer; so look
out--keep your dancing up to grade and throw in these acrobatic tricks
as a surprise and a climax, and you've got something the public and
the producers want and will pay for.
[Illustration]
After you have acquired these wonderful tricks and gotten hold of your
bodies, and succeeded in bringing out in a physical way all the grace
that nature gave you, then you can be taken and schooled in the soft,
beautiful Americanized ballet work, and you will find that after this
training you are now getting, our ballet technique will delight you
and be comparatively easy for you. You know, of course, that in this
course the ballet is not taught in the old, antiquated way, taking
years of your time before you are permitted to do solo work. We teach
you our own modern, scientific way, giving you first our foundation
technique, then letting you learn how to use your arms, head, the
upper part of your body and your legs gracefully and prettily, and
making you as good ballet dancers as the old long-drawn-out practice
ever made, enabling you to qualify for a paying engagement without a
discouraging wait of years and years. Pavlowa, you know, was kept
subordinate twelve years before she was permitted to attempt a solo
dance in public. Imagine our American girls submitting to such
apprenticeship! Not one of you would consider such a thing. And
fortunately you do not have to, for we have revolutionized all that.
Now you are getting a wonderful dancing repertoire, with acrobatic
dancing, musical comedy work and the tap and step dancing. When you
add our ballet course to that, then you are ready for any call that
may come to you in your lifetime. This is my aspiration for you. We
are trying to realize ideals. When you have finished here you will be
accomplished dancers, not mere machines going through a bunch of set
exercises. Add the spiritual touch to your work now as you start on
the home stretch. Finish here going strong, and your speed will carry
you far.
Don't be satisfied to qualify merely as acrobats. When you come to me
for a letter of recommendation to some first-class theatrical manager,
I don't want to have to say to him: "Enclosed you will please find one
acrobat." I have better hopes of the graduate pupils of my courses
than that.
I want to say a word here to any who feel that they are slow and not
keeping up with the pace set by the rest of the class, and that word
of advice is, take the same class for another four weeks' period.
Don't have any false pride about it. You want to fit yourself
perfectly for your profession. If the four weeks you have already had
here are not time enough to do that, go in for another month. Really,
two months is a very short time for completing a training of so much
value to you.
I tell pupils in the courses in the other branches of dancing we
teach, that if they feel stiff or have difficulty in performing their
steps, they would do well to go into this class, the acrobatic dancing
class, for a month, because here the students get all sorts of primary
acrobatic tricks and gain in strength and flexibility. All dancing is
easier to those who take this work. And besides, if you go out and
accept an engagement you will be proficient in cartwheels, splits, and
many other neat tricks that will be of great service to you. These are
stunts that you cannot learn in a theatre; no one has time to teach
them to you, nor the necessary equipment or facilities, and you want
to be ready when the stage director calls for those who are capable of
doing something unusual, to show him on the spot. And you cannot
afford to try to learn things from another girl. You may injure
yourself severely if you do. These difficult feats should only be
attempted under the best instruction. Do not allow any girl or boy who
is inexperienced to try to teach you anything in the line of acrobatic
work.
Fresh air in your lungs, correct diet, and nine glasses of water a day
will do wonders for you in many ways. You have heard me say this
before. Well, I shall say it a good many times more, just as long as
I have students under my charge who want to be "healthy, wealthy and
wise"--and good looking and good dancers. And please do not treat this
advice lightly. I can only ask you to observe these simple rules. I
have no way of enforcing them, and possibly because they are simple
you do not give them the consideration they deserve. Now let me tell
you some facts, and then you decide whether or not you think it wise
to neglect yourself.
Surely none of you will object to taking a glass of water nine times a
day. Do not drink ice water, nor take water with meals. Liquids taken
while eating will bloat you, make you fat, or make it impossible to
assimilate your food properly, and that will keep you underweight.
Take a glass on arising, one after breakfast, one before and after
dinner and luncheon, one at about eleven in the morning and another at
four, and one just before getting into bed. Water taken into the
system this way induces a healthful perspiration which eliminates the
bodily impurities. Your skin must be ventilated, which means that the
pores must be opened, and water-drinking as I have directed will do
this. If you drink milk, sip it slowly; don't pour it down. Don't eat
between meals. Have a meal an hour and a half before class or before a
performance, then the digestive process will have had time to complete
its work and leave you in the best condition for mental and physical
exertion.
After exercising here in your class, do not dress and hurry out into
the street until your pores are closed. You have free shower baths at
your disposal in your dressing rooms here in the studios, put there
for just the purpose of enabling you to get into perfect condition
before you go outdoors. Use them, with my compliments, please, and
keep fit; then take a good rub down.
It is important to you to have a good clear skin and complexion. Some
of you have it, and you want to keep it; some will be glad to know how
to get it. I am going to tell you just how to acquire it and keep it,
and clear up any little blemishes on your skin,--but it is so simple I
am afraid you won't think it worth doing. To have clear skins you must
have pure blood and good circulation of the blood, and to obtain these
you must breathe deeply and correctly and so get fresh air, full of
oxygen, into your lungs. That's all there is to it. And now, here is
the correct way to breathe to accomplish all this, and I wish you
would practice it now here in the class as I tell you about it:
Breathe in through your nostrils, with the mouth closed. Inhale slowly
and way down deep, filling your lungs as full as you can; then exhale
slowly through your mouth. Do this as an exercise, and do it ten times
before you stop. Then do it again whenever you think of it, not less
than three times a day. You cannot do it too often, no danger of that!
It won't hurt you or cost you a cent. The air drawn into your lungs
this way expands your chest and increases your lung capacity. This
makes good wind for dancing, and all dancers need lots of wind; you
have to have it, you have to call for lots of breath when you dance
rapidly or long. Start in right now, and by the time you have a stage
engagement you will be prepared with a bellows that will furnish all
the air you call for--and meanwhile watch your skin and your
complexion put on the clear, healthy, beautiful appearance that every
woman envies. The air in this room, as in any room, is not entirely
free of impurities; it is not the best air for your breathing
exercises. Outdoors--say, over in Central Park, only a block from
here--is where you find the beautifying, pure oxygen that will start
your blood tingling, expand your chest, and give you the real beauty
of skin and complexion that nature meant all women should have. Walk.
Exercise. While you're out walking, take your beauty-breathing
exercise as you go.
In my office I have a list of foods, with sixteen rules for good
health. The word "diet" suggests starvation and going hungry and a lot
of disagreeable things like that, I suppose, and so you would much
rather not hear about it. Well, it isn't as bad as you think, and a
proper diet is a health insurance, and should be carefully observed.
Do you know that I have made a study of diets and dieting, and of
anatomy--the structure of the human body? My interest in dancing and
in my pupils here--and in my own health--has prompted me to study that
subject thoroughly. I could tell you a great deal about getting and
keeping healthy, if you cared to hear it and if I had time to go into
the subject.
My best dancers, and all good dancers, diet. That is, they are careful
to eat what is best for them, and not everything that may tickle the
palate yet raise a rumpus inside one and upset the whole system, and
make them cross and cranky and homely and bad actors generally.
Good food, pure air, plenty of water, internally and externally, the
right amount of sleep, not more than eight hours, and not less than
seven, proper exercise and practice--all of these are essential to
make good dancers--to make _you_ good dancers.
Come in to my office tonight after class. Weigh yourselves before you
come in. Then talk to me about yourself and get my diet list to take
home, please.
[Illustration: LINA BASQUETTE]
NED WAYBURN'S MODERN AMERICANIZED BALLET TECHNIQUE
[Illustration]
I have invented a method of teaching the ballet that eliminates the
long and tedious training formerly considered necessary, and fits the
pupil for a stage appearance in the briefest possible length of time.
That my method is a perfect success is evidenced in the best theatres
everywhere. I have taken amateurs who never did a ballet step in their
lives, put them in training by my personally devised method, and made
perfect solo dancers of them in a few months' time, secured them
engagements, and their fame as ballet dancers par excellence is today
world-wide. Elsewhere in this book I shall name several of these whom
you know best, and you will admit that I am right in what I have just
said when you peruse their names.
I am assuming that you are aware of the fact that in all foreign
countries the ballet student is taught for years before she is allowed
to attempt a public appearance or permitted to consider a professional
engagement. This ultra-conservative custom has been brought across the
water, and the idea has always held here in America that the four,
six, ten year apprenticeship was a necessity; that no dancer could
qualify for a professional appearance in a shorter period. It was
taken for granted that there was no short cut to this trade, and up to
the recent present there has been none. But our American girls who are
gifted with a talent for this superb form of graceful dancing will
not consent to devote the best years of their lives to unproductive
labor. The idea of signing away several years of their happy lives in
order to become entitled merely to a critical teacher's approval, and
all this time without compensation of a financial nature, does not
appeal to any, and least of all to that very person, the young person
who would make the best dancer.
Yet there was an increasing demand for capable ballet dancers, and the
supply was limited and dwindling. So, in order to make a world happy,
I put my wits to work and evolved a plan that has revolutionized the
entire industry. And I have called it Ned Wayburn's Modern
Americanized Ballet Technique; and it is a Ballet Technique at its
very best. If I had done nothing else in the years of my theatrical
experience, I should still feel that I had accomplished much that is
worth while.
And, really, it is all very simple. The wonder is that others did not
figure it out before I did. And it is no secret. I am going to tell
you all about it, and what the results have been, and then you can see
for yourself why it is no longer best or necessary to go to foreign
lands and take lessons the old way, for years and years.
There is what is called the Universal Ballet Technique. It is the
standard of the dancing world, recognized and observed everywhere that
the ballet is taught or danced. My method follows this Universal
Technique closely, and is identical in many of the essentials. The
chief difference between the old way and my new method is in the
preparatory work. Now, this will never become a world full of ballet
dancers, because not everyone could learn this graceful undulation if
they wanted to. (All the more reason, I say, why those who have the
talent should profit by it.) Not all of my pupils, nor all of my best
pupils in other forms of the art, can hope to become solo artistes in
ballet work. I can glance over a class at work in any of my studios,
and select the few who may hope to perfect themselves in the ballet. I
have had to discourage and no doubt disappoint some of my ambitious
ones who have aspired to master the great art of ballet dancing; but I
know I did what was best for them in advising them as I did. These
same girls will be topnotchers in other fields of stage dancing, and I
would rather direct their pathway to sure success than to let them
wander into byways where their feet might stumble. So first of all,
the candidate for ballet dancing must have my approval, she must be
qualified according to my high standards, and when I say "Yes," and
the student enters faithfully upon the work as I lay it out, she is
going to make good.
And the first instruction she will receive in my courses is in the
nature of a muscle culture, a foundation technique that consists of
exercises, on the felt floorpad, in limbering and stretching. It is
very beneficial to everyone in every way, and unqualifiedly essential
to the beginner in stage dancing in any of its forms. The prospective
ballet dancer, by going through these exercises in the studio for a
series of twenty lessons or so, and practicing three hours or more at
home daily during the same period, develops strength in the muscles of
the back, legs, ankles and feet that fits her for the ballet
technique; and it is this foundation work that enables her to
eliminate the antiquated exercises and some combinations of steps, and
the unduly long, tedious and once necessary trials that fell to the
lot of the old-country ballerina. So the secret is out; it is our
special foundation work in limbering and stretching combined with my
Americanized Ballet Technique that builds our American pupil into a
strong, healthy, flexible, graceful person, well prepared for
advancement into the beautiful art of the ballet.
This does not mean that the entrant for ballet honors has nothing to
do but go at once upon the stage, a completed artiste. If this
statement of my easier plan suggests such a thing, let me hasten to
correct so erroneous an impression. There is work, and hard work, too,
and lots of it, before our pupil becomes a ballet dancer, even under
our less strenuous and much shortened course of training.
Grace of the entire body is sought and taught, graceful movements of
the head, arms, legs and torso. In addition to grace and poise, there
is need of great muscular strength, and this we are able to develop in
our pupils without bunching the muscles of their calves, thighs or
arms into unsightly knots. And this fact is not one of the least of
the recommendations of our system. We insist upon symmetry and beauty
of figure. This is really more important to the professional dancer
than beauty of face. To possess both, a beautiful face and form, is
the ideal condition, of course, but the figure is susceptible of being
made attractive by our development technique, and any imperfections of
the facial contour or features, and any defects in the complexion, are
easily disguised or corrected by my method of teaching stage-makeup.
[Illustration: MARION CHAMBERS]
It must be considered that in the ballet the movement of the arms is
very important, and to perform it properly requires long study and
extreme accuracy. Just as the art of painting blends and composes
colors, and by the composition of scenes and figures makes a whole
that is pleasant to the eye, so the movements of the arms in
dancing add many and diverse forms of grace to the body, guiding and
regulating its movements so as to result in a harmonious whole. One
authority has styled dancing "the music of the eye." The dancer who
neglects the difficult study which the arms require because she
believes that the only necessity is brilliant execution in the legs,
will be an imperfect artist. It is not enough to know how to dance
with one's legs; the ballet must also be executed with the trunk of
the body and the arms. Their movements must be graceful and in harmony
with those of the legs, since they constitute a weight for the
equilibrium of the body when it rests on one leg. The arms must
accompany the trunk, making a frame for it.
The movements of the head, of the eyes, the expression of the face,
all are of tremendous importance in perfecting the ballet. It is
because of the necessity of bearing constantly in mind the various
attitudes of head, torso, arms and legs that I believe that the ballet
contributes more than any other type of dancing to the general
development of grace and poise of the whole body.
In addition to teaching what we call the legitimate American Ballet,
we add to the students' repertoire what are known as "tricks," which
earn applause for the dancer. Many of our pupils go directly from our
courses to the professional stage, since it would be difficult for
them to earn a supporting salary in the musical comedy field doing
straight ballet work alone. We teach straight toe dances, and also
eccentric toe dances, as will be demonstrated in another chapter.
You are now a student in our beginner's ballet class. First, you must
provide yourself with soft ballet slippers, as without them it would
be impossible to do this type of work. As you enter our ballet room
you note full length mirrors on the walls, to enable you to watch
yourself as you dance--the original "watch your step" propaganda. Also
you will see a wooden rod, technically known as a "bar," running
around the walls of the studio. This is about three and a half feet
above the floor, and is easily grasped by the hand for support in
practicing.
In your practice at home, in the absence of such a bar, substitute an
ordinary chairback or other firm object as a support, being careful
that its height is correct.
Now the first thing to acquire is a knowledge of the fundamental rules
of the dance, since everything depends upon them, and no one may hope
to attain proficiency without this knowledge.
The fundamental positions of the ballet are five, and their complete
mastery has been the prime factor in the success of every ballet
dancer since the dance was invented. You will be constantly referred
to "first position," "third position," and the others throughout your
instruction, and you must know instantly and intuitively what each
reference means as you hear it or read it, and to do this you must
have the five position thoroughly absorbed into your inner
consciousness. That means, practice the five positions over and over,
day after day. No ballet dancer ever was entitled to this name without
she knew these five rules of the dance.
The five positions for practice at the bar are here given, and the
primary exercise at each position described and pictured.
_First Position:_ Stand erect, with the head up, the legs straight,
the heels together, the toes pointed out, the weight of the body
evenly distributed between the two feet. Extend one arm to lightly
grasp the bar, and carry the other arm straight out from the shoulder,
in a slightly relaxed position, as shown in the diagram. The thumb
should rest on the tip of the first finger, the middle and ring
fingers slightly bent, the little finger extended so that it is
slightly separated from the others, the wrist bent slightly downward.
The whole attitude should be flexible and graceful.
[Illustration: _First Ballet Position_]