on the floor, the heels raised from the floor as little as possible
when bending the legs. The knees should be extended to the sides, as
shown in the diagram. The free arm should follow the attitude of the
legs--that is, it should be lowered to the waist when the knees are
bent. This bending should be repeated four times.
[Illustration: _Second Ballet Position_]
_Second Position:_ From the first position, keeping both legs
straight, slide the right foot sideways until leg and foot are fully
extended without moving the torso. Then place the weight of the body
on both feet with heels on the floor. The head should be in a straight
line above the center of the space between the heels. Now bend and
rise slowly four times, without raising the heels from the floor.
[Illustration: _Third Ballet Position_]
_Third Position:_ From the second position, shift the weight to one
leg, fully extending the foot and toes of the other leg. Then glide
the extended leg slowly in front of the other, the heel leading, until
the ankle of the leg behind is covered by the front leg. Bend and rise
slowly four times; keeping the head in a straight line above the heel
that is in front.
[Illustration: _Fourth Ballet Position_]
_Fourth Position:_ From the third position, slide the front leg
forward as far as possible without moving the body, until foot and
toes are fully extended; then put the heel on the floor, the foot
turned outward. Place the weight of the trunk on both legs, the head
being vertically above the heel of the front foot. Bend and rise
slowly four times.
[Illustration: _Fifth Ballet Position_]
_Fifth Position:_ From the fourth position, shift the weight to the
back leg, fully extending the front leg and foot. Slide the front leg
slowly back to the other leg with heel well turned out, until the feet
are on a parallel line, with the heel of the front leg in front of the
toes of the back leg. The weight of the body should rest on both legs,
and the throat should be virtually above the ankle of the front leg.
Bend and rise four times.
TERMS USED IN NED WAYBURN'S MODERN AMERICANIZED BALLET TECHNIQUE
[Illustration]
_Arabesque_--A posture executed with one foot on the floor.
_Assemble_--To bring the feet together.
_Attitude_--A posture executed with both feet on the floor.
_Balance_--A combined slide (glisse), closing of the feet, rising on
the toes and lowering of the heels.
_Changement de Pied_--Changing the position of the feet.
_Chasse_--A chasing step in three movements: Slide (glisse), cut
(coupe), slide (glisse).
_Ciseaux_--The scissors step: A point and swing with one foot while
hopping twice on the other.
_Coupe_--To cut.
_Degager_--To sway; to transfer.
_Demi Pas de Basque_--A half or incomplete pas de basque.
_Ecarte_--To jump from a closed position, open the feet in the air,
and land in a closed position.
_Echappee_--(Escaped.) Any changement done on the toes.
_Elever_--To rise on the toes.
_Entrechat_--To spring into the air and change the position of the
feet as often as possible before landing.
_Fouette_--A swinging of the leg.
_Frappe_--To stamp the foot.
_Glisse_--To slide.
_Glissade_--Three movements combined: Elever (to rise on the toes),
glisse (to slide), assemble (to close the feet).
_Grand Battement_--High beating.
_Jete_--To leap or throw the weight from one foot to the other.
_Movement_--An activity of the body from a resting position; also a
change from one activity to another.
[Illustration: THE BIRTH OF VENUS]
The nine standard dancing Movements are:
(1) _Droit_--to swing the foot forward and backward;
(2) _Overt_--to swing the foot from right to left;
(3) _Glisse_--to slide;
(4) _Tourne_--to turn;
(5) _Tortiller_--to twist;
(6) _Battu_--to beat;
(7) _Saute_--to hop;
(8) _Jete_--to leap;
(9) _Coupe_--to cut.
_Pas_--A step.
_Pas Ballonne_--A combination of hop, step, hop.
_Pas Boiteaux_--A limping step in three movements: Hop on right foot
and raise left leg forward with the knee straight; step forward on
left foot; step forward on right foot.
_Pas de Basque_--A step of three movements: Demi rond de jambe, jete
(describe half circle in air with leg, leap); glisse (slide); coupe
(cut).
_Pas de Bourree_--(Stuffing step.) Three little steps on ball of the
foot.
_Pas de Chat_--(Cat step.) Four sideward movements: Leap, slide, step,
step.
_Pas Marche_--(Marching step.) Four movements: step, swing, step,
close.
_Pas Sissonne_--Imitation of opening or closing of a pair of scissors,
done by bending in fifth position, hopping to one side, at the same
time lifting opposite leg in second position; then leg down in front
and assemble in front with the leg that did the hop.
_Petit Battement_--Low beating.
_Petit Battement avec Port de Bras_--Low bending [Transcriber's Note:
beating?] with arm movements.
_Petit Battement sur le Cou de Pied_--Small beatings around the ankle.
_Petite Rond de Jambe_--Small foot circles described on the floor.
_Plier_--To bend the knees.
_Pirouette_--An artistic turn executed on one foot.
_Pointe_--The toe.
_Port de Bras_--Carriage of the arms. The five arm movements are:
Bending, stretching, raising, lowering, turning.
_Rond de Jambe_--Circles in the air executed by the leg.
_Saute_--To hop.
_Step_--A placing of the foot in any direction and transferring the
weight onto it.
_Terre a Terre_--A series of pas de bourrees of four or more steps.
_Three-step Turn_--A complete turn, right or left, in three steps.
_Tortiller_--To turn or twist the leg.
_Tour de Basque_--A basque turn; pirouette de basque.
_Tour Jete_--Jete with a turn; one step sideward to right, one leap
and complete turn; one step sideward onto right foot.
_Tour Saute_--One step, one hop, turning completely around in
direction of the step.
MR. WAYBURN ADDRESSES THE BEGINNERS' CLASS IN BALLET TECHNIQUE
[Illustration]
You have now advanced in your studies to where it becomes necessary to
train yourselves for the stage mentally as well as physically. You
have acquired the flexibility, strength of body and symmetry of form
that was promised in my earlier courses to those who faithfully
attended class and persistently practiced at home.
You have progressed through the hard foundation technique to a point
where you are physically fitted to undertake the beautiful work of our
ballet technique.
But now that you are entering on a new phase of your life work, it is
no time to let down and by carelessness lose what you have already
acquired by your obedience to your studio instruction. I am sure you
will not disappoint me by doing this.
Please bear in mind you have still some hard work before you, both
mental and physical hard work, before you are ready to capitalize your
efforts, to get the substantial rewards that come to the graduate
pupils of these courses. You can by looking back a few weeks see your
own improvement. You are able today to do many things of value in a
stage career that when you entered here you found impossible of
accomplishment. But you are still in the formative period as to the
finished product, as represented by the solo ballet, the stage work
par excellence, to which you all aspire, and in which you will realize
your fondest hopes when you possess its full technique as we teach it.
You are more fortunate than you may realize in having available the
benefit of our ballet technique instead of having to go through the
long years of excessive labor that would have been your lot if you
lived abroad and wished to become a premier danseuse. Long training,
at least four years' daily instruction and practice, is required of
ballet students in England, France, Italy, Russia, or anywhere else in
the world. The foreign methods tend to bunch the muscles. You have
seen dancers with knotted calves, bunchy knees, huge thighs, all the
result of the old technique. As you know, we insist upon your
preparing for the ballet course by taking our limbering and stretching
exercises, and today you know why. You have a genuine foundation to
build upon. Your bodies are lithe and supple, your muscles hard yet
not misshapen, and you have advanced by easy stages through the
foundation work to where you are today, ready for the finishing
touches.
In your ballet work you must be careful how you land when you jump
into the air. My system lands the body with the knees bent, otherwise
you might undermine your health. To come down full weight on your
heels repeatedly would prove very injurious.
Keep your muscles exercised. There is no better exercise for the
dancer than walking, and three miles a day is none too much. Take long
deep breaths out of doors. Horseback riding, golf, tennis, all are
good for you. Dancing itself is the best exercise you can have, but
when you have a one-hour lesson or more, and then practice at home
three or more hours daily you will find walking a rest, a relaxation,
because it is a change of work.
Occasionally we have a Pupils' Frolic in our own Demi-Tasse Theatre,
to give you a chance to do a turn before a friendly audience. This is
good experience and encourages talent.
Some of you sing. Some are accomplished in other forms of dancing. I
like to hear your voices and see your dances. They may be valuable
aids to you in your stage work, even if not just of a stage character.
I can tell about that when you sing or dance for me. Anyway, they
indicate that you have talent and are accomplished and able to improve
yourself, and that suggests that you possess a personality of your
own, one of the great essentials of your future success. Sometimes we
arrange special exhibitions for charity affairs and call upon our best
talent to appear in these. Such an opportunity is very valuable
experience for you and I am glad for your sake always when I can get
you a chance to appear in public or social affairs, to give you
self-confidence and inspiration.
Now one more very important lesson you must learn before you finish
here, and that is in the art of makeup. For it is an art, and one that
every actress must be fully posted upon. If you don't know how much
depends upon correct makeup, come and ask me about it and I will tell
you. We hold classes in makeup in our Demi-Tasse Theatre on occasional
Saturday afternoons. I advise you to secure a place in this class
soon. You will find it very interesting and valuable. Your application
should be made at the counter in the main business office. The charge
is $2.00 for a class lesson, and we teach our own methods, dry, cream,
and grease-paint makeups. Usually we take three girls, a blonde, a
brunette and a red-head, and make them up in class, explaining the
work as we do so. For private instruction in makeup our charge is
$5.00 a lesson.
It is very practical instruction and you will obtain much positive
benefit from it. It is not always the girl who is most beautiful on
the street or in the parlor who makes up best. Often the contrary is
the case, and the girl with the ordinary street appearance becomes
very attractive looking on the stage with the proper makeup. In any
event, my makeup directions will make a vast improvement in your
appearance for stage effect, as well as for street.
There is no doubt but that you are obtaining in my courses the most
valuable ballet instruction in America, if not in the entire world.
The instructors I am supplying you with have had years of professional
ballet training and experience both abroad and in this country, as I
am sure you all know. Furthermore, they are not only remarkable
dancers, but also very competent as teachers. So if you give attention
to their instruction and watch them as they illustrate the various
elements that constitute the complete ballet technique, and learn the
several basic positions and the graceful movements and attitudes and
kicks that go to make up the complete whole, you may expect to become
expert in this beautiful art yourselves. But you must practice,
practice at home, every day, many hours a day, and keep it up right
along. There is no other way to succeed in any dancing, and especially
in ballet work.
You have been told in your former classes in this studio about keeping
yourselves fit and healthy and charming by consuming nine glasses of
water daily, aided by deep breathing, correct and careful diet and
eight hours' sleep. Continue to observe these simple laws of health
and beauty, if you value your present opportunities and your future
success, as I am certain you do. Form regular habits now, treat your
bodies well. The recompense is so great if you do, you cannot afford
to be careless in any respect.
Feel free to come to my private office any time, or write me, and
discuss with me personally any matters that concern yourself in
relation to your health or prospects for the future. We are both, you
and I, interested in and working steadily for your future. This is a
forward-looking establishment where futures are made to order. Your
future, and that of the hundreds of young pupils who favor us here
with their presence, may depend in large measure upon your energy and
studiousness while you are with us and under our tutelage. Let us help
you. Let me help you. It is my mission in life to direct folks
straight along the pleasant paths of health, beauty and financial
independence, and I feel sure I can be of aid to you and your future
if you will give me the opportunity to do so.
[Illustration: NW]
[Illustration: VIRGINIA BACON]
NED WAYBURN'S TOE DANCING
[Illustration]
All forms of modern toe dancing--and there are several--are based upon
the ballet technique, of which a synopsis of my own Americanized form
appears in a preceding chapter.
There is toe dancing of the really classical school in the perfected
ballet. That is the kind with which we are most familiar. When a
mother says, "I want my child to be taught toe dancing," she usually
expects to be understood as referring to the ballet in its entirety,
of which dancing on the toes seems symbolical.
But of later years there has developed in the terpsichorean art other
forms and combinations of toe dancing besides the strictly classical,
as for instance, the eccentric toe dance and the acrobatic toe dance.
As to the classical form, reference to the ballet chapter will find
its present development duly set forth.
The eccentric toe dance and its fellow, the acrobatic toe dance, both
have their beginnings in the fundamental ballet technique, in which
one must be well and properly schooled before expecting to succeed in
the more advanced work of these laterday favorites.
For they are favorites, as an hour at any modern playhouse where the
newer dances are featured, will demonstrate.
It is at the behest of the great American audience that these newer
toe dances are with us. You and the rest of the public that constitute
our audiences demand action, tricks--or at least tricky and novel
touches here and there--in your dancing entertainment. The old stuff
doesn't "get over" with you any more. So we invent new things that
present what you are bound to like, and the eccentric and acrobatic
toe dances are the result.
It may be jumping down a flight of steps on the toes, or a continued
hopping on one toe for 16 counts to music, or a swinging of one leg
back and forth, like a pendulum, in an acrobatic way while the dancer
hops on one toe--such stunts as these are the applause-getters
nowadays, and they are well worth applauding, too, for they are
pleasing demonstrations of real skill, and are acquired by the dancer
only after long and continued effort and practice. Few if any, I am
sure, fully appreciate the time and labor it takes to make a modern
toe dancer, one who shall be able to perform something new and catchy
in a clever way,--a real feat nowadays, and one that theatrical
producers are quick to see and seize when it appears.
The fact is, the tricks I have spoken of must never dominate the
dancing, but must be entirely secondary and incidental, as it were.
Otherwise the dancer becomes an acrobat. You don't care for straight
acrobatics, Mr. Public, but acrobatic dancing, or dancing with a neat
acrobatic stunt thrown in incidentally as a bit of seasoning, is
really very palatable and pleasing to you. It must remain a beautiful
dance, aided and added to by a pretty surprise in the form of a bit of
unexpected toe work--then you like to see it, so we are careful in my
courses to promote in this kind of work only that form for which there
is a demand,--and this is equally true with every other kind of
dancing that we teach.
Before any toe dancing is undertaken by the ambitious student there
must be a foundation laid to build upon that shall be lasting and
efficient. The body must be under perfect control; every muscle
immediately responsive and ready, strength placed where it is
essential. Our students who have passed through the limbering and
stretching course (foundation technique) and have advanced to the
ballet work and through that, are ready for the advanced features in
modern toe dancing. We work this way with such of our more promising
pupils as desire it, and then teach them the "tricks," as we call it,
that are so effective when properly done. Every toe dancer should have
one-hour lessons five days each week till perfected, and at least
three hours daily practice six days in the week at home.
I have already stated and now say it once more in this connection,
that children should not go on their toes in the dance until they have
taken what I know to be a necessary foundation course, to fit them to
do so without danger of permanent distortion of feet and legs,
enlarged ankles, and other ill effects. It is the parents' fault, of
course, when children are forced into toe dancing at too early an age
or without proper preparation. I simply will not consent to do it. I
have seen children of sixteen who ought to be at their best at that
age in this work, yet because of the forcing process in early years
were incapable of sustaining themselves on their deformed feet.
Many of my well-known graduate pupils have been seen in the Follies
and other first class productions. Their work is an inspiration to all
who love exquisite dancing of this kind. They secured the right
foundations on the start, and now have strength, speed, grace, and
ability to do what their dances call for. There are lots and lots of
toe dancers graduated from my courses, and I cannot think of one who
has failed to make good.
That, I think, is because their personality plus practice plus honest
and capable instruction and a knowledge of showmanship and stage-craft
absorbed from my "inspirational talks" has brought forth the natural
result.
[Illustration: NW]
[Illustration: GILDA GRAY
[Handwritten] With sincere appreciation to Ned Wayburn whose producing
genius created the record breaking "Follies of 1922" Gilda Gray]
NED WAYBURN'S SPECIALTY DANCING
[Illustration]
There is a wonderful field for the dancer who can create an appealing
dance of his or her own, or who can take some type of dance and by
sheer personality so develop it as to be identified with it as the
representative of that form of dancing.
Not everyone can be a specialty dancer of this sort, but to be one is
well worth the effort of every ambitious exponent of the dancing art.
Any kind of stage dancing may become a specialty dance. But it really
takes a person with good mental capacity as well as expert dancing
ability to develop what others may do well, make of it an outstanding
and triumphant success, and identify it with one's self before the
public as one's very own.
But the rewards are great for those who accomplish this, and I am
always glad to see an effort made along these lines, since it means so
much in the way of fame and fortune to those who make the grade.
And one may become a specialty dancer in more than one line. Gilda
Gray, for instance, in the Follies of 1922 did three separate and
distinct specialties in her work at every performance: A musical
comedy specialty, an Hawaiian dance, and her "Come Along" character
dance, which she built up under my direction into a pronounced hit.
So with these facts before us, that any dance may be made into a
specialty, taken out of the ordinary and individualized, and that no
dancer is limited to a single line in this work, but can spread out
over the entire field if competent to do so, there is surely ample
encouragement to the dancing pupil to make an effort to profit by the
opportunity my studio instruction affords, and become not only a good
dancer but also a good, better, best specialty dancer--something quite
worth while on every stage, European as well as American.
Almost any pupil will naturally specialize in some one form of dancing
in the learning process. Thus one may show a preference for the
musical comedy work, or tap and step, clogging, acrobatic dancing,
whatever it may be. It is preferred because one takes to it easiest,
or is most proficient in it, or has a personal liking for it. That is
the dance for you to specialize in. Perfect yourself in it. Do a
little better than anyone else does, and you are on the boulevard
headed toward becoming a specialty dancer.
Legmania is a form of specialty dancing. The Charleston, at present so
popular with the multitude, is another. The Hula Hula and all other
kinds of character dancing are specialties. Clogging, the ballet,
interpretive and toe dances--why enumerate them. Let it go at this:
Any form of dancing that you like best and are most efficient in can
be made _your_ specialty dance if you give it personality,
atmosphere,--if you vitalize it so that it stands out alive and
distinctive--your very own.
It takes brains as well as legs to become a specialty dancer of real
quality, capable of controlling the public's interest. Yes, and it
takes competent instruction to guide you right, and it takes practice
on your part after you get the instruction, too. But it is quite worth
while. The rewards are sure if you merit them.
[Illustration: NW]
NED WAYBURN'S EXHIBITION DANCING
[Illustration]
What is technically known as Exhibition Dancing is an exaggerated form
of the usual social or ballroom dancing. It is "team" work, performed
by two, a man and a woman, and is never given as a solo dance, by a
single artist.
There is no end to the styles of dances that may be employed in
exhibition work. The public is thoroughly familiar with those most
often presented to view in public and private ballroom, at social or
other functions, which are either the Exhibition Fox Trot, the
Exhibition One Step, the Tango, the Exhibition Waltz or the Whirlwind
dance.
This by no means covers the possible field. Its limitations are
measured only by the ability of the "team," and the popularity that
demands this or that style of dance, as the fickle public fluctuates
in its preference.
An exhibition dance of whatever nature must have an element of the
spectacular and theatrical in its presentation in order to appeal. The
dancers must inject some surprise steps in an effective place, throw
in a little "tricky" stuff that is new or startling--do something neat
and out of the ordinary to make the dance qualify as "Exhibition" and
not just the usual every-day type of some well-known form of the
dance.
[Illustration: MAURICE]
Among the best-known exponents of exhibition dancing one naturally
recalls Vernon and Irene Castle, Maurice and his several partners,
Florence Walton, Leonora Hughes and Barbara Bennett, as well as the
"teams" of Clifton Webb and Mary Hay, and Basil Durant and Kay
Durban. All these and many other professional exhibition dancers have
amply succeeded in their efforts to please the public, and have found
the financial returns to be most satisfactory. It is a very profitable
line of work for dancers of the right qualifications.
Exceptional personality is essential, as well as great skill in the
art of dancing, and less than a commanding supremacy will not suffice
to carry the work through to a successful issue. Yet there is a large
field here, open to many who may not as yet even dream of their
adaptability to such a career as this suggests.