shoes in general, such as ladies find so fashionable.
A pretty female foot is charming, and one's feet should be dressed in
the most becoming manner. But high-heeled shoes do not make a pretty
foot. It is impossible to walk gracefully or safely in them, and as
for dancing, no one can ever hope to become a dancer who wears such
clumsy foot-gear while attempting to learn the art.
The persistent wearing of high-heeled shoes does much to bring about
female troubles. It is conducive to ill health, crooked figures, weak
ankles, and many internal ills. There are crippled ladies of mature
years whom I know, who frankly admit that their condition is due
solely to the wearing of high-heeled shoes in their younger years, "to
make their feet look pretty."
I want to make my abhorrence of high French heels as strong as I can.
You cannot wear them in my studios. I will not permit them, for to
wear them indicates that you will never learn to dance, and there is
no use in wasting your time in trying. After you have learned, in
suitable and proper shoes, how to do your dances, then a shoe with a
baby French heel will be permitted for musical comedy dancing, and a
shoe with a low common-sense (not necessarily ugly) heel for tap and
step dancing.
Fortunately, it is not necessary to wear French-heeled shoes in order
to have pretty feet. There are an abundance of attractive shoes on the
market that one can choose with assurance of enhancing the beauty of
their feet, without this deforming heel. If one uses the words
"sensible" or "solid comfort" when speaking of shoes--women's shoes
especially--it suggests something sloppy and unattractive, and some
young women will have none of it.
There is no intention to advocate the wearing of such shoes, nor any
others that are not attractive and good looking. Get becoming shoes
for every occasion, by all means, but see to it that they do not have
the fatal, high French heels. Before you take a single lesson in the
dancing art, dress your feet with proper shoes properly fitted, and
thank me for starting you right.
Most large cities have shoe stores with dancing shoe departments, but
if you are not able to supply your needs locally, write to the Ned
Wayburn Studios for information and it will be forthcoming. But please
bear in mind that no shoes are dealt in at the studios and no direct
orders for shoes will be considered.
THE QUEST OF BEAUTY
[Illustration]
Every person desires health, vigor, grace, poise--and I know of no
woman who would object to personal beauty of form and face.
Beauty of face may or may not consist of bewitching features and
perfect complexion; many a woman is admired for her good looks while
her features may not be considered classically correct. The quality of
one's complexion can be improved by exercise and correct diet, and,
for stage or social purposes, by the proper makeup.
Beauty of form is a matter of training. The "female form divine" can
be improved and kept at the "divine" standard if the possessor wills
it, goes at it right and persists in the effort. Bodily health is a
factor in all beauty. Get your body healthy, and the rest of the way
to beauty is easy.
When I state that stage dancing, as taught in the Ned Wayburn courses,
is a developer of health and vigor, a sure road to grace, poise and
personal beauty of form and face--in a word, a maker of beautiful and
attractive women--I am making a statement of fact that is irrefutable,
based on actual and frequent occurrence. You never saw a properly
trained dancer who was not in perfect physical condition.
Many ladies learn my dances for the benefits to be derived from the
training; young ladies and others not so young; the stouts and the
thins, especially, and both profit alike by the health-producing
activities they find in our courses. These ladies neither need nor
desire a stage career; what they do want is freedom from awkwardness,
a bit of pleasant reducing or filling out of hollows, a lasting
development of the foundation of beauty. They come from professional,
industrial and social circles. An hour a day, except Saturdays and
Sundays, for a few weeks, and we have their blessing forevermore.
[Illustration: JANET STONE AND NICK LONG, JR.]
And while on the subject of beauty, here is another thing:
A girl has a pretty face. On the strength of her beauty she thinks she
would make a success as an actress. (Hollywood is overflowing with
this type of girl.) She is a good home dancer, and surely dancing on
the stage is no different! Perhaps she is right in her estimate of
herself, and then again she may be mistaken, for it requires more than
mere physical appearance to be a top notcher in anything outside of an
exclusively beauty show. Not that any lady's pulchritude is a handicap
to a stage career or in any way undesirable. On the contrary, the
stage has always welcomed beautiful women, and will continue to do so.
But, here is another girl in the same social set who makes no claim to
being a beauty, and does not think of herself as being of a type that
lends charm to the stage--and this Cinderella may possess the very
qualities that go to make the professional actress and dancer, and yet
let the opportunity pass because of her failure to recognize her own
value. Her face, with proper makeup under our skilled direction, with
the correct treatment of its features, consideration of the stage
lighting, and her hair becomingly and appropriately dressed, may far
outclass that of the pretty girl who has only aspiration without the
necessary qualities to back it.
In other words, beauty of the street and the home is a vastly
different thing from beauty on the stage behind the footlights. So do
not worry at what your mirror tells you. If you have the other
qualities that make for professional success, my courses will instruct
you fully as to the way to look your best, and you will be surprised
at the latent possibilities for personal beauty that we will discover
for you.
[Illustration: NW]
WHO'S AFRAID!
[Illustration]
I have never known a graduate of our courses to have a bad case of
stage fright. This doubtless is attributable to the fact that our
pupils are thoroughly grounded in all their stage work before going
before a critical audience. They know their steps and routines
perfectly, have mastered the physical side of dancing. Their first
dancing is done before their class, their instructor and myself. Once
a month we have Visitors' Day, for relatives and friends, here in the
studio. Our students appear in action before them, and at other times
before some neighborhood or church benefit audience. They are properly
dressed for their part, and their makeup is right when they go "behind
the footlights" for their first professional performance--all of which
gives the necessary self-confidence that carries the dancer through
the trying ordeal of a first appearance.
STAGE FRIGHT--WHAT IT IS AND HOW TO OVERCOME IT
When you step out upon the stage to do your turn for the first time,
you will be very grateful to me for having instilled into your mind
the necessity for doing your work over and over till it has become
second nature to you. You will thank me, too, for the long series of
foundation work, limbering and stretching exercises, that you have
gone through, that have kept you from being muscle-bound, given you
confidence as well as ability, and left you without fear of not being
able to go through with what you have undertaken. This and the
knowledge that your costume and makeup are perfect, are of the
greatest help in begetting that confidence that overcomes the danger
of stage fright, not only on a first but also on all subsequent
appearances. Knowing that you look right is half the battle; the other
half is the certainty that you know what you are about to do and know
it perfectly.
Stage fright is the uncontrollable fear of an audience. It is the
result of excessive nervousness. The orator, the actor and the singer
experience this dread more often than does the dancer or the
instrumental musician. The mouth becomes dry and the throat contracts
as the speaker or singer attempts to get his voice across the
footlights and out to the audience. One's voice becomes faint and
unnatural, weak and uncontrollable. Those who afterwards have become
the world's great actors and singers have many of them been overcome
with stage fright, and even left the stage on a first appearance.
Richard Mansfield was one of these. He fainted from stage fright at
his first appearance, yet he afterwards became one of the greatest
dramatic stars in the world.
The stage dancer does not have this difficulty with her voice, and if
trained right while acquiring her art should never be subjected to the
bugaboo of fear. But I am going to lay down some general rules here
for the prevention and control of stage fright that will give you
confidence and also serve to instruct you how to act if the worst does
happen and nervousness gets the best of you. In chorus work, of
course, there is little danger. Your mates will carry you along if you
miss a step or break your routine, and you'll soon get back all right.
In solo work, don't try to look at your audience nor single out any
individuals. Don't glue your gaze on the orchestra leader, though he
alone is the audience of which you have any right to be at all
conscious. He and his baton are your friends and are giving you your
tempo. Be aware of them incidentally but not conspicuously, and forget
the rest of the folks in front entirely. Forget yourself, forget
everything but the music that fills your ears, and let your dancing
absorb you completely. Radiate an air of conscious certainty in all
you do. Smile. Look happy. Your dance is a good one and you know how
to do it Well. You know you do. Pretty soon a ripple of applause
starts. It grows and fills that big half-dark place down there before
you. That is a tonic. Your stage fright or your fear of it is gone for
good. Your audience has accepted you. Now you glow with the happiness
that is yours by every right. Applause is to you and your art as the
shower and the sun are to the flowers. You live on it. Without it you
are a failure.
Suppose you had let your fear master you. Suppose you had quit cold,
got cold feet, let yourself be scared out of your wits, and not braved
the thing you feared. That would have been a calamity. Your promising
career would have ended before it began, after all your expenditure of
time and money for lessons. Don't let anything scare you. Go on when
your turn comes. Keep going. No matter what happens, don't give
up--keep right on till you get your nerve back.
I saw a young singer come out in front of a large audience once, get
her cue from the orchestra, and stop dead. She looked out over the
crowded auditorium. The leader held his baton suspended in air.
"Wait," she said. "I've forgotten it." The audience was dead silent,
understanding just what had happened, and very sympathetic. The
orchestra leader spoke a single word to her.
"Oh, yes!" she smiled, and her voice swelled out into the song she had
so nearly forgotten.
Did she get a hand? I'll say she did, and a couple of encores and a
press notice next morning that told all about it, and her career was
launched. She had presence of mind and control of herself. Cultivate
this by first gaining perfect control of every muscle in your body, by
persistent practice of all of your dancing exercises, technique and
dance routines; great confidence in your ability will come with this.
I am going to advise you to do as I have always done, and that is,
write your routines down and keep them. Each has a name. Ask your
instructor, he can tell you the name for every step. Write these
routines in sequence, and remember each one. Go through each one every
day, no matter how many you collect. The more of them you have the
richer you are, for they are valuable. You will be a solo dancer one
of these days and with this list you have you can make up your own
routines,--take a step from this one and that one and build a new
dance for yourself. After a year or two you'll find this easy to do,
and it gives you a chance to work in your own personality. In writing
down the routines in the first place, while still in the courses, as I
have advised, you are helping yourself become fit, so fit and so
familiar with your work that you couldn't get stage fright if you
wanted to. So in doing this you are really accomplishing two very
important things, enlarging your dance vocabulary and making yourself
stage-fright proof.
Always go on the stage with the firm conviction that you are going to
do well and make a hit. Say to yourself with deep feeling, "I shall do
well tonight. I shall have a big success. Everything will go just as I
want it to."
[Illustration: CLEO MAYFIELD]
This is called auto-suggestion, if you want to know, and it is a
self-starter, too, and makes the wheels of success go 'round. Step on
it! It is good for every performance.
Be satisfied with small beginnings at first. Exhibit your work in
public whenever you can, to gain confidence and experience. Keep your
eye on Broadway and work toward that great thoroughfare, of
course--all dancers do that--but don't think of making your first
appearance there. The farther away from Broadway you make your first
appearance the better it will be. Learn the art of costuming yourself
for your part, and learn the art of makeup. They come next in
importance to the actual dances themselves that you are patiently
practicing. When you start out, take with you a knowledge of dress and
makeup as well as of dancing, and when you are mistress or master of
these three arts and make use of them properly, you can go on the
professional stage without dread of being overcome by stage fright. No
real artist ever is, although any great artist will be a little bit
nervous perhaps before making the first entrance in a new play on an
important first night. But the sight of the audience cures that.
[Illustration: NW]
THE DANCE AND THE DRAMA
[Illustration]
The art of acting as it has been known for thousands of years, derives
from the dance, and is a direct evolution from the representation of
the emotions as portrayed by the primitive dancers. Joy, anger, love,
jealousy, hatred, revenge, triumph and defeat were all interpreted in
the Grecian dances of the period antedating the introduction of the
speaking actors, who told in words and gestures the stories that had
formerly been conveyed through the dance. The victorious warriors
returned from battle danced to show how they had fought and destroyed
the enemy. The hunter described in a dance how he had slain wild
animals. The traveller who had visited what to him were distant lands,
told of the strange people he had met by imitating them while he
danced. Gradually there was evolved the addition of spoken words
supplementing the action, accompanied by appropriate gestures and
facial expression. Man had discovered his ability to become for the
moment another person, and to interpret certain emotions more vividly
than through the medium of the dance. The stage became the
opportunity not only for the representation of elemental forces and
actions, but also for the principal creations of the imagination.
While the slowly developing drama departed widely from the limitations
of its origin, there has, nevertheless, remained an association with
the dance that will continue for all time. Especially is this true of
the lighter branch of the drama, comedy, and the modern combination
known as musical comedy or comic opera. In the popular stage
entertainments of the day dancing forms an important feature of a
large percentage of all productions that appear in the leading
theatres. In many of the classical plays, by great dramatists, that
are annually chosen for revivals, the dance appears, and the actor or
actress who cannot dance misses many opportunities for profitable
engagements. There has always been a kinship between the dance and the
legitimate drama, and many prominent stars began their apprenticeship
for the stage in the ranks of musical comedy or as vaudeville dancers.
With few exceptions it will be found that the men and women who have
achieved success on the stage are enthusiastic devotees of dancing,
and they will agree that to those intending to make acting their life
work a thorough training in the art of the dance is an essential part
of their education.
[Illustration: NW]
PERSONALITY IN THE DANCE
[Illustration]
Every individual possesses something that for lack of a better word is
termed "personality;" something elusive and evasive, that cannot
easily be defined or explained, but nevertheless remains the essential
quality that distinguishes its possessor from every other human being.
But while all may have the potentiality for some distinct and special
attribute, unfortunately for by far the greater number this is never
developed or expressed, and they pass through their uneventful,
monotonous existence, without even realizing their capacity for being
or doing something outside the routine of their daily occupations.
In this era of the newest of sciences, psychoanalysis, which is
attracting the study and investigation of millions, much attention is
being given to the explanation of the failure of so many persons to
find an outlet for hidden capacities by the well-worn "inferiority
complex." The flower of personality, we are told, is born to blush
unseen because of an individual's belief that he or she is in some way
inferior. Despite all the books that have been written, and the good
advice that has been given, urging the development of self-confidence
as the starting point for worthy accomplishment, there is still all
too prevalent an attitude of timidity and hesitation that says in
effect: "I can't be what I would like to be, so what's the use of
trying."
This inability or unwillingness to believe in one's self; the
disposition to doubt one's powers, to admit defeat before trying, is
nowhere more clearly apparent than in the attitude of many persons who
possess the physical and mental qualifications that with proper
training would bring distinction and profit as exponents of the dance.
They admire the successful dancers; they feel that they too are
capable of expressing themselves through this art. But,--and here
comes the cold water that quenches the spark of their ambition,--they
are timid; afraid of failure; they fear that they haven't the
persistence and capacity for application that is needed to assure
success. Perhaps they do make an attempt, but the work is hard, they
just know that they won't be able to stick it out, and after a few
futile efforts they give it up, and spend the rest of their lives
wondering what they might have accomplished if they had persevered.
To these too easily discouraged persons the message of the dance is:
"What others have done you can do. You have the physique, or at least
it can be developed. You have the intelligence to accept instruction.
You have the patience needed for the continued repetition of movement
that makes perfection. You have an individuality that can be expressed
in the subtle shadings and delicate touches that growing skill will
enable you to show in every graceful movement. You have in you the
capacity for artistic and harmonious expression of your personality.
Why not develop it?"
I cannot emphasize too strongly the importance of _personality_ in a
successful stage career. Along with the actual mastering of the
dancing steps and the acquisition of health and a beautiful body,
comes just as surely the development of one's personal qualities. And
because each person has an individuality which is distinctive from
that of everyone else, all must select the type of dancing which is
best suited to their own personalities. That is why the performance of
stars like Evelyn Law, Marilyn Miller, Ann Pennington, Gilda Gray and
Fred and Adele Astaire leaves a lasting impression. Every step, every
movement is designed to drive home the characteristics of their
individuality.
Even more important than the actual dancing steps they do is the
manner in which they execute them--the individuality that they
express. It is the almost indefinable factor called personality which
lifts one out of the ranks of the chorus and makes the solo dancer. In
this book I am trying to help you develop your personality, in the
same way that I have discovered and developed that quality in so many
of today's theatrical stars.
Most emphatically I want to impress upon you that it is not "chorus
work" you are learning in my courses. It is professional and
individual dancing, that when mastered gives one that certain
something that one lacked before, a feeling of having accomplished
assurance of success.
[Illustration: AL JOLSON]
Anyone who masters the dances takes on a certain confident feeling in
time, after exercising great patience in practice. With this
confidence, the happy pupil radiates a new magnetic personality which
the audience feels--but more about this later on, when you will learn
just how one's self is injected into the dances, until they are
vitalized and become the living embodiment of the emotions and spirit
of the dancer. This is putting one's own personality into the dance,
and is one secret of every great artist's success, which we seek to
instill into the minds of all our students.
[Illustration: NW]
DANCING AND EASE OF MANNER
[Illustration]
Man is a gregarious animal, and eagerly seeks the company of his
fellows. In civilized society men and women gathered to dine, to
converse, to dance, to play games, to watch others indulging in
various sports or pastimes. Out of this intermingling at social
gatherings there has gradually developed an accepted code of conduct
termed "good manners," which are as stringently binding as any law
enacted by a legislature. And there are penalties for violation of
this code, that are surely imposed upon the luckless offender, ranging
all the way from a snub, a sound or gesture of disapproval, to social
ostracism.
"Manners maketh man" is an ancient aphorism that has a very wide
application. While the forms and standards of what constitute good
manners change with the times, their essential basis is always the
same--a deference to, and consideration for, those with whom one is
thrown in contact. Courtesy, politeness, helpfulness, and other
evidences of good breeding and careful training, are the outgrowth of
a desire for eliminating selfish instincts. The rude man or woman is
an egotist, seeking to assert his or her individuality without regard
for the sensibilities of others.
Aside from the willful violation of those unwritten laws that have
come to govern social intercourse, there are many who err because of
excessive self-consciousness, which makes it difficult or impossible
to put themselves at ease among those with whom they would like to
associate. They are painfully aware of their own surplus ego; they are
constrained and awkward; they feel that in some way they are
outsiders, that, as the slang phrase puts it, they do not belong. It
is probable that more social failures are due to this trait than to
any other cause.
Against this self-conscious attitude a thorough training in the dance
is a most effective remedy. The shy, constrained, awkward boys and
girls mingle with their companions on terms of ordered freedom and
equality. They are taught grace of movement; the spontaneous
expression of their individuality is modified by contact with their
associates; they acquire a graceful walk and carriage. To follow the
various movements of the dance in harmony with the music takes their
thoughts away from themselves, and provides an escape from the dread
self-questioning: "Am I doing the right thing?" Success in mastering
the technique of the dance brings assurance and poise, and adds
immeasurably to the capacity for adjustment to environment that marks
the well-mannered members of what is in the true sense of the word
"good society."
[Illustration: NW]
DANCING AND CIVILIZATION
[Illustration]