the answers ranging all the way from an increase in man's power over
material things that add to his comfort and happiness, up to the
development of higher ethical standards of personal conduct. To one
the civilized man is he who has brought to his service the hidden
forces of nature, and by steam and electricity has girdled the earth,
vastly increased the production of wealth, and by superior methods of
transportation has brought all regions of the globe into close
contact. To another the mark of civilization is the diffusion of
valuable knowledge, the spread of popular education, and the sharing
by a whole people of the culture and scholarship of the great creative
minds. To yet another the real test of civilization is in the
cultivation of a greater capacity for enjoyment of all that life has
to offer. And a fourth affirms that only those are truly civilized who
have learned the laws of right living and conduct, so that in seeking
the fullest development and expression of their natures they are
careful to avoid infringing on the rights and welfare of their fellow
men.
Leaving the definition of civilization for future settlement, it may
be taken for granted that a civilized society is one in which order
and individual rights to life, personal liberty, and lawfully acquired
property are respected; in which the rule of brute strength is
supplanted by the higher law of reason and social justice and in which
the people are free to develop their artistic and aesthetic tastes
into a complete and harmonious whole. Applying this standard to the
world's history there are found great civilized communities that at
various periods have emerged from primitive barbarism, have flourished
for ages, have left their records of high achievement in architecture,
sculpture, painting and other arts, in imperishable literature, and in
religions that phrase the highest exaltation of human thought and
ideals. Such are the civilizations of ancient Egypt, India, Greece and
Rome, where the conditions attained were as greatly in advance of
those prevailing at the time in practically all the other regions of
the earth, as are those of modern Europe and America compared with the
black tribes of Africa.
To the student of social customs in various ages it is significant
that the peoples of the most civilized countries were eager in their
search for the higher enjoyments, and that among them the dance was
regarded as one of the most important forms of self expression. Along
with the greater accumulation of wealth; the erection of great
palaces, temples and other enduring movements; the mastery of form,
line, and color by the sculptor and painter; the progress in music and
literature toward higher levels, came the recognition of the dance as
one of the greater arts, worthy of encouragement by rulers and
statesmen. The fact that at the period of highest civilization in the
four countries referred to the dance was held to be an important and
honorable art, is testimony to its inherent value as a means of
satisfying the universal desire for human expression of the beauty of
form and harmonious movement. It is not a mere coincidence that the
most enlightened peoples of all ages have regarded the dance not only
as an amusement or diversion, but as exemplifying the eternal laws
that bind mankind to its earthly environment. Poets, philosophers,
scholars, leaders and teachers of men, have at the times that they
have been most highly regarded because of their special qualities or
abilities, joined in rendering homage to the dancer as an
interpretative artist.
Coming down to modern times and our own country, it is found that as
America has vastly increased in population, wealth, knowledge and
material comfort, along with the widest extension of popular education
of any great nation on the earth, there has arisen a greatly increased
and steadily-growing interest in the dance, both as means of
individual enjoyment, and as an artistic entertainment ranking high
among all forms of creative effort. With the growth of great cities
and industrial centers social activities have been greatly multiplied,
and of these the dance is easily the most popular. At all seasons; at
the winter resorts of the South, or the seashore, and in the mountains
in summer, the story is the same; dancing is the one diversion that
never palls, and is constantly engaged in everywhere. Golf, with its
hundreds of thousands of devotees, has brought with it the country
club, where the dance flourishes until the wee sma' hours. In the
home, in hotels, restaurants and supper clubs, the dance reigns
supreme. Learning to dance has become a part of the boy's or girl's
education, along with the ordinary school studies. Not to dance is
to be distinctly outside of practically all social circles in American
cities and towns, and each year finds the number of one's dancing
acquaintances increasing. From the select few who are assumed to be
"smart society," down to the multitudes who make no social
pretentions, everyone dances, and enjoys it. If a poll could be taken
of the population over twelve years of age in any American city,
asking for their favorite amusement, it would doubtless be found that
dancing comes first.
[Illustration: NED WAYBURN'S PRIVATE OFFICE]
In the field of public entertainment dancing holds an equally
prominent place. The musical comedies, vaudeville acts, and other
theatrical productions in which the dance is the chief or an important
feature, testify to the popular appreciation of the highly skilled and
highly paid artists who delight the public eye.
The motion picture is reputed to have seriously affected the
prosperity of the legitimate drama, but it does not appear to have
lessened the interest of amusement seekers in shows of which dancing
is an essential part. The percentage of theatrical productions in
which dancing figures has in recent years steadily increased, and the
financial success of so many of this class of entertainments proves
that the public knows what it wants, and is getting it. The
enthusiastic crowds attracted by the great dancing artists also
testify to the growing appreciation by the American people of what is
distinctively the product of advanced culture and the higher
civilization. As population grows, and as the percentage of urban
residents, as compared with the dwellers in rural districts,
increases, there will be an ever-increasing interest taken in the
dance and all that pertains to it.
DANCING AND CHEERFULNESS
"For the good are always the merry," says William Butler Yeats,
Ireland's foremost living poet, in "The Fiddler of Dorney." This is an
old truth, too often ignored or forgotten. There are, unhappily, many
persons who have conceived the strange notion that goodness means a
gloomy outlook toward the world and those who inhabit it. To them this
earth is a vale of tears; everything is evil and steadily growing
worse; if every prospect pleases it only emphasizes their conviction
that man is vile. Natural instincts that prompt mankind to rejoice and
be glad, to lift up their voices in cheerful songs, or to express
their abundant vitality by joyous dances, are to them evidence of sin
and depravity. If they could have their way they would abolish every
manifestation of happiness, and carry their conviction that man is
doomed to endless pain and woe into the life beyond.
[Illustration]
That this peculiar idea of the relation of goodness to happiness at
one time represented the prevailing sentiment of what are termed the
enlightened peoples, is undeniably true. Yet always there has been a
saving remnant that protested against the solemn, serious, and sad
railers against mirth and merriment, and at last these dissenters are
finding that they are rapidly becoming the majority. No longer are
normal men and women ashamed to show that they are glad to be alive;
that they believe that they were meant to be happy and should seek
happiness; that they do not agree that goodness means repression of
natural impulses. Perhaps they are less concerned with abstract
standards of conduct than were their ancestors. For them life is a
joyous adventure, and they wish so to live that they may experience to
the full all that it has to offer.
Not the least encouraging sign of the changed and changing attitude of
humanity toward the old repressions and fears, is the world-wide
extension of interest in all forms of popular amusement. People no
longer think that to be good--or moral--whatever those words may mean,
is to be a doleful machine, wearily going the rounds of earning a
livelihood. They question the authority of those who try to inflict
upon them their narrow standards of life. They ask questions. They
want to know many things. Why, they ask, should it be a virtue to wear
a gloomy face, to shun pleasure, to avoid their impulses to sing, play
or dance? They have capacity for enjoyment. Why should they starve
their natures, and go without pleasures that are rightfully theirs? It
has often been said that Americans have not as a rule known how to
play. They are changing all that, and as the level of education and
intelligence rises, as wealth accumulates and is more widely diffused,
as old inhibitions lose their force, this country is destined to
become the great playground of the world. The American people are
above all else cheerful and optimistic. They know what they can do
because they know what has been done, ever since their brave pioneer
forefathers cleared the forests, subdued the wilderness, spread out
across the wide prairies, and established the mightiest empire of the
earth. The present and all coming generations that enjoy the fruits of
pioneer labor and sacrifices have a right to be joyous. They are
free, prosperous and filled with vitality, vim, pep and go. They want
more from life than any other people. There are among them no country
peasants, or city proletariat, no class distinctions, no artificial
aristocracy. Strong, confident, fearless, they work not merely, as the
masses in other lands, for a bare existence, but as a means for
providing the comforts and pleasures to which they feel they are
entitled.
Whether people are cheerful because they dance, or dance because they
are cheerful, may not easily be decided. One thing is certain, that if
from an assemblage of men and women there should be selected those
with smiling, happy faces, by far the greater percentage would be
found to be dancers. "For the good are always the merry," the
lighthearted, free from care and worry, who sing, or dance, or play
because of their superabundance of vital energy, and because in so
doing they are in harmony with the primal laws of being.
[Illustration: NW]
[Illustration: "LITTLE OLD NEW YORK," FOLLIES OF 1923]
DANCING AND COUNTRY LIFE
[Illustration]
For more than a generation the problem of checking the steady drift of
the young people from American farms into the cities has occupied the
attention of statesmen, able editors, farm leaders and economists. It
is universally agreed that agriculture is the basic industry upon
which the prosperity of manufacturing and commerce depends. When the
farmers are prosperous their demands for all kinds of manufactured
goods sets in motion the wheels of industry, labor is fully employed
and merchants find increased sales to the rural communities and
factory workers. When, as happened five years ago, there is a
widespread depression among the farmers, it is felt by manufacturers,
railways, merchants and industrial workers in every field. Today, as
one hundred years ago, when Thomas Jefferson wrote that agriculture
was the most important of all industries, the welfare of the American
people as a whole is indissolubly bound up with the existence of a
large and prosperous agricultural interest.
President Roosevelt twenty years ago recognized the importance of
keeping on the farms the young and vigorous American men and women who
are needed to maintain the enormous food supplies required by the vast
populations of the great cities and industrial centers, and appointed
a Country Life Commission to investigate and report on the conditions
that were making life on the farms unattractive as compared with the
cities. One of the reasons found by the Commission for the increasing
flow of country youth cityward was the lack of social activities and
amusements in the rural districts, and the consequent desire to
migrate to localities where a denser population brought wide
opportunities for social diversions. Curiously enough, the dance as a
means of promoting sociability among the farm population was not
discussed, possibly because of an old-fashioned prejudice against
dancing that still prevails in many rural regions. Why certain good
people should object to the dance, innocent, joyous and beneficial as
it is in practically all its manifestations and associations, can only
be explained on the grounds given by Lord Macaulay from the British
Puritan's objection to the sport of bear-baiting. "The Puritan
condemned bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but
because it gave pleasure to the spectators." There was a time when it
was considered frivolous and wicked to be happy, and dancing and many
other innocent amusements were put under the ban. This narrow view of
life is, fortunately, becoming outgrown, and no power is now invoked
to prevent pleasure-seekers finding diversion in sports, games, or the
dance.
With the gradual disappearance of the ancient view of pleasure as akin
to sinfulness, there is no good reason why dancing should not become
as popular in the rural districts as it is in the cities. The
automobile and good rural roads have combined to make possible social
gatherings in central localities that would have been impossible
twenty years ago. Improved farm machinery and implements have
shortened working hours on the farm, so that the evenings are no
longer devoted to finishing up the day's work. Then there are the
long winter evenings when the heart of youth calls to youth, and when
in every village or country hamlet there should be assembled joyous
groups, finding in the dance an escape from the routine of daily
cares. Picnics and outings would take on new attractions, and under
the spur of rivalry the simpler forms of dancing would evolve into its
more artistic branches. There would be something to look forward to
outside the family circle; new acquaintances and agreeable companions.
With the dance would come a wider knowledge and love of music that
would stimulate its study and practice. In many thousands of farm
homes the radio is now installed, and programs of dance music are
arranged that make it possible for millions to join in moving to the
strains of the best metropolitan bands and orchestras.
The contrast between the city residents and their "country cousins" is
in no respect more marked than in their walk and carriage. Watch the
city crowds, as with heads up, chins in, and shoulders back, they step
out briskly along the sidewalks. They know how to walk. They may be
going somewhere in a hurry, or sauntering to see and be seen, but in
either case they carry themselves as individual personages. They have
been taught grace of movement, and their self-confidence expresses
their individuality. Compare with them a group of rural walkers. Too
often the latter slouch carelessly and drag limbs that are awkward and
aimless. They are frequently bent and listless, as though walking were
hard labor imposed as a penalty. They do not know how to hold their
arms to keep them in accord with their bodily progress. It is not an
injustice to the country folk to say that by their walk they can
nearly always be distinguished from the city resident. Instruction in
even the simplest forms of the dance, and practice in their
movements, will bring about a far-reaching change. The country boys
and girls will learn to hold themselves erect, they will quickly see
the difference between the sort of progress by what has been described
as a process of falling over and recovering one's balance, and real
walking by a coordinated entity. They will take pride in well
developed bodies, and will show in every movement the results of the
training that has enabled them to become proficient in the dance.
Is it not possible that the answer to the old query: "How you goin' to
keep them down on the farm?" may be found in the advice: "Teach them
to dance"?
Perhaps you are asking yourself, "What has country dancing to do with
stage dancing?" And I will answer you:
Just this: The city has no monopoly of talent in any field. The
candidate for dancing honors and emoluments comes as often from rural
communities as from metropolitan. But first, whether in city or
hamlet, there must be present in the aspirant the true love of dancing
as an art, a sense of rhythm, an urge to step to music,--and these he
or she discovers only as the ballroom dancing in the home community
develops them.
This is no lure; it is a true word: There are young ladies and
gentlemen in all localities who, if they but knew it, could rise to
heights worth while, because possessed of genuine talent needing only
correct training to develop its possibilities to the full.
The country-bred girls and boys in our courses have equal opportunity
with their city cousins, and both are thriving alike.
[Illustration: RITA OWEN]
DANCING AS A SOCIAL ACCOMPLISHMENT
[Illustration]
Some years ago the editor of a great New York newspaper, who was
nationally known as one of the foremost personalities of his era,
invited a group of his friends to his home to enjoy a performance by
the then celebrated Spanish dancer Carmencita. After the plaudits of
the delighted guests had died away, a lady eminent in society inquired
of her appreciative husband: "Why didn't we ever think of arranging
for something of this kind?" And her worser half agreed that for the
future they would follow their host's example, and make dancing by
great artists a feature of their social entertainments.
Ever since that time there has been an increasing demand by those
whose wealth, culture and good taste have made them the dominant force
in American society, for the services of the leading exponents of the
creative art of the dance. To the ballrooms of the great mansions that
adorn every city of any considerable size there have come brilliant
assemblages of the men and women who by reason of their special
qualifications are recognized as social leaders, to see, enjoy and
appreciate the charm and beauty of "woven paces and of weaving arms."
The hosts whose invitation includes the announcement "special dances
by Miss ---- or Mr. ----" know that there will be few declinations
because of other engagements. The fortunate ones who are able to
command the presence of any of the well known stars in the dancing
firmament at a social gathering, are assured that their guests will
carry away with them only pleasant recollections of a delightful
occasion.
Even to those who may have often seen the artist in public
performances, there is an additional charm in the dances as given in
the more intimate conditions of a private gathering. The knowledge
that the audience appreciates every detail, down to the slightest
touch, stimulates the dancer to the highest mood of artistic endeavor.
"Art," wrote William Morris, "is the expression of man's joy in his
work." Emphatically is this true of the dancer's art, and the
exaltation of joyousness into perfect harmony of motion comes only
when the artist knows that the message conveyed is understood by the
onlookers.
To those who wish to make their impress upon society by distinctive
gatherings, the artist affords an ever new and always pleasing
entertainment.
As knowledge of the illimitable possibilities of the dance expands,
there is certain to be a growing demand for the types of dancers whose
gifts make them peculiarly adapted to the exercise of their art at
social functions.
[Illustration: NW]
UNIVERSAL APPRECIATION OF THE DANCE
[Illustration]
The chief reason why dancing as a public entertainment will always
maintain its present popularity, and will be in even greater demand in
the future than in the past, is to be found in the fact that to
appreciate and enjoy to the fullest degree the work of the creative
dancer requires no special knowledge of the art itself on the part of
the spectator. There are many who do not understand or appreciate
classical music. To many others the speaking drama makes no appeal.
Still others care nothing for the motion picture, and cannot be
induced to witness a performance on the screen. But everyone--men and
women, young or mature, can enjoy the beauty, harmony, and
exhilaration of a well conceived and well executed dance. There is
something in the nature of us all that responds immediately to the
message that the dancer conveys. Perfection of form, grace of
movement, harmony of action with appropriate music, all combine to
make up a spectacle that thrills and inspires. To slightly paraphrase
Robert Browning:
"Others may reason and welcome,
But seeing the dance, we know."
As was said of the Athenians of old, the American people are always
looking for something new. They are quick to take up this or that fad
in dress, games, sports or amusements, and after a brief time throw it
aside. There is nothing of the fancy of the hour in the popular
acceptance of the dance, either for personal practice, or as a stage
entertainment. What has been seen in all the American cities during
the past ten or twenty years--the steady growth in popularity of the
dance in all its forms--is no whim that will presently pass. On the
contrary, nothing can be more certain than that each year will find a
greater increase in dancing, both by the people themselves, and for
them by the artists of the profession. It was said for a long time by
visiting foreigners that Americans had not learned how to enjoy
themselves. This may have been true at one time, but it is not today.
The chief object of life, it has been discovered, is to live
abundantly and joyously. Everything that helps to make living more
cheerful, healthful and agreeable; that satisfies aesthetic needs;
that ministers to the sense of beauty and harmony, will be encouraged
and developed, and as one important means to these ends, the dance
must of necessity flourish and endure.
[Illustration: NW]
THE MELTING POT OF THE DANCE
[Illustration]
A great deal is being talked and written about changing the millions
who have come to this country from foreign lands, or are the children
of immigrants, into 100 per cent Americans. So far as the advocacy of
measures for this purpose is based on a sincere desire to bring home
to everyone living under the national flag a knowledge of the
essential principles of our government and institutions, this is
worthy of the encouragement and aid of all patriotic citizens. There
is, however, another aspect of the Americanization movement, that is
not so admirable. This is the attack on ideas, manners, customs and
amusements peculiar to certain foreign peoples, not because they are
necessarily wrong, or antagonistic to genuine Americanism, but merely
because they are different. According to some of these self-constituted
authorities the way to instill patriotism and love of country into the
benighted aliens is to persuade them to abandon all that links them
with the land of their ancestors, and become exactly like the
prevailing type of Bangor, Maine, Augusta, Georgia, or Portland,
Oregon.
Oliver Wendell Holmes tells how when he was a boy living in Cambridge,
Mass., there was a constant warfare between the boys of his district
and those who lived down by the water front, who were regarded as
foreigners, because they seemed to be in some way different. He
concluded that most of the racial antagonisms and hatreds that so
often lead to quarrels and war are due to the same notion; that the
foreign man is inferior because his ways are different from ours.