middle-aged muscular Amazon, a rather stuffy appearing Teutonic Amazon,
wearing a beaver coat of dubious age, and a hat that had seen better
days. But what struck me more forcibly than the plainness of her apparel
was the woman herself. She greeted me with a warm smile; her gray eyes
were large, frank, and widely set; and from beneath the venerable and
rather battered hat, fell a shock of thick, wavy brown hair. She spoke
softly, deeply, in a completely unaccented English with a British
intonation.
There was no ballet company with her, no ship-load of scenery,
properties and costumes. Her company was made up of two persons in
addition to herself: a lesser Amazon in the person of Meta Mens, who
presided over Wigman’s costumes--one trunk--and her percussion
instruments--tam-tams, Balinese gongs, and a fistful of reedy wind
instruments; the other, a lanky, pale-faced chap with hyper-thyroid
eyes, Hanns Hastings, who composed and played such music as Wigman used.
On the day before the opening, I gave a party at the Plaza Hotel as a
semi-official welcome on the part of our American dancers, among whom
were included that great pioneer of our native contemporary dance,
Martha Graham, together with Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, and, of
course, that champion of the modern dance, John Martin.
Much depended upon Wigman’s first New York performance. A tour had been
arranged, but not booked. There is a decided difference in the terms. In
the language of the theatre, a tour is not “booked” until the contracts
have been signed. The preliminary arrangements are called “pencilling
in.” The pencil notations are inked only when signatures are attached to
the contracts. If the New York _première_ fizzled, there would be no
inking. I had taken the Forty-sixth Street Theatre, and the publicity
campaign under the direction of my good friend, Gerald Goode, had been
under way for weeks.
It was a distinguished audience and a curious one that assembled in the
Forty-sixth Street Theatre for the opening performance. It was an
enthusiastic one that left at the end. I had gone back stage before the
curtain rose to wish Wigman well, but the priestess was unapproachable.
As she did before each performance, she entered the “silence.” Under no
circumstances did she permit any disturbance. She would arrive at the
theatre a long time before the scheduled time of the curtain’s rise,
and, in her darkened dressing-room, lie in a mystic trance. Later she
danced as one possessed.
If the opening night audience was enthusiastic, which it was, I am
equally sure some of its members were confused. At later performances,
as I stood in my customary position at the rear of the auditorium as the
public left the theatre, I was not infrequently pressed by questions.
These questions, however they may have been phrased, meant the same
thing. “What do the dances mean?” “What is she trying to say?” “What
does it all signify?” I am not easily embarrassed, as a rule. The
constant reiteration of this question, however, proved an exception.
For the benefit of a generation unfamiliar with the Wigman dance, I
should explain that her dances were, as she called them, “cycles.” In
other words, her performances consisted of groups of dances with an
alleged relationship: a relationship so difficult to discern, however,
that I suspect it must have existed only in Wigman’s mind. The one dance
that stands out most vividly in my mind is one she called _Monotonie_.
In _Monotonie_, Wigman stood in the dead center of the stage. Then she
whirled and whirled and whirled. As the whirling continued she was first
erect, then slowly crouching, slowly rising until she was erect again;
but always whirling, the while a puny four-note phrase was endlessly
repeated. Through a sort of self-hypnosis, her whirling had an hypnotic
effect on her. In a sort of mystic trance herself, Wigman succeeded, up
to a point, in inducing a similar reaction on her public.
But what did it mean? I did not know, but I was determined to find out.
Audience members, local managers, newspaper men were badgering me for an
answer. To any query that I put to Wigman, her deep-throated reply was
always the same:
“Oh, the meaning is too deep; I really can’t explain it.”
It was much later, during the course of the tour following the New York
season, that I arrived at the “meaning” of Wigman’s dances, and that
will be told in its proper place.
After the tumult and the shouting had died that opening night at the
Forty-fourth Street Theatre, I took Wigman to supper with some friends.
As we left the theatre together, Wigman was still in her trance; but, as
the food was served, she came out of it with glistening eyes and a
rapid-fire sort of highly literate chatter, in the manner of one sliding
back to earth from the upper world.
The party over and Wigman back in her hotel, I sat up to await the press
notices. They were splendid. No one dared describe her “meaning,” but
all were agreed that here was a dynamic force in dance that drove home
her “message.” The notice I awaited most eagerly was that of the _New
York Times_. The first City Edition did not carry it, something which I
attributed to the lateness of the final curtain. I waited for the Late
City Edition. Still not a line about Wigman. I simply could not
understand.
For years I had struggled to have the dance treated with respect by the
press. Through the Pavlova days I talked and tried to convert editors to
a realization of its importance. Any readers who are interested have
only to turn up the files of their local newspapers and read the
“reviews” of the period of the Pavlova and Diaghileff companies to find
that ballet, in most cases, was “covered” by disgruntled music critics,
who had been assigned, in many cases obviously against their wills, to
review. You would find that the average music critic either overtly
disliked ballet and had said so, or else treated it flippantly.
At the time of Wigman’s arrival in America, the ice had been broken, as
I have said, by the appointment of John Martin at the head of a
full-time dance department at the _New York Times_. Mary Watkins,
eager, enthusiastic, informed, was fulfilling a like function on the
_New York Herald-Tribune_. Thus dance criticism was on its way to
becoming professional; and the men and women of knowledge and taste and
discernment who criticize dance today, I cannot criticize. For I have
respect for the professional.
The _New York Times_ review of Wigman’s opening performance did not
appear. Since John Martin had urged me to bring Wigman to America, it
was the more baffling. Prior to Martin’s engagement by the _New York
Times_, that remarkable and beloved figure, William (“Bill”) Chase, for
so many years the editor of the music department of the _Times_ and
formerly the music critic of the _Sun_, and to the end of his life my
very good friend, had “reported” the dance. Since he insisted he knew
nothing about it, he never attempted to criticize it. I had frequently
suggested to “Bill” that the _Times_ should have a qualified person at
the head of a _bona fide_ dance department. Eventually John Martin was
engaged, and I am happy to have been able to play a part in the
beginnings of the change on the part of the American press.
I have mentioned that the change was gradual, for Martin’s articles at
first were unsigned and had no by-line. In the early days, Martin merely
reported on dance events. To be sure, at that time, there was little
enough to report. Then Leonide Massine was brought to the Roxy Theatre
by the late Samuel Rothapfel to stage weekly presentations of ballet;
and then there was something about which to write. Since then John
Martin has helped materially to spread the gospel of ballet and dance.
It was at approximately the Massine-Roxy stage of the dance criticism
development that I searched the _Times_ for the Wigman notice. Most of
the newspapers carried rave reviews, and because they did, I was the
more mystified, since in the _Times_ there was not so much as a mention
even that the event had taken place. However, out-of-town friends,
including the late Richard Copley, well-known concert manager,
telephoned me from New Jersey to congratulate me on the glowing review
they had read in the Suburban Edition, and read it to me over the
telephone. There were dozens of other calls from suburban communities to
the same effect.
I called the editorial department of the _Times_ to enquire about its
omission from the New York City edition. There was some delay, but
eventually I was informed that it would seem that the night city editor
had read John Martin’s story in the Suburban Edition, saw that it
carried no by-line, no signature; read its glowing and enthusiastic
account of the Wigman _première_; and because it was so fulsome in its
enthusiasm, assumed it was merely a piece of press-agent’s ballyhoo, and
forthwith pulled it out of all other editions.
Armed with this information, I proceeded to bombard the _Times_ with
protests. One of these was directly to the head of the editorial
department, whom I asked to reprint the notice that had been dropped. I
was rather summarily told I was not to try to dictate to the _Times_
what it should print. By now utterly exasperated, I got hold of my
friend “Bill” Chase, who drily counselled me to “keep my shirt on.”
Chase immediately went on a tour of investigation. He called me back to
tell me that the Board of Editors at their daily meeting had gone into
the matter but were unwilling to print the notice I had asked, since
they had been “scooped” by the other newspapers and it was, therefore,
no longer news: but, they had decided that, in the future, Martin would
have a by-line. Then Chase added, with that wry New England humour of
his for which he was famous, that, with the possession of a by-line, no
editor would dare “kill” a review. It might, of course, be cut for
space, but never “killed.”
The next Sunday the readers of the _New York Times_ read John Martin’s
notice of Mary Wigman’s first performance, and it was uncut. But it was
a paid advertisement, bearing, in bold-faced type, the heading: “_THE
NEWS THAT’S FIT TO REPRINT_.”
As a result of the New York _première_, the “pencilled” tour was
“inked,” and I traveled most of the tour with the Priestess. Newspaper
men continued to demand to know the “meaning” of her dances. Since
Wigman, most literate of dancers, refused any explanation, I made up my
own. I told a reporter that Wigman was continuing and developing the
work of Isadora Duncan. The reporter wrote his story. It was printed.
Wigman read it without comment. From then on, however, Wigman’s reply to
all queries on the subject was: “Where Isadora Duncan stopped, there I
began.”
The quickly “inked” tour was a success beyond any anticipations I had
had, and a second tour was booked and played with equal success. The
mistake I made was when I brought her back for a third season, and with
a group of her disciples. America would accept one Wigman; but twenty
husky, bulky Teutonic Amazons in bathing suits with skirts were more
than our public could take.
Moreover, the group was not typical of the Wigman “schule” at anything
like its best. As a matter of fact, it was a long way from the Teutonic
Priestess’s highest standards.
* * * * *
It was after the war. Mrs. Hurok and I were paying our first post-war
visit to Switzerland, and stopped off at Zurich. My right-hand bower,
Mae Frohman, had come to Zurich to join us. We learned that Wigman was
there as well, giving master-classes in association with Harald
Kreutzberg. Our initial efforts to find her were not successful.
Mrs. Hurok, Miss Frohman and I were at dinner. We were unaware that
another diner in the same restaurant was Mary Wigman. It was Miss
Frohman who recognized her as she was leaving the room. Wigman had
changed. Time had taken its inevitable toll. The meeting was a touching
one. We all foregathered in the lounge for a talk. Things were not easy
for her; nor was conversation exactly smooth. Her Dresden “_schule_” had
been commandeered by the Nazis. She was now living in the Russian sector
of Germany. It had been very difficult for her to obtain permission from
the Russian authorities to come to Zurich for her master-classes. She
was obliged to return within a fixed period. She preferred not to talk
about the war. Conversation, as I have said, was not easy. But there are
things which do not require saying. My sympathies were aroused. The
great, strong personality could never be quite erased, nor could the
fine mind be utterly stultified.
I watched and remembered a great lady and a goodly artist. It is
gratifying to me to know that she is now resident in the American zone
of Berlin, and able to continue her classes.
4. Sextette
_A. A SPANISH GYPSY_
Such was the influence of The Swan on my approach to dance that,
although she was no longer in our midst, I found myself being guided
subconsciously by her direction. There were arrangements for a tour of
Pavlova and a small company, for the season 1931-1932, not under my
management. Death liquidated these arrangements. Had the tour been made,
Pavlova was to have numbered among her company the famous Spanish gypsy
dancer of the 1930’s, Vicente Escudero, one of the greatest Iberian
dancers of all time.
Pavlova had championed Duncan and Wigman. I had brought them. I
determined to bring Escudero to help round out the catholicity of my
dance presentations. Spanish dancing had always intrigued me, and I had
a soft spot for gypsies of all nationalities.
Escudero, who had been the partner of the ineffable Argentina, had
earned a reputation which, to understate, bordered on the picturesque.
Small, wiry, dark-skinned, with an aquiline nose, he wore his kinky,
glossy black hair long to cover a lack-lustre bald spot. He, like most
Spanish gypsies, claimed descent from the Moors, and there was about him
more of the Arab than the Indian. As I watched him I could understand
how he must have borne within him the stigma of the treatment Spain had
meted out to his people; for it was not until the nineteenth century
that the gypsies in Spain had any freedom at all. Until then, they were
pariahs, hounded by the people, hounded by the law. Only within the last
fifty-or-so years has the Spanish gypsy come into his own with the
universal acknowledgment of being a creative artist, the originator of a
highly individual and beautiful art.
Escudero was a Granada gypsy, a “_gitano_” from the white caves hollowed
out in the Sacred Mountain. I point this out in order to distinguish him
from his Sevillian cousins, the “_flamenco_.” His repertoire ranged
through the _Zapateado_, the _Soleares_, the _Alegrias_, the _Bulerias_,
the _Tango_, the _Zamba_. His special triumph was the _Farruca_.
It was on the 17th January, 1932, that I introduced Vicente Escudero to
New York audiences at the 46th Street Theatre, where Wigman had had her
triumph. A number of New York performances were given, followed by a
brief tour, which, in turn, was succeeded by a longer coast-to-coast
tour the following year. His company consisted of four besides himself:
a pianist, a guitarist; the fiery, shrewish Carmita, his favorite; and
the shy, gentle-voiced Carmela.
But it was Escudero’s sinister, communicative personality that drew and
held audiences. His gypsy arrogance shone in his eyes, in the audacious
tilt of his flat-brimmed hat, in his complete assurance; above all it
stood out in his strutting masculinity. Eschewing castanets, for gypsy
men consider their use effeminate, he moved sinuously but majestically,
with the clean heel rhythm and crackling fingers that marked him as the
outstanding gypsy dancer of his day and, quite possibly, of all time.
For accompaniment there was no symphony orchestra, only the hoarse
syncopation of a single guitar. Through half-parted lips shone the
gleaming ivory of small, perfectly matched teeth.
For two successful seasons I toured Escudero across America, spreading a
new and thrilling concept of the dance of Spain to excited audiences,
audiences that reached a tremendous crescendo of fervor at the climax of
his _Farruca_. No theatrical _Farruca_ this, but a feline, animal dance
straight from the ancient Spanish gypsy camp.
I had been forewarned to be on my guard. However, though his arrival in
America had been preceded by tall tales of his completely unmanageable
nature, Escudero proved to be one of the simplest, most tractable
artists I ever have handled. There was on his part an utter freedom from
the all too usual fits of “temperament,” a complete absence of the
hysterics sometimes indulged in--and all too often--by artists of lesser
talents. I happen to know, from other sources than Escudero, that he
took a dim view of American food, hotels, and the railway train
accommodations in the remoter parts of this great land. He never
complained to me. Escudero had his troubles with Carmita and Carmela, as
they vied with each other for position and his favors. But these
troubles never were brought to my official attention. Like the head of a
gypsy camp, he was the master. He ruled his little troupe and
distributed both favors and discipline.
In 1935, Escudero made his last American appearance, when I presented
the Continental Revue at the Little Theatre, now the New York Times
Hall. Among those appearing with Escudero in this typical European
entertainment were the French _chanteuse_, Lucienne Boyer, Mrs. Hurok,
Lydia Chaliapine, Rafael, together with that comic genius, Nikita
Balieff, as master of ceremonies.
Other and younger dancers of Spain continue to spread the gospel of the
Iberian dance. I venture to believe that, highly talented though many of
them are, I may say with incontrovertible truth, there has been only one
Escudero.
_B. A SWISS COMEDIAN_
In 1931, a slight, short Swiss girl named Trudi Schoop with the dual
talents of a dancer and a comedienne--a combination not too
common--organized a company in her native Switzerland. She named it the
Trudi Schoop Comic Ballet.
The Paris _Archives Internationales de la Danse_, formed in 1931 by Rolf
de Maré, the Swedish dance patron who was responsible for the Swedish
Ballet in the early ’twenties, in 1932 sponsored the first International
Choreographic Competition in Paris. The prize-winning work in this
initial competition was won by Kurt Joos for his now famous _The Green
Table_. The second prize went to this hitherto almost unknown Trudi
Schoop, for her comic creation, _Fridolin_.
In 1936, I brought her with her company for their first tour. Here again
was a fresh and new form of dance entertainment. Tiny, with a shock of
boyishly cut blonde hair, Trudi Schoop had the body of a young lad, and
a schoolboy’s face alternating impishness with the benign innocence of
the lad caught with sticky fingers and mouth streaked with jam.
Her repertoire consisted of theatre pieces rather than ballets in the
accepted sense of the term. Trudi herself was a clown in the sense
Charles Chaplin is a clown. Her range was tremendous. With a company
trained by her in her own medium of gentle satire, she was an immediate
success. Her productions had no décor, and there was a minimum of
costume. But there was a maximum of effective mime, of wit, of satire.
Her brother, Paul Schoop, was her composer, conductor, accompanist.
Trudi Schoop’s outstanding success was the prize-winning work,
_Fridolin_. Schoop was Fridolin; Fridolin was Schoop. Fridolin was an
innocent boy in a black Sunday suit and hat who stumbled and bumbled
through a world not necessarily the best of all possible, wringing peals
of laughter out of one catastrophe after another.
Other almost equally happy and successful works in her repertoire
included _Hurray for Love_; _The Blonde Marie_, the tale of a servant
girl who eventually becomes an operatic diva; and _Want Ads_, giving the
background behind those particularly humorous items that still appear
regularly in the “Agony Column” of _The Times_ (London); you know, the
sort of announcement that reads: “Honourable Lady (middle fifties) seeks
acquaintance: object matrimony.”
The critical fraternity dubbed her the “funniest girl in the world”; the
public adored her, and theatre folk made her their darling. Prior to the
outbreak of the war, I sent Trudi and her Swiss Comedians across
America. When, at last, war broke in all its fury, Schoop retired to her
native Switzerland and disbanded her company. She did not reassemble it
until 1946; and in 1947 I brought them over again for a long tour of the
United States and Canada. On this most recent of her tours, in addition
to her familiar repertoire, we made a departure by presenting an
evening-long work, in three acts, called _Barbara_. This was, so far as
I know, the first full-length work to be presented in dance form in many
cities and towns of the North American continent. Full length, of
course, in the sense that one work occupied a full evening for the
telling of its story. This is another form of dance pioneering in which
I am happy to have played a part.
Today Trudi Schoop, who has retired from the stage, lives with her
sister in Hollywood.
_C. A HINDU DEITY_
Back in 1924, in London, I had watched a young Hindu dancer with Pavlova
in her ballet, _Hindu Wedding_. I was struck by the quality of his
movement and by the simple beauty of the dance of India.
His name was Uday Shan-Kar. From Pavlova I learned that he was the son
of a Hindu producer of plays, that he had been trained by his father,
and had worked so successfully in collaboration with him in the
production of native Hindu mimed dramas that Pavlova had persuaded
Shan-Kar to return to London to assist her in the production of an
Indian ballet she had in mind, based on the Radna-Krishna legend.
Pavlova succeeded in persuading him to dance in the work as well.
Later I saw him at the Paris Colonial Exposition, where, with his
company which he had organized in India, he made a tremendous
impression, subsequently achieving equal triumphs in England,
Austria-Hungary, Germany and Switzerland. At the Paris Exposition I saw
long Hindu dramas, running for hours, beautifully and sumptuously
produced, but played with the greatest leisure. Since I am committed to
candor in this account of my life in the dance, I must admit that I saw
only parts of these danced dramas, took them in relays, for I must
confess mine is a nature that cannot remain immobile for long stretches
at a time before a theatre form as unfamiliar as the Indian was to me
then.
Gradually I came to know it, and I realized that in India formal mime
and dance are much more a part of the life of the people than they are
with us. With the Indian, dance is not only an entertainment, but a
highly stylised stage art; it plays an important part in religious
ritual; it is a genuinely communal experience.
As night after night I watched parts of these symbolic dance dramas of
Hindu mythology, fascinated by them, I searched for a formula whereby
they might be made palatable and understandable to American audiences. I
was certain that, as they were being danced in Paris, to music strange
and unfamiliar to Western ears, going on for hours on end, the American
public was not ready for them, and would not accept them.
I put the matter straight to Shan-Kar. I told him I wanted to bring him
and his art to America. He told me he wanted to come. Possessed of a
fine scholarship, a magnificent three-fold talent as producer,
choreographer, and dancer-musician, he also possessed to a remarkable
degree a sense of theatre showmanship and an intuition that enabled him
to grasp and quickly understand the space and time limitations of the
non-oriental theatre.
Shan-Kar’s association with Pavlova, together with his own fine
intelligence, made his transition from the dance theatre of the Orient
to an adaptation of it acceptable to the West a comparatively simple
task for him.