That amazing propagandist, Signor Marinetti, of Milan, who favours me
from time to time with his manifestos, now sends “La Danse Futuriste.”
I confess that I have not a ha’porth of Futurism in my composition.
I am what Signor Marinetti would himself call a Passéiste, a mere
Pastist. Hence I have generally failed to discover any meaning in these
manifestos, and have thrown them into the waste-paper basket. But as
the present one happens to arrive at the same time as another Futurist
tract—Signor Ardengo Soffici’s “Estetica Futurista”—I have read the two
together, to see if one throws any light on the other. It is right to
say that “the” Soffici (to adopt an Italianism) disclaims any connexion
with “the” Marinetti, explaining that he puts forward a doctrine, whereas
official Futurism has no doctrine, but only manifestos. It couldn’t have,
he rather unkindly adds, seeing that its very nature is “anticultural and
instinctolatrous.” (Rather jolly, don’t you think, the rich and varied
vocabulary of these Italian gentlemen?) Nevertheless, I have ventured
to study one document by the light of the other; and, if the result is
only to make darkness visible, it is a certain gain, after all, to get
anything visible in such a matter.
And first for the Marinetti. His manifesto begins by taking an historical
survey of dancing through the ages. The earliest dances, he points out,
reflected the terror of humanity at the unknown and the incomprehensible
in the Cosmos. Thus round dances were rhythmical pantomimes reproducing
the rotatory movement of the stars. The gestures of the Catholic
priest in the celebration of Mass imitate these early dances and
contain the same astronomical symbol—a statement calculated to provoke
devout Catholics to fury. (I should like to hear the learned author of
“The Golden Bough” on the anthropological side of it.) Then came the
lascivious dances of the East, and their modern Parisian counterpart—or
sham imitation. For this he gives a quasi-mathematical formula in the
familiar Futurist style. “Parisian red pepper + buckler + lance + ecstasy
before idols signifying nothing + nothing + undulation of Montmartre hips
= erotic Pastist anachronism for tourists.” Golly, what a formula!
Before the war Paris went crazy over dances from South America: the
Argentine _tango_, the Chilean _zamacueca_, the Brazilian _maxixe_, the
Paraguayan _santafé_. Compliments to Diaghileff, Nijinsky (“the pure
geometry” of dancing), and Isadora Duncan, “whose art has many points
of contact with impressionism in painting, just as Nijinsky’s has
with the forms and masses of Cézanne.” Under the influence of Cubist
experiments, and particularly under the influence of Picasso, dancing
became an autonomous art. It was no longer subject to music, but took
its place. Kind words for Dalcroze; but “we Futurists prefer Loie Fuller
and the nigger cake-walk (utilization of electric light and machinery).”
Machinery’s the thing! “We must have gestures imitating the movements
of motors, pay assiduous court to wings, wheels, pistons, prepare the
fusion of man and machine, and so arrive at the metallism of Futurist
dancing. Music is fundamentally nostalgic, and on that account rarely
of any use in Futurist dancing. Noise, caused by friction and shock of
solid bodies, liquids, or high-pressure gases, has become one of the
most dynamic elements of Futurist poesy. Noise is the language of the
new human-mechanical life.” So Futurist dancing will be accompanied by
“organized noises” and the orchestra of “noise-makers” invented by Luigi
Russolo. Finally, Futurist dancing will be:—
Inharmonious—Ungraceful—Asymmetrical—Dynamic—_Motlibriste_.
All this, of course, is as plain as a pikestaff. The Futurist aim is
simply to run counter to tradition, to go by rule of contrary, to say
No when everybody for centuries has been saying Yes, and Yes when
everybody has been saying No. But when it comes to putting this principle
into practice we see at once there are limitations. Thus, take the
Marinetti’s first example, the “Aviation” dance. The dancer will dance on
a big map (which would have pleased the late Lord Salisbury). She must
be a continual palpitation of azure veils. On her breast she will wear
a (celluloid) screw, and for her hat a model monoplane. She will dance
before a succession of screens, bearing the announcements 800 metres,
500 metres, etc. She will leap over a heap of green stuffs (indicating a
mountain). “Organized noises” will imitate rain and wind and continual
interruptions of the electric light will simulate lightning, while the
dancer will jump through hoops of pink paper (sunset) and blue paper
(night). And so forth.
Was there ever such a lame and impotent conclusion? The new dancing,
so pompously announced, proves to be nothing but the crude symbolism
to be seen already in every Christmas pantomime—nay, in every village
entertainment or “vicar’s treat.” And we never guessed, when our aunts
took us to see the good old fun, that we were witnessing something
dynamic and _motlibriste!_
I turn to the Soffici. He finds the philosophy of Futurism in the clown,
because the clown’s supreme wisdom is to run counter to common sense.
“The universe has no meaning outside the fireworks of phenomena—say the
tricks and acts and jokes of the clown. Your problems, your systems, are
absurd, dear sirs; all’s one and nothing counts save the sport of the
imagination. Let us away with our ergotism, with the lure of reason, let
us abandon ourselves entirely to the frenzy of innovations that provoke
wonder.” It is this emancipation, adds the Soffici, this artificial
creation of a lyric reality independent of the _nexus_ of natural
manifestations and appearances, this gay symbolism, that our æsthetic
puts forward as the aim for the new artist.
Well, we have seen how gay was the symbolism devised by the Marinetti.
And how inadequate, how poor in invention. Dancing that has to be eked
out by labelled screens and paper hoops and pyramids of stuffs! That is
what we get from the new artist. The old artists had a different way;
when they had to symbolize, they did it by _dancing_, without extraneous
aid. When Karsavina symbolized golf, she required no “property” but
a golf-ball. All the rest was the light fantastic toe. When Genée
symbolized Cinderella’s kitchen drudgery, she just seized a broom and
danced, divinely, with it. But that was before the Marinetti made his
grand discovery that music is too nostalgic for dancing purposes and
that the one thing needful is organized noise—as organized by Luigi
Russolo.... No, it is no use trying; I remain an incorrigible Pastist.