I left Japan, as I have said, just before the cherry-blossom festivities
began, but I was able to see a number of the dances--which never change
but are passed with exactitude, step for step, gesture for gesture and
expression for expression, from one geisha to another--as performed by
a child who was being educated for the profession. Although so young
she knew accurately upwards of sixty dances, and the pick of these she
executed for a few spectators, in a little fragile paper-walled house
outside Yokohama, while her adoring aunt played the wistful repetitive
accompaniments.
The little creature--a mere watch-chain ornament--had a typical Japanese
face, half mask, half mischief, and a tiny high voice which now and then
broke into the dance. But dances, strictly speaking, they are not.
They are really posturing and the manoeuvres of a fan. To me they are
strangely fascinating, and, with the music, almost more so than our
Western ballets. But there is a difference between the ballet and the
geisha dances, and it is so wide that there is no true comparison; for
whereas the ballet stimulates and excites, these Japanese movements
hypnotise and lull.