THE SKIRT DANCE
The discovery of a new medium has not infrequently infused a new
vitality into a declining art. Certainly the nature of the medium has
been almost as important a factor in determining style as the nature of
the artist. One of the media through which the dance expresses itself is
costume. It has been pointed out how the evolution of the _caleçon_
revolutionised the technique of the ballet. The rediscovery of the
flowing skirt brought about a revolution in modern dancing.
The flowing skirt appears to us to be a natural appurtenance of the
dance. But it must be remembered that the infinitesimal skirt of the
ballet-dancer had become a cherished convention, and such is the tyranny
of convention that it makes whatever is contrary to it appear to be
unnatural. The development of the ballet had been largely due to the
abandonment of the fulsome skirt of the early eighteenth century; it was
felt that to adopt it once again would be to involve the dance in the
swaddling-clothes of its infancy.
The introduction of the long skirt, however, provided an outlet from the
impasse into which dancing had been driven. On the one hand was the
classical school of the ballet, now in an unfortunate condition of
decadence. It lacked all those elements which make of the ballet a
living art. The public was sick and tired of it. On the other hand a
more or less vulgar type of dancing, which had no relation to art,
enjoyed a certain popularity on the music-hall stage. It consisted
chiefly of the Clog Dance, believed originally to have come from the
cotton mills of Lancashire, and various kinds of acrobatic dancing. In
the race for popularity the ugly but energetic Step Dance was first,
the classical ballet nowhere. Between the two there was no happy medium.
The Skirt Dance was essentially a compromise between the academical
method of the ballet and the grotesque step-dancing which appealed to
the popular taste of the time. It stood nearer perhaps to the more
serious form of dancing, for in its elements, at least, it was modelled
upon the method of the ballet. The exchange, the pirouette, the balance,
all the first steps necessary to the ballet-dancer, are the same in
both. But while retaining the academical steps as a foundation, it
permitted the performer greater license in the use of them. Remembering
the passionate dancing of Fanny Elssler, it would perhaps not be correct
to say that it introduced more spirit into the dance; but its tendency
was towards greater vividness and the play of temperament. The
domination of the ballet had in some measure confined dancing to one
particular method and, especially in the period of its decline, had
exalted technical proficiency at the expense of the display of
personality. The Skirt Dance broadened the scope of dancing. In itself
never a performance of very great artistic merit, it had all the value
of a revolt. It broke down the dominion of a tradition which had become
too narrow. It opened up new vistas. It contained the seeds of future
movements. In particular it recalled the forgotten dances of antiquity.
Though essentially modern, and notably so in its lapses into vulgarity,
it nevertheless suggested new possibilities in the grace of flowing
drapery, the value of line, the simplicity and naturalness that were
characteristic of Greek dance.
But the Skirt Dance was chiefly justified by its success, which can only
be described as sensational. The utter absence of enthusiasm for the
academic dance made it manifest that the time was ripe for the discovery
of a new form of dancing. The wit to invent the novel mode that was to
revolutionise theatrical dancing in England came from Mr John D’Auban,
for many years ballet-master and director of the dances at Drury Lane.
It was of him that “Punch” wrote the doggerel eulogy:
[Illustration: KATE VAUGHAN
_Photograph: W. & D. Downey_]
“Mr Johnny D’Auban,
He’s so quick and nimble
He’d dance on a thimble--
He’s more like an elf than a man.”
In a short sketch with the unpromising title, _Ain’t she very shy?_ in
which he appeared with his sister, he first introduced the Skirt Dance
to the public.
Perhaps the fortune of the Skirt Dance would have been different if it
had not at once found an exponent who has no small claim to rank with
the great dancers of the century. This was Kate Vaughan. She alone in
the host of dancers who obtained a passing fame in this style of dancing
possessed a touch of real genius. The fact that she satisfied the
discriminating taste of two men of such artistic perception as Ruskin
and Burne-Jones is enough to establish her reputation. Burne-Jones
called her “Miriam Ariadne Salome Vaughan,” and his wife in her
biography of her husband relates how he and Ruskin “fell into each
other’s arms in rapture upon accidentally discovering that they both
adored her.”
Kate Vaughan was the daughter of a musician named Candelon, who earned a
meagre living by playing in the orchestra of the once famous Grecian
Theatre. At the Grecian she studied dancing under Mrs Conquest, and it
is significant that, unlike most other skirt-dancers, she was thoroughly
grounded in the careful method of the ballet. One of her first successes
as a dancer was in the _Ballet of the Furies_ at the old Holborn
Amphitheatre in 1873. Dressed in a black skirt profusely trimmed with
gold, she created a great sensation in the rôle of the Spirit of
Darkness. After the contortions of the gymnastic dancers, whose
popularity testifies to the lamentable condition of the dance at this
time--the name of one of the favourites, “Wiry Sal,” is a sufficient
commentary upon the school!--the exquisite grace of the new dancer,
whose style was both precise and refined, was no less than a revelation.
The old Gaiety Theatre was at this time just entering upon its career of
phenomenal popularity, and its ingenious manager, Mr John Hollingshead,
was not slow to perceive that the new dance would quickly oust the
step-dancer and the contortionist from their place in the popular
favour. He was among the first to recognise the genius of Kate Vaughan,
and he had the means of presenting her to the public to the greatest
advantage. From the day in which she appeared in the famous Gaiety
Quartet, in _Little Don Caesar de Bazan_, her success was established.
She was as supreme in her time as Taglioni, Elssler, Grisi and Cerito
had been in theirs. Not only was she the popular idol of her generation,
but in spite of the tawdry glitter of the Gaiety stage she was able to
engage the interest of serious artists.
Her career is full of pathos if not tragedy. Although she possessed the
born instincts of a dancer she had an ambition to excel as an actress.
She left the Gaiety and spent most of her life with touring companies.
She lived long enough to outstay her welcome. London tired of her; only
the provinces remained faithful. Ill-health rendered her performances
more and more painful. Her dancing became a torture to her, yet she had
the resolution to go through with it even although she frequently had to
be carried off the stage for very weakness and pain. Worn out with
failure and illness, she left England for South Africa, where she hoped
that her fame as a dancer would make her season a success. But her name
had no magic for the younger generation that had sprung up in the
colony. Neither as a _comédienne_ nor as a dancer was she received with
any degree of enthusiasm. Almost broken-hearted, she fell ill, and died
in great loneliness and distress in Johannesburg in 1903.
In spite of her adoption of a new mode of dancing, Kate Vaughan belonged
primarily to the school of Taglioni. Although of course she never
reached the perfection of her predecessor, it was to her careful
training in the school of the ballet that she owed the ease and grace of
her movements and the wonderful effect of spontaneity with which she
accomplished even the most difficult steps. She danced not only with her
feet, but with every limb of her frail body. She depended not merely
upon the manipulation of the skirt for her effect, but upon her facility
of balance and the skilful use of arms and hands. Her _andante_
movements in particular were a glorious union of majesty and grace. It
is true that she
[Illustration: KATE VAUGHAN
IN TURKISH COSTUME
_Photograph: W. & D. Downey_]
condescended at times to introduce into her dance some of those hideous
steps which vulgarised the dancing of the period--in particular that
known as the “high kick”; but even this unpleasant step she accomplished
with a certain sense of elegance and refinement which disguised its
essential ugliness and suggestion of contortion. She danced with a
distinct inspiration, and upon her style was built up all that was best
in the dancing of her time.
The followers of Kate Vaughan were legion. Most of them were not dancers
at all in the proper sense of the word. They devoted themselves to the
Skirt Dance merely because it was the fashion of the hour, but of every
other branch of dancing they were almost wholly ignorant. But there were
three dancers who were something more than imitators of Kate
Vaughan--Letty Lind, Alice Lethbridge and Sylvia Grey. It is notable
that all of them were originally trained for the ballet. Alice
Lethbridge showed that she was no revolutionary in her view of what she
regarded as the foundation of all technical excellence in dancing, when
she said: “As long as dancing continues, the special movements of the
older ballet, its entrechats, pirouettes, and countless other steps,
must also exist, for they are but the great groundwork of it all.”
It was she who developed the Skirt Dance by introducing a revolving
motion, to which she gave the rather vague name of the “waltz movement.”
While dancing the ordinary waltz, she bent her body backwards until it
was almost horizontal, and in this position, still making all the
correct steps of the dance, she rotated the body around its own axis and
at the same time described a large circle round the stage. The swaying
of the body in slow time to the rapid movements of the feet and the
graceful waving of the skirts produced a curious and pleasing effect
which won for her an enormous celebrity. Her other most famous
performances were her Marionette Dance, her Fire Dance and some clever
shadow dances, which depended for their effect chiefly upon the skilful
use of reflected lights. Her dancing was characterised by an extreme
vivacity, by the lightnings of eye and hand, which were nevertheless
always subdued to the rhythm of the music.
Letty Lind was a dancer almost by accident. When still quite unknown
she was somewhat embarrassed by having a song given her in one of her
plays. She knew the limitations of her voice and asked if she might be
allowed to do a dance instead. Her performance was an astonishing
success, and from that moment her career was made. She devoted herself
to musical comedy, which was then coming into vogue, realising that
there is always room on the lighter operatic stage for an actress who is
also an accomplished dancer. For some years she was one of the principal
“stars” at Daly’s Theatre, but her reputation was always based chiefly
upon her dancing. As a skirt-dancer she never reached the perfection of
Kate Vaughan, but she always showed herself a dainty and finished
artist.
The Skirt Dance, with its swift rushes and billowy undulations of
flowing drapery, was at most a charming but trivial dance, of no great
pretension or particular significance. It demanded only an average
ability on the part of the performer, and no previous training in the
intricacies of the dance. It came at a time when, apart from the ballet
proper, the usual style of dancing was a kind of energetic
double-shuffling and step-dance, generally performed by ponderous
principal “boys” in vividly-coloured tights. Kate Vaughan brought to it
a personality which would have given distinction to a dance far less
artistic, and a daintiness of peculiar fascination. If it had followed
more closely the Greek models, with which it had some remote connection,
it might have evolved into a dance of greater artistic importance; but
its development was in the contrary direction. It degenerated into a
romp; it lost whatever precision of technique it had once demanded; and
as the width of the skirt grew to larger and larger dimensions, the
dancer gradually disappeared in the extravagance of her costume.
The original exponents of the Skirt Dance, as we have seen, were
ballet-dancers, whose novelty consisted rather in their costume than in
their methods. They adapted the steps of the ballet to the new style
without great modification. They brought to the dance that culture of
the whole body and not merely of the legs, which is proper to the
well-trained ballet-dancer as distinguished from the mere step-dancer.
But the misfortune of the
[Illustration: ALICE LETHBRIDGE
_Photograph: Ellis & Walery_]
Skirt Dance was that it afforded a convenient concealment to the
incompetent dancer. Less eminent artists were not slow to perceive that
the instruction which had failed to give them distinction in the
academic style was quite sufficient to make them resplendent as
skirt-dancers. There is a menace that always threatens the dance, no
less than the theatre, and that is the incursion of the incompetent
professional beauty. The generous public is willing to pardon a
multitude of sins for the sake of a pretty face. Now was the signal
opportunity for the unintelligent beauty to masquerade as a dancer.
Amateurs vied with professionals in seeking success in the simple
intricacies of the Skirt Dance. By performing it in a London theatre at
a charity matinée, the Countess Russell and her sister gave the dance
the sanction of the social world. Philanthropy became the hobby of the
fashionable skirt-dancer. A wit remarked that “charity uncovered a
multitude of shins.”
In a criticism of the period, Mr G. Bernard Shaw ridiculed this cult of
good looks and incompetence for which the Skirt Dance was responsible.
“Thanks to it,” he said, “we soon had young ladies carefully trained on
an athletic diet of tea, soda-water, rashers, brandy, ice-pudding,
champagne and sponge-cake, laboriously hopping and flopping, twirling
and staggering, as nuclei for a sort of bouquet of petticoats of many
colours, until finally, being quite unable to perform the elementary
feat, indispensable to a curtsey, of lowering and raising the body by
flexing and straightening the knee, they frankly sat down panting on
their heels, and looked piteously at the audience, half begging for an
encore, half wondering how they would ever be able to get through one.
The public on such occasions behaved with its usual weakness.... It was
mean enough to ape a taste for the poor girls’ pitiful sham dancing,
when it was really gloating over their variegated underclothing. Who has
not seen a musical comedy or comic farce interrupted for five minutes,
whilst a young woman without muscle or practice enough to stand safely
on one foot--one who, after a volley of kicks with the right leg has, on
turning to the other side of the stage, had to confess herself
ignominiously unable to get beyond a stumble with her left, and, in
short, could not, one would think, be mistaken by her most
infatuated adorer for anything but an object-lesson in saltatory
incompetence--clumsily waves the inevitable petticoats at the public as
silken censers of that _odor di femina_ which is the real staple of
five-sixths of our theatrical commerce?” For his part, he continues,
“the young lady who can do no more than the first sufficiently brazen
girl in the street could, may shake all the silk at Marshall and
Snelgrove’s at me in vain.”
It was possibly this fatal facility of the Skirt Dance that gave it its
unparalleled vogue. For a time everybody skirt-danced. There has
probably been no such sudden craze for any style of dancing as that
which seized England at the time of the famous _Pas de Quatre_ in _Faust
up to Date_. The schottische-like melody composed for the dance by Meyer
Lutz, the Gaiety conductor, was performed to satiety upon every
orchestra in the country. In a mild form the dance was introduced into
the ball-room, while certainly for years no pantomime was complete
without the inevitable four girls in short accordion-pleated skirts,
standing in a row behind one another, kicking out first one leg and then
the other in time to the jerky music.
The grace of Kate Vaughan had given an extraordinary vitality to the
Skirt Dance; her imitators’ lack of grace killed it. Because Kate
Vaughan danced in the moonlight--or the livid hue which then passed for
moonlight on the stage--every dancer had the lights turned down, with a
special ray from the wings upon her whirling petticoats. Moreover the
performers of the step-dance from the halls, the only dance really
popular with the public before this time, took up the new fashion with
alacrity and threw into it more than all their ancient energy. The dance
became more and more violent. It was burlesqued out of recognition. The
prettiness of the Skirt Dance as it was danced by Kate Vaughan perished
in the contortions that were introduced from the Moulin Rouge and
popularised in England by Lottie Collins.
[Illustration: LETTY LIND
IN A SKIRT DANCE
_Photograph: Ellis & Walery_]