The Art of Stage Dancing Part 3

Scene from "Ned Wayburn's Demi-Ta.s.se Revue."

Rita Howard, Vaudeville Dancing Star, and with Ned Wayburn Productions (White Studio, N.Y.).

Corridor on Third Floor of Ned Wayburn Studios.

"By the South Sea Moon," Follies of 1922, with Gilda Gray.

Belle Baker, Vaudeville Star (Lowell, Chicago).

Business Office of the Ned Wayburn Studios.

Pearl Regay, Dancing Star in "Rose-Marie" (White Studio, N.Y.).

Eddie Cantor, Star of "Kid Boots," "Follies," etc. (White Studio, N.Y.).

Fifteen Thousand Square Feet of Floor s.p.a.ce, Two Floors, Comprised in Ned Wayburn's Studios of Stage Dancing, at Columbus Circle and Broadway, New York.

_The ART of STAGE DANCING_

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_NED WAYBURN_

[Ill.u.s.tration: GILDA GRAY AND NED WAYBURN PUPILS IN "IT'S GETTING DARKER ON BROADWAY," FOLLIES OF 1922]

THE ART OF STAGE DANCING

[Ill.u.s.tration: Overture]

A BIT OF ANCIENT HISTORY

Every age has had its ways of dancing; every people has expressed itself in some form of rhythmic motion.

The dance originally was the natural expression of the simple emotions of a primitive people. Triumph, defeat, war, love, hate, desire, propitiation of the G.o.ds of nature, all were danced by the hero or the tribe to the rhythm of beaten drums.

Over six thousand years ago Egypt made use of the dance in its religious ritual. At a very early period the Hebrews gave dancing a high place in their ceremony of wors.h.i.+p. Moses bade the children of Israel dance after the crossing of the Red Sea. David danced before the Ark of the Covenant. The Bible is replete with instances showing the place of the dance in the lives of the people of that time.

Greece in its palmy days was the greatest dancing nation the world has ever known. Here it was protected by priesthood and state, practiced by rich and poor, high and lowly born. One of the nine muses was devoted to the fostering of this particular art. Great ballets memorialized great events; simple rustic dances celebrated the coming of the flowers and the gathering of the crops. Priestesses performed the sacred numbers; eccentric comedy teams enlivened the streets of Athens. Philosophers taught it to pupils for its salutary effect on body and mind; it was employed to give soldiers poise, agility and health.

The dance was undoubtedly among the causes of Greek vigor of mind and body. Physicians prescribed its rhythmic exercise for many ailments.

Plato specifies dancing among the necessities for the ideal republic, and Socrates urged it upon his pupils. The beauty of harmonized movements of healthy bodies, engendered by dancing, had its effect on the art of Greece.

Since the days of cla.s.sic Greece, scenery, music and costume have created effects then undreamed of, but notwithstanding the lack of incidental factors, the greatness and frequency of munic.i.p.al ballets, the variety of motives that dancing was made to express, combine to give Greece a rank never surpa.s.sed as a dancing nation.

The Greek stage of this age was rich in scope, and for its effects drew upon poetry, music, dancing, grouping and posing.

Then came the Dark Ages of history, and in a degraded world dancing was saved and taken under the protection of the Christian church, where it remained for the greater part of a thousand years. The vehicle that carried the ballet through this period was known as the "spectacle." These sacred spectacles, in grouping, evolution, decoration and music, possessed qualities that ent.i.tle them to a respectable place in the annals of opera ballet. The steps were primitive, but they sufficed for the times.

However, the organization of the first real opera ballet conforming to standards of modern excellence did not come till the latter part of the fifteenth century, when Cardinal Riario, a nephew of Pope Sixtus IV, composed and staged a number of important ballet productions.

But the greatest development of the modern type of ballet received its impetus under the reign of Louis XIV of France, who founded the national ballet academy at Paris in 1661, and often played prominent parts himself. Under this influence great performers began to appear, artists whose work, by grace of beauty alone, attested that perfection in ballet technique was approaching.

The growth of the ballet since the time of Louis XIV has been the contribution of individual artists, who by giving expression to their own original ideas have thus advanced the art to the pinnacle attained by the modern Russian ballet of today.

The above outline of the history of the dance is made brief intentionally, with no attempt to touch upon the various forms of dancing as practiced by the many nations and tribes. Numerous books have been written covering all aspects of this subject, and giving in detail the steps and rhythms of the people of every age, and of every continent and the isles of the sea; and as matters of interest, education and research they are competent and complete, and especially edifying to the student of Terpsich.o.r.e.

But the subject that interests us is not concerned with ancient lore nor with historical data, however delightful they may be. I am writing for the American of today about present-day matters in the American theatrical world, and to that end choose to ignore all other phases of the subject.

In our day the development of the dance has reached its greatest heights, in both the social circle and the stage picture.

The advance made in stage dancing within the last generation has been very p.r.o.nounced, yet so gradual has been this growth and improvement, that only the elders of the present time can visualize its progress, and that only by a backward look to the period of paucity and monotony that ruled in their junior years, and contrast the dearth of then with the abundance of now.

For really, whether in our mult.i.tude of revues or in our many musical shows, the dance, the pose, the rhythm and the melody that enhance our delight are all parts of the modern art of stage dancing. And it is of this art that the writer seeks to tell the story in the present volume.

Both the theatre and the dance have had their abundant historians. The dance is ages older than the theatre. The time of the coming of the dance to the theatre and their fitting union ever after has been recorded. They have advanced together hand in hand through the years since their first meeting and are closer companions at this hour than ever before.

Stage dancing is no longer the haphazard stepping of feet to music that it was in the beginning. From its earlier crude efforts it has developed into a modern art, a profession of the first cla.s.s, calling for brain and ability at their very best, its devotees giving years of labor to perfecting themselves in their chosen art.

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[Ill.u.s.tration: ONE VIEW OF GRAND BALL ROOM]

[Ill.u.s.tration: NED WAYBURN REVUE]

MODERN STAGE DANCING

Modern stage dancing differs from social or ballroom dancing in that it is the kind of dancing that one can commercialize.

Most of the artistic and financial successes of the stage today are built upon music and dancing. We find these two essential elements in opera, revue, musical comedy, pantomime and vaudeville, while the place of the dance in moving pictures may well be recognized. Should the old-time minstrel show come back, as it is certain to do, there will be added another name to the list of active entertainments that call for a union of music and dancing to insure their prosperity.

The Follies, the Frolics, the Scandals, the Music Box, the Vanities, the Pa.s.sing Shows--by whatever name the modern revue is spread before an eager public, the basis of its appeal is always the same. And when the Junior Leagues--the various charity organizations and the social and college clubs of our cities stage a performance that shall appeal to the interest of their public, and consequently gather in the shekels to their coffers, these amateur organizations turn naturally to music and dance and spectacle as the mediums with the widest appeal; an appeal to both the performer and the spectator.

Incidentally, let me say that the appeal of music and the dance to the performer, whether on the professional or the amateur stage, is not given the consideration to which it is ent.i.tled. Perhaps n.o.body in the audience cares whether or not the dancer is enjoying the dance. But let me tell you, the dancer is having just as good a time up there on the stage as you are down in front; and probably you never gave the matter a thought!

The dancers' enjoyment of the art is an essential factor in the causes that lead to the popularity of our modern type of stage entertainment.

To have acquired proficiency in their chosen profession the dancers have labored strenuously and long, and now the reward of years of effort is theirs. They love their art as well as its emoluments. By industry and perhaps frugality they have acquired an independent career for life. They have made much of their opportunities. They have a right to be happy. And they are.

Probably no man ever lived who knows personally so many dancing folks as I do, and among all my stage acquaintances and friends I can count on a very few fingers the number that I would not cla.s.s as supremely happy in their profession, and those few who might be considered as unhappy are made so by circ.u.mstances entirely apart from the stage, or, in a few instances, because of their own folly and indiscretions.