A Treatise on the Art of Dancing Part 5

A

SUMMARY ACCOUNT

Of various kinds of

DANCES

In different Parts of the WORLD.

_Cantatur et saltatur apud omnes gentes, aliquo saltem modo_, QUINT.

In EUROPE.

As almost every country has dances particular to it, or, at least, so naturalized by adoption from others, that in length of time they pa.s.s for originals; a slight sketch of the most remarkable of them may serve to throw a light upon this subject, entertaining to some, and both entertaining and useful to others.

In BRITAIN, you have the hornpipe, a dance which is held an original of this country. Some of the steps of it are used in the country-dances here, which are themselves a kind of dance executed with more variety and agreeableness than in any part of Europe, where they are also imitatively performed, as in Italy, Germany and in several other countries. Nor is it without reason they obtain, here the preference over the like in other places.

They are no where so well executed. The music is extremely well adapted, and the steps in general are very pleasing. Some foreign comic dancers, on their coming here, apply themselves with great attention to the true study of the hornpipe, and by constant practice acquire the ability of performing it with success in foreign countries, where it always meets with the highest applause, when masterly executed. There was an instance of this, sometime ago at Venice, at an opera there, when the theatre was as well provided with good singers and dancers, as any other. But they had not the good fortune to please the public. A dancer luckily for the manager, presented himself, who danced the hornpipe in its due perfection. This novelty took so, and made such full houses, that the manager, who had begun with great loss, soon saw himself repaired, and was a gainer when he little expected it.

It is to the HIGHLANDERS in North-Britain, that I am told we are indebted for a dance in the comic vein, called the _Scotch Reel_, executed generally, and I believe always in _trio_, or by three. When well danced, it has a very pleasing effect: and indeed nothing can be imagined more agreeable, or more lively and brilliant, than the steps in many of the Scotch dances.

There is a great variety of very natural and very pleasing ones.

And a composer of comic dances, might, with great advantage to himself, upon a judicious a.s.semblage of such steps as he might pick out of their dances, form a dance that, with well adapted dresses, correspondent music, and figures capable of a just performance, could hardly fail of a great success upon the theatre.

I do not know whether I shall not stand in need of an apology for mentioning here a dance once popular in England, but to which the idea of low is now currently annexed. It was originally adapted from the Moors, and is still known by the name of Morris-dancing, or Moresc-dance. It is danced with swords, by persons odly disguised, with a great deal of antic rural merriment: it is true that this diversion is now almost exploded, being entirely confined to the lower cla.s.ses of life, and only kept up in some counties. What the reason may be of its going out of use, I cannot say; but am very sure, there was not only a great deal of natural mirth in it, but that it is susceptible enough of improvement, to rescue it from the contempt it may have incurred, through its being chiefly in use among the vulgar; though most probably it may have descended among them from the higher ranks. For certainly of them it was not quite unworthy, for the Pirrhic or military air it carries with it, and which probably was the cause of its introduction among so martial a people. Rude, as it was, it might require refinement, but it did not, perhaps, deserve to become quite obsolete.

In SPAIN, they have a dance, called, _Les Folies d'Espagne_, which is performed either by one or by two, with castanets.

There is a dress peculiarly adapted to it, which has a very pleasing effect, as well as the dance itself.

In FRANCE, their _Contre-dances_, are drawn from the true principles of the art, and the figures and steps are generally very agreeable. No nation cultivates this art with more taste and delicacy. Their _Provencale_ dance, is most delightfully sprightly, and well imagined. The steps seem to correspond with the natural vivacity and gaiety of the Provencals. This dance is commonly performed to the pipe and tabor.

The FLEMISH dances run in the most droll vein of true rural humor. The performers seem to be made for the dances, and the dances for the performers; so well a.s.sorted are the figures to the representation. Several eminent painters in the grotesque stile, Teniers especially, have formed many diverting pictures taken from life, upon this subject.

At NAPLES, they have various grotesque dances, which are originals in their kind, being extremely difficult to execute, not only for the variety of the steps, but for the intricacy and uncommonness, or rather singularity of them.

But while I am mentioning Naples, I ought not to omit that effect of dancing, which is attributed to it, upon those who are bitten with the _Tarantula_. The original of this opinion, was probably owing to some sensible physician, prescribing such a violent motion, more likely to be kept up in the patient, by the power of music, than by any thing else, as might enable him to expel the poison, by being thereby thrown into a copious sweat, and by other benefits from such a vehement agitation. This, it is supposed, was afterwards abused and turned into a mere trick, to a.s.semble a croud and get money, either by sham bites, or by making a kind of show of this method of practice in real ones.

However, that may be, the various grimaces or contortions, leaps and irregular steps, commonly used on this occasion, to be executed to that sort of music, or airs adapted to it, might afford a good subject for a grotesque dance, to be formed upon the plan of a burlesque or mock-imitation: and I am not quite sure that the idea of such a dance, has not been already carried into execution.

The castanets the NEAPOLITANS most frequently use, are of the largest size. It is also from Naples that we have taken the Punchinello dance.

At FLORENCE, they have a dance, called, _il Treschone_. The country-women, in the villages, are very fond of it. They are generally speaking, very robust, and capable of holding out the fatigue of this dance, for a long time. To make themselves more light for it, they often pull off their shoes. The dance is opened by a couple, one of each s.e.x. The woman holds in her hand a handkerchief, which she flings to him whom she chuses for her next partner, who, in his turn has an equal right to dispose of it in the same manner, to any woman of the company he chuses.

Thus is the dance carried on without any interruption till the a.s.sembly breaks up.

The favorite dance of the VENETIANS, is what they call the _Furlana_, which is performed by two persons dancing a-round with the greatest rapidity. Those who have a good ear, keep time with the crossing their feet behind; and some add a motion of their hands, as if they were rowing or tugging at an oar. This dance is practiced in several other parts of Italy.

The Peasants of TIROL, have one of the most pleasant and grotesque dances that can be imagined. They perform it in a sort of holy-day dress, made of skins, and adorned with ribbons. They wear wooden shoes, not uncuriously painted; and the women especially express a kind of rural simplicity and frolic mirth, which has a very agreeable effect.

The GRISONS are in possession of an old dance, which is not without its merit, and which they would not exchange for the politest in Europe; they being as invariably attached to it, as to their dress.

The HUNGARIANS are very noisy in their dances, with their iron heels, but when they are of an equal size, and dressed in their uniforms, the agility of their steps, and the regularity of dress in the performers, render them not a disagreeable sight.

The GERMANS have a dance called the _Allemande_, in which the men and women form a ring. Each man holding his partner round the waist, makes her whirl round with almost inconceivable rapidity: they dance in a grand circle, seeming to pursue one another: in the course of which they execute several leaps, and some particularly pleasing steps, when they turn, but so very difficult as to appear such even to professed dancers themselves. When this dance is performed by a numerous company, it furnishes one of the most pleasing sights that can be imagined.

The POLISH n.o.bility have a dance, to which the magnificence of their dress, and the elegance of the steps, the gracefulness of the att.i.tudes, the fitness of the music, all contribute to produce a great effect. Were it performed here on the theatre, it would hardly fail of a general applause.

The COSSACS, have, amidst all their uncouth barbarism, a sort of dancing, which they execute to the sound of an instrument, somewhat resembling a Mandoline, but considerably larger, and which is highly diverting, from the extreme vivacity of the steps, and the oddity of the contortions and grimaces, with which they exhibit it. For a grotesque dance there can hardly be imagined any thing more entertaining.

The RUSSIANS, afford nothing remarkable in their dances, which they now chiefly take from other countries. The dance of dwarfs with which the Czar Peter the Great, solemnized the nuptials of his niece to the Duke of Courland, was, probably rather a particular whim of his own, than a national usage.

In ASIA.

In TURKY, dances have been, as of old in Greece, and elsewhere inst.i.tuted in form of a religious ceremony. The _Dervishes_ who are a kind of devotionists execute a dance, called the _Semaat_ in a circle, to a strange wild-simphony, when holding one another by the hand, they turn round with such rapidity, that, with pure giddiness, they often fall down in heaps upon one another.

They have also in Turky, as well as India and Persia, professed dancers, especially of the female s.e.x, under the name of dancing-girls, who are bred up, from their childhood, to the profession; and are always sent for to any great entertainment, public or private, as at feasts, weddings, ceremonies of circ.u.mcision, and, in short, on all occasions of festivity and joy. They execute their dances to a simphony of various instruments, extremely resembling the antient ones, the _tympanum_, the _crotala_, the _cimbals_, and the like, as well as to songs, being a kind of small dramatic compositions, or what may properly be called _ballads_, which is a true word for a song at once sung and danced: _ballare_ signifying to dance; and _ballata_, a song, composed to be danced. It is probable that from these eastern kind of dances, which are undoubtedly very antient, came the name, among the Romans, of _balatrones_.

Nothing can be imagined more graceful, nor more expressive, than the gestures and att.i.tudes of those dancing-girls, which may properly be called the eloquence of the body, in which indeed most of the Asiatics and inhabitants of the southren climates const.i.tutionally excel, from a sensibility more exquisite than is the attribute of the more northern people; but a sensibility ballanced by too many disadvantages to be envied them. The Siamese, we are told, have three dances, called the _Cone_, the _Lacone_, and the _Raban_. The _Cone_ is a figure-dance, in which they use particularly a string-instrument in the nature of a violin, with some others of the Asiatic make. Those who dance are armed and masked, and seem to be a fighting rather than dancing. It is a kind of Indian Pirrhic. Their masks represent the most frightful hideous countenances of wild-beasts, or demons, that fancy can invent. In the _Lacone_ the performers sing commutually stanzes of verses containing the history of their country. The Raban is a mixed dance, of men and women, not martial, nor historical, but purely gallant; in which the dancers have all long false nails of copper. They sing in this dance, which is only a slow march without any high motions, but with a great many contortions of body and arms. Those who dance in the Raban and Cone have high gilt caps like sugar-loaves. The dance of the _Lacone_ is appropriated to the dedication of their temples, when a new statue of their _Sommona-codom_ is set up.

In many parts of the East, at their weddings, in conducting the bride from her house to the bridegroom's, as in Persia especially, they make use of processional music and dancing.

But, in the religious ceremonies of the Gentoos, when, at stated times, they draw the triumphal car, in which the image of the deity of the festival is carried, the procession is intermixed with troops of dancers of both s.e.xes, who, proceed, in chorus, leaping, dancing, and falling into strange antics, as the procession moves along, of which they compose a part; these adapt their gestures and steps to the sounds of various instruments of music.

Considering withal that the Romans, in their most solemn processions, as in that called the _Pompa_, which I have before mentioned, in which not only the Pirrhic dance was processionally executed, but other dances, in masquerade, by men who, in their habits, by leaping and by feats of agility, represented satirs, the _Sileni_, and _Fauni_, and were attended by minstrels playing on the flute and guitar; besides which, there were _Salian_ priests, and _Salian_ virgins, who followed, in their order, and executed their respective religious dances; it may bear a question whether not an unpleasing use might not be made, on the theatres, of processional dances properly introduced, and connected, especially in the burlesque way. In every country, and particularly in this, processions are esteemed an agreeable amus.e.m.e.nt to the eye; and certainly they must receive more life and animation from a proper intermixture of dances, than what a mere solemn march can represent, where there is nothing to amuse but a long train of personages in various habits, walking in parade. I only mention this however as a hint not impossible to be improved, and reduced into practice.

But even, where it might be improper or ridiculous to think of mixing dances with a procession, though it were but in burlesque, which must, if at all, be the preferable way of mixing them, the pleasure of those who delight in seeing processions and pageantry exhibited on the theatre, might be gratified, without any violence to propriety, by making them introductory to the dances of the grandest kind. For example; where a dance in Chinese characters is intended, a procession might be previously brought in, of personages, of whom the habits, charactures, and manners might be faithfully copied from nature, and from the truth of things, and convey to the spectator a juster notion, of the people from which the representation was taken, of their dress and public processions, than any verbal description, or even prints or pictures. After which, the dance might naturally take place, in celebration of the festival, of which, the procession might be supposed the occasion.

In order to give a more distinct idea of this hint, I have hereto annexed the print of a Chinese procession taken from the description of a traveller into that country; by which a good composer would well know how to make a proper choice of what might be exhibited, and what was fit to be left out; especially according as the dance should be, serious or burlesque. In the last case; even the horses might be represented by a theatrical imitation. And certainly, bringing the personages on in such a regular procession at first, would give a better opportunity of observing their dresses, than in the huddled, confused manner of grouping them, that has been sometimes practised: to say nothing of the pleasure afforded to the eye by the procession itself.

The print annexed represents the procession of a Chinese Mandarin of the first order. First appear two men who strike each upon a copper instrument called a gongh, resembling a hollow dish without a border, which has pretty much the effect of a kettle-drum.

Follow the ensign-bearers, on whose flags are written in large characters the Mandarin's t.i.tles of honour. Next fourteen standards, upon which appear the proper simbols of his office, such as the dragon, tiger, phoenix, flying tortoise, and other winged creatures of fancy, emblematically exhibited.

Six officers, bearing a staff headed by an oblong square board, raised high, whereon are written in large golden characters the particular qualities of this Mandarin.

Two others bear, the one a large umbrella of yellow silk (the imperial color) of three folds, one above the other; the other officer carries the case in which the umbrella is kept.

Two archers on horseback, at the head of the chief guard: then the guards, armed with large hooks, adorned with silk fringe, in four rows one above another; two other files of men in armor, some bearing maces with long handles; others, maces in the form of a hand, or of a serpent: others, equipped with large hammers and long hatchets like a crescent. Other guards bearing sharp axes: some, weapons like scythes, only strait. Soldiers carrying three-edged halberds.

Two porters, carrying a splendid coffer, containing the seal of his office.

Two other men, beating each a _gongh_, which gives notice of the Mandarin's approach.

Two officers, armed with staves, to keep off the croud.

Two mace-bearers with gilt maces in the shape of dragons, and a number of officers of justice, some equiped with bamboes, a kind of flat cudgels, to give the bastinado: others with chains, whips, cutla.s.ses, and hangers.