A HISTORY OF DANCING.* THE fascination which the dance has
always exercised upon the mind of man furnishes a very good reason for the stately volume which has been compiled upon its history. A shorter work upon the subject was not long ago contributed to the "Badminton Library," but it wanted the fullness of inquiry into the origin and earlier fashions of the dance which has characteristically employed M. Vuillier's pen, and had not the attractive accompaniment of the body of illustration which adorns and sets out his story. Portraits of the most famous of the world's dancers, from Terpsichore to Miss Kate Vaughan—perhaps not the least worthy of her successors— are provided in profuse succession ; and nearly all the countries of the world, ancient and modern, are in turn made the subject of comment and inquiry. England rejoices in a disquisition to herself at the end ; and the rather disconnected fashion of her introduction, and one or two
casual expressions, such as " our national characteristics " and "the old days of our merrie England," suggest rather forcibly that it is an addition by the translator, whose name does not 'appear, made on his own account. M.
Vuillier is, as becomes him, quite content with the glories of his own country, which occupies a very disproportionate amount of his researches ; but all his anecdotes and all his records, with the glories of Vestris and La Camargo—Vestris, who acknowledged but three great men in his century, " Vol- taire, Frederick the Great, and himself," and Camargo, who revolutionised the operatic world by her improvisations, and had all the novelties in fashion called after her—fail to con- vince us that France is really a dancing country. The story of Camargo's first triumph is curious :—
" In spite of her successes she had to resign herself at first to be a mere figurante in the corps de ballet. One night, however, Dumoulin, nicknamed the Devil, was to have danced a pas seta. Something occurred to retard his entrance, although the musician had struck up his tune. A sudden inspiration seized the Camargo (who was one of a group of attendant demons), and quitting her place, she executed Dumoulin's dance with diabolical energy before an enthusiastic audience."
The lady's charm and talent did the rest; but the anecdote makes us feel rather curious about the stage-management of
• A History of Dancing : from the Earliest Ages to OUT Own Times. From the Trench of Gaston Veinier. With 20 Full-page Plates and 409 Illustrations. London 3 Rememann the day. There must have been a certain laxity about the arrangements which made it possible for a youthful " super " to set all authority at defiance and pirouette on her own account in this sort of way. But like the principal French leaders, the principal French dancers seem to have been of foreign origin. Camargo came from Brussels, and the Vestrises from Florence; and after all that we read of the origins of French dancing, its country forms and its in- digenous varieties, it is impossible not to feel from M. Vuillier's pages that its especial spirit has never been so characteristically exhibited as in the strange gymnastic displays of the Closerie de Liles and Mabille. The valse and polka and all the vanities of a more decorous world came from other climes, and nothing is more amusing than the account of the furore created by the last-named portent upon its first appearance. It was long voted vulgar by the upper classes, and had long been wildly popular in the middle region, when a curious Duchess of fashion opened her doors to it, and it conquered then and there. Very quaint indeed are the plates which depict the polking figures, with the long waists and close skirts of the ladies and the kotoos and shoes of the men. But if truth be told, society dancing has at the best an apathetic appearance in these pages by the side of the hearty excitement of the country measures, from the days of ancient Greece to our own, or by contrast with the artistic glamour of the stage. Everything has a quadrille-like appearance of formality ; and more appropriate to the drawing-room than to the opera-ball, where it is said to have been uttered, was the exclamation of the De Goncourts, " For Heaven's sake, do try to look as if you were enjoying yourselves." The ladies of the Directorate gave a certain "local colour" to the balls of that date by their wonderful costumes, but did not much affect the nature of the thing itself. Somehow, the truth about the dance appears to be that it really is what the Orientals fancied it,— a 'thing for experts to be paid to do. It is no part of Fashion's fashioned instincts, and no necessity of her life more than as a form of " a party." It is in the fish-girl of Boulogne that we are like to find the dancer's furore more than in the damosel of Paris or of London. M. Vuillier is per- fectly right in saying that dancing is an art which is for the moment passing through a dreary period of eclipse, and also that the enduring vitality of it is bound to bring it well into the light again. Since the minstrels and the damsels playing on the cymbals first began their enduring round, the irre- sistible attraction of dancing to the multitude has held its own. Even with us it is at its best in the streets, where we have often seen little gutter-maidens revolving gravely to the sound of a barrel-organ with a timefulness which would shame many a drawing-room heroine; but England is not the dancer's natural home. On the Italian cliffs we have seen a bevy of girls, returning weary from a long day's work, set down their loads for a time, and instead of resting by the wayside, break out together into a vigorous and graceful dance. It is in Spain, however, that, in modern days at all events, the art has gained an absolute supremacy, and what may be an unwilling recognition of the fact comes clearly out in M. Vuillier's pages. Even in the small proportion of space allotted to Spanish dancing, the reader gathers enough of it to long to see it for himself, while the traveller acquainted with Spain recalls at once the incomparable performances he has wit- nessed in some unpretending caf4 or in some outdoor haunt, where the wild grace of Spanish dancing, with the rhythmic motion of the arms and body which are its especial charm, has often startled him into uncomplimentary comparison with what is popularly called dancing at home. To dance with the whole body is the Spaniard's gift, —which carried to excess results in the strange gipsy antics so constantly to be met with, chiefly in Spain also. These are often, it must be confessedta great deal more weird than attractive, but in no other form of dancing can the inspiring effect of the motion upon the human frame and mind be more directly traced. It is a singular thing that, as far as we can discover, M. Vuillier in his whole book makes no mention of the gipsy dancer at all. This surely argues a disrespect for the Romany which should lead to vigorous remonstrance from Mr. Leland and his fellow-lovers of the mystic craft. But not the least attractive feature of the chapter about the Spanish dancers is the variety of bright little ditties which are set out in connec- tion with them:— " Whistled by muleteers, sung in taverns, echoing through the torrid airs, the copias de Sequidiltas (couplets to which the Sequidilla is danced in Andalusia) are innumerable. The copias of La Mancha are famous. Many of them are ephemeral ; others endure to enrich that patrimony of ancient song transmitted from generation to generation, printed at Barcelona, or in the neigh- bourhood of Seville or Madrid, and sold at book-stalls, or hawked by blind men through the country-side."
Dancing and song are the closest of all sister-arts, and the palmy days of Italian opera in England were when the beautiful and costly exotic was nourished even more by the ballet, as illustrated by the modest and poetic art of the Ceritos and Taglionis, than by the musical
dramas with which they were allied. M. Vnillier has not been neglectful of the claims of antiquity and of the East, with its strange license and infinite variety. To Greek dancing he attributes an especial charm, and an individual grace of modesty which he very strongly contrasts with the feats of the Tark in that direction. In many parts of his book he is
severe on some of the forms of dancing which have been prominent at various periods of the world's history, but after a pleased and interested perusal, we have come to the definite conclusion that no dancing whatever has been quite so vulgar and meaningless as it has become in some of its modern shapes. Its latest development upon the English stage has at least the merit of simplicity, consisting, as it does, of one step, one kick, and one somersault. But in all its simplicity it is apt at times to pall. The large type and size of the volume Mr. Heinemann has published, together with its abun- dance of illustration; give it something of the album character.
But the subject is graceful and attractive, inoffensively dealt with, and will repay the pleasant trifling of a few idler hours.
Previous page
