BALLET
Cores y Danzas de Espana. (Stoll Theatre.)
WHILE we are grateful to Mr. Peter Daubeny for giving us an oppor- tunity to see so comprehensive a display of Spanish folk-dancing, I cannot help feeling that the theatre is. not the ideal place for such a presentation. The Spanish dancers who have been appearing in London these last couple of years have been professionals, whose programmes, while based on the traditional dances of Spain, have been especially arranged and devised for theatrical presentation. But the 120 artistes now appearing at the Stoll Theatre, under the organisation of the " Coros y Danzas de Espana," are simply enthusiastic amateurs who, from cultural and educational interests, have revived the regional dances of their country. I do not mean to belittle their splendid work in any way whatsoever ; it is invaluable to students of the dance and especially to those with ethnological interests. But these folk-dancers cannot use a theatre's scenic and lighting effects ; their audiences should be grouped around them with a certain degree of informality, and I think it would have been better, and even less misleading from the public's point of view, to have presented the" Coros y Danzas de Espana "in a hall or arena. After all, this demonstration corresponds with those of our own Folk Dance Society, and, irrespective of the merits or comparative richness of either, we should feel it rather incongruous if the latter were to appear in a theatre in the West End.
Among some thirty-five items in the programme, there were dances from provinces over the length and breadth of Spain as well as from the Balearic Islands. Most of them were enchanting to behold —delightfully costumed, and for the most part danced with real gusto. The variety of the instruments which formed the musical accompani- ment was truly fascinating, but what impressed me most of all was the wide range of moods which these dances evoked.
LILLIAN BROWSE.
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