Hit and Miss
Less than four minutes long, Entree Japonaise, Frederick Ashton's dance morsel served' up by Margot Fonteyn at the Covent Garden Gala performance on Thursday. proved a splendid pike d'occasion; the kind of thing to be done suddenly and without advance notice (as one hopes it will be), a lagniappe suddenly tossed at the audience during a bill of sombre ballets. It consists of the appearance of, and a short dance, by, a Japanese-style character, the gay, young cousin of Puccini's heroine. Simple steps, the play with parasol and two fans, the truly comic pertness of gesture, the unearthlY innocent smiles—all this was derivative from other works. But, also, a skilled professional had calculated exactly what he wished to do, had used exactly the right proportions of everything, and had had it exactly performed by an artist capable of elevating triviality into loveliness. A. V. C.
Previous page
