Morning journal and courier., 1882-08-28
Gypsy Dance In Malaga.

tember.l
 At last the moment for the .fdmenco ar rives. The leader begins to beat monoton- ousy on the boards, just as our Indians do with their tomahawks, to set the rhythm ; the guitars strike into their rising and falling melancholy strain. Two or three women chant weird song, and all clap their hands 1n peculiar measure, now louder, now fainter, and with pauses of varying length between the emphatic reports. The dancer has not yet risen from her seat she seems to demand encouragement. The others call out, "Olle !'' Ca gypsy word for 'Bravo!'') and smile and nod their heads at her to draw her on. All this excites in you a ivelier curiosity, sort of suspense. ''What can be coming now ?? you ask. Finally she gets up, smiling half scornfully; light comes into her eyes she throws her head back, and her face is suffused with an expression of daring, of energy, and strange pride. Perhaps 1t Is only my fancy, but there seems to creep over the woman at that instant a reminiscence of far of and mysterious things; her face, partially lifted, seems to catch the light of old traditions and to be imbued with the spirit of something belonging to the past which she is about to revive. Her arms are thrown upward, she snaps her fingers, and draws them down slowly close before her face far the waist, when, with an easy waving sideward, the ''pass" is ended, and the arms go up again to repeat the move ment. Her body, too, IS in motion now, only slightly, with a kind of vibration and her feet, unseen beneath the flowing skirt, have begun an easy, quiet, repressed rhythmical figure So she advances, her face always 1 forward, and goes swiftly around circle, coming back to the point where she began without appearing to step. The music goes on steadily, the cries of her companions be- come more animated, and she continues to | execute that queer, aimless, yet dimly beck 1 oning gesture with both arms, never remit ! ting it nor the snapping of her fingers, in l fact, until she has finished the whole affair Her feet go a little faster; you hear them tapping the floor as they weave upon it some more complicated measure. But there | is not the slightest approach to springing l tendency. Her progress is sinuous she glides and shutf1es, her soles quitting the 1 boards as little possible, something be- l tween clog dance and walk, perfect in l time, with a complexity in the exercise of the l feet demanding much skill She treats the performance with great dignity the intensity ! of her absorption invests it with something l almost solemn.
 Forward again She gazes intently in front as she proceeds, and again she floats back | ward, looking triumphant, perhaps with a spark of latent mischief in her eyes. She | stamps harder upon the floor; the sounds | follow like pistol reports. The regular cLach, | cI1ck', cLdch, of the smitten hands goes on about her, and the cries of the rest increase in zest and loudness.
 "Olle ole !''
 Bravo, my gracious one"
 "Muy blen . muy bien ;"
 "Hurrah! Live the queen of the ants :" | shouts the leader. And the audience
 roars at his eccentric phrase.
 l The dancer becomes more inpassioned, l but in no way more violent. Her body does not move above the hips. It is only the legs that twist and turn and bend and stamp, as if one electric shock after another were be-
 ing sent downward through them. Every
 few minutes her activity passes by some
 scarcely noted gradation into a subtly new
 phase, but all these phases are bound to-
 gether by certain uniformity of restraint
 and fixed law. Now she almost comes to q
 stand still, and then we notice quiverinR
 snaky, shuddering motion, beginning at the
 shoulders and t1o2rjrg down through hel
 whole body, wave upon wave, the dress
 drawn tighter with one hand showing that this continues downward to her feet. Is she
 Lamia in act of undergoing metamcrpho
 sis, serpent or woman ? The next mo
 ment she is dancing, receding-this time
 with smiles and with indescribable air o
 invitation in the tossing of her arms Blu
 the crowning achievement is whom the hi P ! begin to sway too, and, while she is going
 back and forward, execute rotary move
 ment like that ot the bent part of an auger
 In fact you expect her to bore herself int
 the f1oor and disappear. Then all at ono
 the stamping and clspping and the twanginl ! strings stopped, she ceases her forma
 gyrations she walks back to her seat like on
 liberated from spell; and the whole thinl I Ia over