Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1890-07-11
THE AMAZON MARCH.
It II Dlnicult for n Manager to Invone-"
Much Labor Involved.


81 suppose that very few of the peo-
pie who have ever seen the marches OF
ballet girls in spectacular productions
have stopped to think of the immense
amount of labor involved in the prepar-
alton of those marches" said well.
known theatrical manager the other
day. "The audience looks at the long
lines of brilliantly arrayed girls as they
go through the most intricate figures
with never thought of the work OF the
designer of the figures. The girls do
their part with such apparent ease that
there is no indication of the weeks OF
toll which was required to produce the
effect.
Let me tell you how march for tho
ballet girls is made. There are only
two or three professional march de-
sgners in this country, and they prob
ably pursue different methods in get
ting up new figures, but | will tell you
of the way / went about 1t year ago
when / wanted to train some girls. /
had never given a thought the fact
that it was one thing to train the girls
to march and quite another one to de-
sign the figures. | told my stage man
ager to train the girls for an Amazon
march, and thought that that was all
that was required. He asked me if !
had any figures. / told him that
hadn't, and he said that / would have
to get some for him before he could do
anything with the girls. / went to the
ballet master and asked him for some
figures. He told me to call the next
Il hut hn hot he.
wasn't quite ready for me yet. | called
several times. and he always had some
new excuse to offer.
went to another ballet master and
had the same experience. They were
evidently unwilling to let anyone have
their figures. There were no other
men in the city to whom / could apply,
so | said to myself Il will invent some
figures myself After giving the mat
ter some thought l bought set OF
poker chips and began my work. ]
took sixteen red chips and sixteen white
ones. Then got down on the HO0e
and arranged the poker chips in two
long rows, n white row and red row.
Then ] Strengthened up and looked al
them. l tried hard to imagine that
the poker chips were girls, but l only
partially succeeded. Down got again..
and began to move the chips one at
time into curious figures, but il was
slow and unsatisfactory work. found
that / would have to work with other
material. procured some large beads
and strung sixteen of them on a string,
fastening them about an inch apart
/ strung sixteen beads of another color
in the same way. These beads repre-
sented the thirty-two girls who were to
take part in the march.
Then l began to arrange them in fig
ures, and when got what l thought
was a good one / made note of it..
For over two months / worked in this
way with the beads and the poker chips
before / was satisfied with the figures.
l handed the diagrams to my stage
manager, and with my help and expla.
nations he trained the girls. This tool
two months more, but even when they
were perfectly drilled the work was not
over. 1t is never over. The reason Of
this is that very frequently l either
have to discharge one of the girls OF
she may leave of her own accord. Then
new one-a raw recruit-has to be
taken on and trained. TO train one
girl it is necessary to make the entire
thirty-two 90 through the march over
and over again. The next time that
any one proposes that / shall start an
Amazon march l will strike him off my
list of friends. l have had enough OF
i'm Y Sun.