Los Angeles herald., 1907-06-16
DARING DANCER
IS TO SHOCK US
WILL DO "SEvEN vEILS' WITH
OUT WEARING THEM
But Miss Allan Doesn't Mean to startle
the Natives, and Artistic Paris
Approves Her Dancing
6arelegged
cahle to The Herald.

Special Cable to The Herald.
PARIS, June 15.--"America is not yet
ripe
When Maud Gwendolen Allan, mar
velous dancer said that she meant that
American audiences and spectators
ought to cast aside prudery and con-
slider art.
She has given a new sensation to
faded Paris but she fears that in New
York there are not enough people who
would appreciate the beauty of her
work The general run might object to
seeing woman running about the
stage in bare feet.
over here Miss Allan's appearance
has been regarded as one of the great
events of the theatrical season. Her
Salome has thrown all other Salomes
into the shade She has created new
thing in art. just as surely as Lois
Fuller did in her day with her electri-
cal color effects in her dances.
Maud Allan's idea is that by means
Of the movements of her form and the
expression of her face she can convey
across the footlights the sequence and
the emotions of dramatic Incidents.
She was born in Toronto, but was
reared in San Francisco, and so con-
siders herself an American. She studied
music for several years in Berlin and
earned a first-class diploma. Then, al
though she never had been regularly
taught dancing, she determined TO seek
out a new path in that art.
She studied Greek vases and Assyri-
an tablets, old books, hieroglyphics and
what not, for whatever could give her
a true notion of the real spirit OF the
dances of antiquity. She would study
one picture for hours at time, until
she could feel that the movement of
the pictured dancers of Greece or
Assyria or Egypt was actually flow
ing through her own body. Then she
would go home and practice incessant-
ly until she had woven all these artis-
tic suggestions into harmonious
whole.
Miss Allan appeared first at Vienna in
reproductions of Greek dances, and
then finding that the Salome story gave
greater scope for her requirements she
presented it at Paris.
She appears on the stage without
tights. Her body is covered with
light oriental garment, studded with
precious stones. Her figure, symmetri-
cal as Canova's Venus, gives no sug-
gestion of athletic overdevelopment,
but rather of the perfect proportions
which fit the Greek idea. Her bare feet
are not too small, but are beautifully
modelled. AS she enters into the spirit
OF her dance she becomes absorbed in
her work. She makes no appeal to the
baser ideas of most persons who go to
see new dancer.
She seizes her spectators by the YER
ity and the power of her representation
and by the intensity of her facial ex-
preston, which shows her instinct for
real drama. Her whole performance is
work of genius.
Still, it is bound to excite hostile crit
icisn. both from dancers of the old
school and from the prudish public,
which will cry out against an "exhibi-
tion OF nudity" even if it be a mere
matter of baroness of legs below the
knee. 1t is for that reason that Maud
Allan says America is not ripe. She
wishes to convince Europe first Then
with the hall mark of artistic centers
to return to America, the promised land
Of her dreams.
ION October 49," she said, "I sail
with Mime. Fremstad for America I
long to see Gods country again."