Evening star., 1916-08-08
The Barefoot Classic.
By Frederic J. Haskin.

NEW YORK. August Sin various
newspaper pictorial supplements and
studio windows and other places
where photographs are exhibited there
recently appeared charming picture
of about half a dozen young women in
diaphanous chiffon draperies standing
on the deck of motorboat speeding
past the palisades of the Hudson.
Ten years ago that picture would
have been hard to explain unless there
had been a fire in one of the high
class young ladies' finishing schools in
take to the boat with a few window
curtains by way of clothes.
Today the explanation is easy. They
are classic dancers on the way home
from a country frolic. Classic dancing
is all the go in New York on and off
the stage. Its emnently respectable
and even scholarly standing is shown
by the fact that one of the leading
women's colleges of America recently
celebrated it's commencement by giving
an outdoor pageant in which the classic
garb and dance played leading part.
Instead of reading essays on Etruscan
art and Greek antiquities the girl grad
yates took off their shoes and stockings
and things and got out on the lawn and
gave their own Interpretation OF how
the ancients looked and acted.
Isadora Duncan seems to have started
the craze. Her beautiful barefoot
dancing captivated New York and in
spired thousands of women with a de-
sire to do likewise. Forthwith, as
though by magic, studios of Greek
dancing sprang up all over town. So
ciety took 1t up. Schools and colleges
added it to their curricula. Municipal
Fairgrounds and Young Women's
Christian Associations employed teach
ers of it. 1t seemed as though the
young woman of America had just been
waiting for chance to romp in her
bare feet.
There seems to be no doubt but what
she has benefited immensely by the ex-
perience. For one thing. many fat
women have danced themselves thin.
Also. many sickly girls have danced
their way to health. According to the
NAL and natural exercise for women.
Physical culture is too mechanical,
while athletics are too strenuous for
many. Barefoot dancing affords an op-
movement. giving full play to grace
and originality, without making heavy
demands upon the strength.
The Greek ancestry of this barefoot
dancing is little hard to <race. In
typical
Ancestry of Dancing stud de-
Little Hard to Trace. tho new art
you will see a few prints and bas-re-
liefs of Greek dancers, introduced by way
of classical atmosphere. The Athenian
damsels seem to be going through sort
of light and airy jigging to the accom-
, paniment of pipes. In the same studio
you will see a great many photographs
of the modern interpreters-vigorous
young ladies in the characteristic slight
costume racing down the country roads,
romping in pastures, posing precariously
on mountain tops with sunrise for an
Illuminating background, and balancing
daintily on one foot while pointing at the
, back of the neck with the other In
word the modern stunt is Greek by name
and very American in its strenuosity and
inventiyeness.
Helen MolIer is typical and very
graceful teacher and practitioner of
this new art She says that she has
looked upon the Greek dances in the
public library and derived lot of
inspiration from them. Personally.
she halls from Bird Island. Mimi,
population 400. and is of Swedish and
German parentage. Out in Bird
Island she went barefooted until she
was a great big girl Also she did not
have many other children to play with,
so she got in the habit of romping
with her fathers pointer dogs. Thus
she learned to run and leap in her
bare feet and developed great strength
and agility.
When she was ab.-.- twenty years
old every one told her that she had
great dramatic talent and that she
ought to go to New York and train
herself for the stage Accordingly. to
New York she came and set herself to
study singing and the piano.
They put her in small stuffy rooms
and made her practice scales. There
was very little air to breathe or room
to move about. She missed the plains
around Bird Island and the pointer
dogs. Furthermore, she realized that
it was going to be a long way to fame
by the road she was then travelling.
1t was about that time that Isadora
Duncan had made classic dancing a
fad. Miss Moller saw her and knew
at once what she wanted to do. She
also observed that all the people in
New York who were doing things and
making money came from somewhere
in the west somewhere in the south
and that their self-confidence and
hustle seemed to be their chief as
sets She had both of these qualities
in large punches. So she hired large
duplex studio-apartmen overlooking
Central Park, pulled off her shoes and
stockings and danced. She had no
teachers and no steps. She simply
frolicked to the music as she had for
merly frolicked with Fido and Rover,
and being naturally graceful she frol-
licked gracefully.
=
Stories of achievement are always
short after the hero or heroine once
gets started
Men Also Interested soon some
one came to
in the Classic Dances. 500 Miss Mol
ler frolic, and then some more came.
and then some one wanted a lesson,
and in no time at all Miss Moller was
a specialist in the Greek classic
dances, interpreting the great COM
posers. training people for the stage,
dancing fat women lean and lean wom-
EN- fat, and sick women healthy. Her
friends continued to come and see her
at two dollars a head. She gets
thirty dollars an hour for teaching
classes. A large number of her pupils