The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1921-09-01
GIFTED PORTLANDERS
TO PLAY AND DANCE

Two of Portland's most gifted younf
women, Miss Katharine Laidlaw anC
Miss Constance Piper, will appear here
Friday evening at the Open Air the
atre in Chatauqua park.
The program, which will be giver
for the benefit of st. Marks Guild
will be held at the High School audit,
orium in case of inclement weather.
Miss Piper is known throughout the
country for her piano playing. Her
renditions are interpreted by the tai.
ented Miss Laidlaw. The program of
Saturday evening will be practically
the same as rendered by Misses Piper
and Laidlaw in Portland at the Heilig
theatre last June. The following COM
ment on that concert, written by Leone
Cass Baer, appeared in the Oregonian
Too often the music provided to ac-
company dance ideas, or the dances
provided to accompany music, are like
the results of amateur carving as de-
scribed by some one who said that the
gravy so seldom matches the wall
| paper.
Not only does it seldom match, but
all too frequently it is in seeming di-
rect conflict. Long before any of us
thought of matching the gravy with
the wall paper, Mark Twain used to
tell story of the magic lantern with
scriptural slides and the pianist whose
idea of Incidental music for the scene
representing Lazarus rising from the
dead, was to play "COme, Wake Up
William Riley and Walk Along With
Me-"
A splendid exception to this old and
haphazard method Of throwing the mu-
sic after the dance or at it, trailing
measure behind here and a step ahead
there, with dance and music never end
ing simultaneously and apparently
bearing no relationship while they
were going on, was afforded in the
program offered at the Heilig last
night, in which Katharine LsidlaW
gave a terpsichorean illustration of
music played by Constance Piper.
The contrast of moods in the char
acteristic music of Beethoven, Chopin,
Moszkowski, Grieg, Massanet, Saint
Saens, Hammond, Owen, Brahms,
Gluck, Amani, Debussey and Strauss,
surely widely varying program of
distinct character. provided excellent
subjects for illustration in dance by
Miss Laidlaw, and certainly proved
Miss Piper's virtuosity joined to a |
technique of high attainment, a tech
nique that has become moving because |
of its own fine perfection.
Without artifice of expression Miss |
Piper traced in the air melody curves |
of JOY, of tenderness, of whimsical |
gayeties, of merriment and even of |
loneliness and sadness and Miss Laid |
law and her pupils conveyed to our de-
lighted senses the movements of the |
soul of the music. The steps and the
gestures Of the dances blended in a
perfect communion of color and melody
with the music in an expression of art
the most elevated, most dsinterested
and most spiritual.
Miss Laidlaw's solo dances revealed
her keen imagery i'll conception and
execution, including nature rythms
and exotic dances, modern evolutions
and fantastic dance creations. On sew
eral occasions clever little dance moods
,evealed Miss Laidlaw with real gift
Tor humor. Her own program was en-
ohasized by depth, charm and vigor of
and we'll defined sense of
he dramatic. Her dancing is more
han picturesque posturing and is a
inc combining of the spiritual and the
physical. Two of Chopin's numbers,
=, Minute Waltz" and a 'Schottisch,
proved quaint conceits gay in color and
mood. "a Juggerless" was a humor- {
us conceit, in which to Moszowski's 1
music Miss Laildaw portrayed for us
wifi moving body deftly Juggling
pellets in the air.
A colorful and dashing dance idea {
vas Massenet's "Aragonaise, and
he last of her solos, a legendary bit
rom the oriental, to Amanis' music,
tand out notably for discrimination in
aste and originality.