Arizona republican., 1921-05-09
MODERN TERPSICHORES

bones in their dances, and the Indi- ans have arrow. bead, feather and spear dances. symbolic of their in | terests.
 But when we take modern parallels golf. the automobile, machinery and 1 airplanes-rythmic possibilities have seemed negligible Yet it may be
 that the fault is in ourselves. Ade-
 laide Genee, the famous ballerina, is noted for her remarkable dance of the hunt. Why not dance symbolic of the motorist? Or is it that we are
 so close to the automobile that we cannot see in it the picturesque quail ities that we note at once in the Ro-
 man chariot? Any tyro at dancing could give you a chariot race. Amateurs get their ideas of free dancing from accounts saying that the Greeks danced spontaneously and did not spend long periods training for their festival dancing The point overlooked is that the Greeks had strict physical training in gymnasi-
 um, and generally the heritage of a strong physique to begin with. The average person today can with diff
 culty hold pose on one foot for ten seconds. Yet to express hghtness in dancing, the individual must have the power to put his body into positions that are really easy and graceful. For us, who lack the heritage of the Greeks. this means hard work But the casual devotees of art flutter along. trying to build a top story of | bacchanals and Amazon dances on a | wobbly foundation
 | Another scarcely understood fact is | that the Greeks used in their dances
 the natural ways of expressing emo
 ton that are used in real life. When 1 Jealousy, grief, hatred, and love are | tt,a
 and shoulders respond with certain
 reactions. Isadora Duncan under | stood this. She found the Greeks | inspiring because their dancing ex- 1 pressed emotions in ways which | seemed to her natural and beautiful
 Her aim was for the dance to inter- | pret some aspect of life just as a
 poem or painting does, not to imi- | tate Greek poses for the sake of do- ing a classic dance.
 Many barefoot dancers, however 1 have wandered from this ideal of art | They take it that the same gestures
 can be used in every daIJv and that
 so long as a step is graceful it is | appropriate. This leads to the con | fused waving of arms and legs with l which so many dancers greet the | Hungarian Rhapsody" and Cho- pins Funeral March" alike. Then too, we have the other extreme oi Greek dances produced with a deadly precision that reduces them to the
 inspirational level of a Swedish claI dance
 Greek dancing has been most popu- lar with us because. in dancing, as
 in other things. we have more ir
 with the Oriental Egyptian and
 Hindu dancers, with angles, elbows
 contortions and Turkish trousers
 have added a dash of the exotic tC
 our artistic efforts, but their vogue has been limited.
 T Strangely enough. the American
 Indian has never figured to any ex- : tent in our revivals of different
 styles of dancing. Yet the primitive
 Indian put religious and emotional
 expression in his dances no less thar the Greek. The form of the Indian , dances is often attractive. It is z
 mistake to think of them as nothinr
 but monotonous leaping in a circle
 with grunts from the chorus. Indian
 dancing should appeal to us, too. be
 cause of its symbolic and dramatic , qualities. AS people. We respond
 most quickly to dancing that tells
 story
 We seem to be drawing more o less inspiration from the variou! peoples who made of dancing an art
 We have this for a foundation. AnC now that the rhythm of machinerl r has been put into the language of thu | dance by one pioneer, it is possibl, that a school may grow up and tha
 we shall have descriptive and dra matic dancing with modern themes F It may be the beginning of an Amer ican dance art.