CRYSTAL PANTOMIME

Everything is a black background-- in front a beautiful slim maiden dances-- all very white-- tentatively towards a witch-all very hazy smoke grey-- who subtitling away from and towards each other-- the witch enticingly-- the maiden doubtfully-- the witch holds in her hand a crystal globe.

High above them a tiny beam of light, supposed to be reflected from the moving crystal, plays tritully on the black background-- as the dancing beam on a ceiling cast from a diamond or mirror reflecting the sun. And attracted to this dancing beam a ' creature' a homunculus with propellar like wings-- as much like a blue bottle or a stripeo wasp as possible-- bumps toward and away from the spot of light. This homunculus must be artificial, his wings whirring just like a fly's, and the motion of quadrille imitating the to-and-from darting of a summer morning house fly-- which is one of the finest rhythms observable.

The dance of the maiden and the witch ends by the maiden deciding to gaze into the crystal.

The crystal begins to grow larger and larger (the homunculus disappears) until the round spotlight whom

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culus disappears) until the round spotlight which has taken the
place of the crystal becomes the whole scene.

The scene is circular instead of square-- and represents
the interior of a crystal globe with its curved planes and depths.

The maiden is now to see her life in the crystal and it
is the story of the maiden's future which is to be portrayed by the
ballet. Only, as this maiden lived in the times when maidens
waited at home while the youths went out into the world, it is
rather the adventures of the young man that she will eventually
marry-- leading up to this, her future marriage, that the maiden
will see in the crystal.

Her only appearances will be her meetings with him and
her waiting-- and at last her union with him.

********

The first scene is the village green-- where little
girls are dancing skipping rope and little boys are playing marbles.

While mixed groups play shuttlecock in Battledore

The whole of the ballet takes place in a transparent crystal world --
and one personnage partake of this crystalline appearance, par-
ticularly their clothes and their hair. This gives an impression

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of ethereal beauty that cannot be equalled-- and the ballet takes
the spectators into an evanescent dream world so irreal and
tenuous that it will take their breath away. The crystal shuttle-
cocks of bright colors are enormously big and the curves of the
glittering skipping ropes are a great addition to the attitudes
of the dance.

The shuttlecocks afford color motion up in the air-- and
the equally enormous glass marbles of the playing boys, a balance

(Follow with page 5)

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on the ground. The dance of the skipping ropes will be simul-
taneous to a leapfrog dance of the boys-- the circular motion of
the skipping ropes and the swift horizontal movements of the boys
-- who seem to fly across the stage when leapfrogging-- as
Nijensky did in the spirit of the rose, giving an interesting
modern rhythm. The subject of the ballet will appeal to every
one because, being so simple, the high-brows will enjoy it with
that humorous compassion they afford for the souvenir sentiments
and the general public will 'get' it without effort. It is rich
in possibilities as all simple eternal subjects are.

The maiden appears in this scene for she is the princi-
pal little girl with yellow glassy plaits tied with a blue ribbon.
The little girls and the little boys mock one another in their
play. But the principal little boy takes a sny notice of the
little girl. He snatches her blue glass hair ribbon and offers
the little girl his marble. The little girl scotts at his at-
tentions and, snucking the marble into the hollow of a nearby
tree, dances off jeeringly while all the children dance and
disperse. That is the end of the childhood recollection. The

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little boy looks at the blue ribbon he is holding and stuffs it
into his pocket.

The scenes change while the crystal becomes cloudy. The
nearer scenery is constructed of a transparent material like glass
and the distant scenery is thrown onto the crystal planes by a
kind of magic lantern-- from the back in order not to reflect on
the dancers. The magic lantern scenery enhances the ethereal
effect of unreal beauty.

**********

The second scene is adolescence meeting at a country
fair. One or two booths with fancy trifles which lend themselves
particularly to bright glass colors-- very much exaggerated in
size-- and diminished in number to give a decided decorating ef-
fect of composition-- a little of the ridiculous that lends so
much charm to ancient art and the sufficiency of a symbol to ex-
press a more complex actuality. There is at this fair an arbour
of green glass trellis and climbing plant and in this arbour is
a round table at which can be partaken of enormous glasses of
vivid colored syrup.

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The maiden visits the country fair chaperoned by her
mother and grandmother. The grandmother is bent over a cane and
dances with faltering steps. She wears a dolman cloak and ballet-
uancer's legs. The mother wears a pork pie hat tipped over her
nose, carries a lorgnet and her ballet skirt is a draped bustle with
a tail of bunched drapery such as hung down the back of bustle
skirts-- but the skirt is absent-- the movements of her dance give
the poker-swan like effect of the period-- only her slim legs are
also in tights-- there is no skirt-- with her hanging draperies
she gives the effect of a gracefully slim legged bird with its
tail dragging.

There is a dance of ceremonies of meeting and intro-
duction. The youth invites the maiden and her maternal ascendants
to partake of monstrous syrups in the power. This incident is
very brief-- the grandmother and mother uancer off rigorously with
the maiden-- who glances back once-- and sees the youth contemplat-
ing the blue bow he stole from her when a child.

********

Later: Twilight falls-- the fair disappears. The
maiden steals out in the dusk and dances to the hollow tree on the

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village green-- a dance of fire flies induced by moving lights--
always with that together and apart dancing of insects in the air
which gives the leitmotif to most of the rhythm of this ballet.

The maiden has stolen to the hollow tree to look for the marble she
had so long ago thrown away-- it is the hour of sentiment and she
is thinking of him. The fair is invaded by amorini who turn on
the merry-go-round (a reproduction of the one in Paris with silver
horses and mermaids) They fly away, the scene changes to a field
of long grass. Several ladies are plucking fancy grasses-- the
cupids attack them from behind purry little clouds in the sky--
they run hither and thither afrighted, their arms outflung-- under
a shower of golden arrows -- "the maiden" is hit. This scene is
called "Ladies in a Love storm."

**********

The maiden has seen the youth contemplating her blue
ribbon. She has been hit by cupid and she wants to have something
to remember the youth by. So she searches in the hollow tree and
finds the marble he gave her years ago-- the marble bounds out on
to the middle of the stage-- where it appears as an enormous replica
of itself with its colored lines and twists. The maiden leans

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against the tree gazing at it-- and gradually it evolves out of
itself 'the spirit of the marble'-- it is a slim, a lithe sprite
in all over tights, colored like the marble. He is almost in-
corporate with the marble. This dance must be danced by a very
fine acrobat contortionist who can curve and squirm round the orb,
push it with his pectoral muscles and when it rolls, remain with
it by throwing his body and legs over his head. He must stand
on his head on it, but otherwise his motion must identify itself
with the circular rolling of the orb. This dance, for the
maiden's eyes, expresses the personification of objects through
sentiment-- and that stirring of the imagination at dusk, that
apprehends some living entity in the phenomena of Nature that
please or arouse the dream-sense.

The old marble has become an object of palpitating in-
terest to the maiden.

All this time the firefly quadrille continues as rhythmic
accompaniment.

The scene changes-- it is still dusk. There is a
narrow high arch in a wall-- through it one can see a fall of
feathery foliage by artificial light-- peculiarly beautiful green-

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There linger some gypsy-like crass glass colored light ladies--
beckoning to the youth-- He is still gazing at his blue ribbon--
The light ladies stroll up and down, pacing-- their feet gripping
the ground stealthily-- This has still the together and apart
rhythm of the insect quadille-- exactly as I have observed it out-
side a shady hotel in Paris. The youth, AMAZING remains ob-
livious-- It grows darker for the light through the archway is
extinguished and all that can be observed for a brief space is
the rhythm of the pacing, stealthy, half-aimless, half purpose-
ful legs-- Then they disappear.

The youth looks up from his ribbon which does not entirely satisfy him-- and out of the darkness where the light ladies have been a large, lashy, luminous eye winks at him and is extinguished-- The youth is decided-- He stuffs the blue ribbon, which symbolizes his conscience into his pocket and throws sentiment to the winds. He begins to dance in a defiant dis-tracted disjointed, whirling motion-- symbolizing the ebullition of youth-- and in every direction towards which he whirls, a gigantic wild oat springs up right in front of him, until he dances in a perfect forest of them that absolutely impedes his movements--

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The scene fades-- This is the dance of the wild oats.

Then follow the wild oats episodes.

The following scene is clear and gay-- and the youth is
dancing up to a quaint glass house-- with two doorways side by
side. From one doorway appears towards him a ravishing lady in
a (blue or pink) paper crinoline. The sun is shining and the youth
is about to clasp the lady when she pops back into the glass house
and with a sudden shower of rain, her husband with a (pink or blue)
umbrella emerges suddenly from the other door-- The youth darts
back-- The rain stops-- The husband disappears-- the ravishing
lady is again almost in his arms-- when the same incidents repeat
themselves. The youth, for his episode with a married lady, has
come upon the old-fashioned barometer couple who predict the
weather. Here we have again the to-and-fro movement in the dance
rhythm. After the alternation of rain and shine has taken place
a few brief times, the inevitable happens. So much sun and rain
have induced a rainbow. An exuberant and exquisitely colored and
like
a rainbow. (The barometer house fades away and the youth is
attracted to the spirit of the rainbow) A beautiful creature,

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They enjoy a surprising spectacle-- in the surf of the waves the mermaids are dancing-- they are the genus of mermaids that have double tails-- and on these tails they dance the trick dances that human beings dance with their legs-- These dances must also be suspended on wires in order to be able to move the tails with their legs inside them, the tails being much longer than their legs-- This dance will be enchanting. The mermaids can stand on the tip of the one tail and twirl the other tail round it in pirouette. They will dance the Russian dance, their arms folded with one tail curved under them and the other tail flung violently out. The composition of the row of mermaids dancing in different attitudes on their double tails in their amusing curves will be most original.

The wooing of the beautiful mermaid is getting on finely. She coquettishly takes out her comb to comb her hair (the comb is enormous) when the youth, who is just about to embrace her, beholds the symbolical blue ribbon twisting in an out of the prongs of the comb. He leaps from the rock-- all the mermaids fade away-- and a huge blue wave with a crest of dripping foam