ADVERTISEMENT.WhatI have here to say is rather in the nature of an apology than of a preface or advertisement. The very title of a Treatise upon the art of dancing by a dancing-master, implicitly threatens so much either of the exageration of the profession, or of the recommendation of himself, and most probably of both, that it cannot be improper for me tobespeak the reader’s favorable precaution against so natural a prejudice. My principal motive for hazarding this production is, indisputably, gratitude. The approbation with which my endeavours to please in the dances of my composition have been honored, inspired me with no sentiment so strongly as that of desiring to prove to the public, that sensibility of its favor; which, in an artist, is more than a duty. It is even one of the means of obtaining its favor, by its inspiring that aim at perfection,in order to the deserving it, which is unknown to a merely mercenary spirit. Under the influence of that sentiment, it occurred to me, that it might not be unpleasing to the public to have a fair state of the pretentions of this art to its encouragement, and even to its esteem, laid before it, by a practitioner of this art. In stating these pretentions, there is nothing I shall more avoid than the enthusiasm arising from that vanity or self-conceit, which leads people into the ridicule of over-rating themerit or importance of their profession. I shall not, for example, presume to recommend dancing as a virtue; but I may, without presumption, represent it as one of the principal graces, and, in the just light, of being employed in adorning and making Virtue amiable, who is far from rejecting such assistence. In the view of a genteel exercise, it strengthens the body; in the view of a liberal accomplishment, it visibly diffuses a graceful agility through it; in the view of a private or publicentertainment, it is not only a general instinct of nature, expressing health and joy by nothing so strongly as by dancing; but is susceptible withall of the most elegant collateral embellishments of taste, from poetry, music, painting, and machinery.One of the greatest and most admired institutors of youth, whose fine taste has been allowed clear from the least tincture of pedantry, Quintilian recommends especially the talent of dancing, as conduciveto the formation of orators; not, as he very justly observes, that an orator should retain any thing of the air of a dancing-master, in his motion or gesture; but that the impression from the graces of that art should have insensibly stoln into his manner, and fashioned it to please.Even that austere critic, Scaliger, made the principles of it so far his concern, that he was able personally to satisfy an Emperor’s curiosity, as to the nature and meaningof the Pirrhic dance, by executing it before him.All this I mention purely to obviate the prepossession of the art being so frivolous, so unworthy of the attention of the manly and grave, as it is vulgarly, or on a superficial view, imagined. It is not high notions of it that I am so weak as to aim at impressing; all that I wish is to give just ones: it being perhaps as little eligible, for want of consideration, to see less in this artthan it really deserves, than, from a fond partiality for it, to see more than there is in it.ATREATISEON THEARTofDANCING.Of theAntientDance.Inmost of the nations among the antients, dancing was not only much practised, but constituted not even an inconsiderable part of their religious rites and ceremonies. The accounts we have of the sacred dances, of the Jews especially, as well as of other nations, evidently attest it.The Greeks, who probably took their first ideas of this art, as they did of most others, from Egypt, where it was in great esteem and practice, carried it up to a very high pitch. They were in general, in their bodies, extremely well conformed, and disposed for this exercise. Many of them piqued themselves on rivalling, in excellence of execution, the most celebrated masters of the art. That majestic air, so natural to them, while they preserved their liberty, the delicacy of their taste, and the cultivated agility of their limbs, all qualified them for making an agreeable figure in this kind of entertainment. Nothing could be more graceful than the motion of their arms. They did not so much regard the nimbleness and capering with the legs and feet, on which we lay so great a stress. Attitude,grace, expression, were their principal object. They executed scarce any thing in dancing, without special regard to that expression which may be termed the life and soul of it.Their steps and motions were all distinct, clear, and neat; proceeding from a strength so suppled, as to give their joints all the requisite flexibility and obedience to command.They did not so much affect the moderately comic, or half serious, as they did the great, the pompous, or heroic stile of dance. They spared for no pains nor cost, towards the perfection of their dances. The figures were exquisite. The least number of the figurers were forty or fifty. Their dresses were magnificent and in taste. Their decorations were sublime. Acompetent skill in the theatrical, or actor’s art, and a great one in that of dancing, was necessary for being admitted into the number of figurers. In short, every thing was in the highest order, and very fit to prove the mistake of those who imagine that the dances are, in operas for example, no more than a kind of necessary expletive of the intervals of the acts, for the repose of the singers.The Greeks considered dancing in another point of light; all their festivals and games, which were in greater number than in other countries, were intermixed and heightened with dances peculiarly composed in honor of their deities. From before their altars, and from their places of worship, they were soon introduced upon their theatres, to which they were undoubtedly a prior invention. The strophe, antistrophe,and epode, were nothing but certain measures performed by a chorus of dancers, in harmony with the voice; certain movements in dancing correspondent to the subject, which were all along considered as a constitutive part of the performance. The dancing even governed the measure of the stanzas; as the signification of the words strophe and antistrophe, plainly imports, they might be properly called danced himns. The truth is, that tragedy and comedy, made also originally to be sung, but which, in process of time, upon truer principles of nature, came to be acted and declaimed, were but super-inductions to the choruses, of which, in tragedy especially, the tragic-writers, could not well get rid, as being part of the religious ceremony.This solves, in a great measure, the seeming absurdity of their interference with the subject of the drama: being deemed so indispensable a part of the performance, that the scene itself was hardly more so: consequently, there was no secret supposed to be more violated by speaking before them, than before the inanimate scene itself. But what was at least excusable, on this footing, in the antients, would be an unpardonable absurdity in the moderns.Athenæus, who has left us an account of many of the antient dances, as theMactrismus, a dance entirely for the female sex, theMolossic, the PersianSicinnis, &c. observes, that in the earliest ages of antiquity, dancing was esteemed an exercise, not only not inconsistent with decency and gravity,but practised by persons of the greatest worth and honor. Socrates himself, learnt the art, when he was already advanced in years.Cautious as I am of using a false argument, I should say, that the making dances a part of their religious ceremonies, was a mark of their attributing even a degree of sanctity to them; but that I am aware there were many things that found a place in their festivals and games, which, among those heathens, were so far from having any thing of sacred in them, that they did not even show a respect for common decency or morality.But as to dancing, it may be presumed, that that exercise was considered as having nothing intrinsically in it, contrary to purity of manners or chastity,since it made a considerable part of the worship paid to the presiding goddess of that virtue, Diana, in the festivals consecrated to her. Her altar was held in the highest veneration by the antients. Temples of the greatest magnificence were erected in honor of this goddess. Who does not know the great Diana of Ephesus? The assemblies in her temples were solemn, and at stated periods. None were admitted but virgins of the most spotless character. They executed dances before the altar, in honor of the deity, with a most graceful decency; invoking her continual inspiration of pure thoughts, and her protection of their chastity. Those of them, who distinguished themselves above the rest, by superior graces of performance, received rewards not only from the priestess of Diana, but from their own parents. Nor were the youngmen but curiously inquisitive, as to who particularly excelled on these occasions. Distinction in these dances was a great incentive to love, and produced many happy unions.Such of these virgins as married, retained, in quality of wives, such a veneration for this sort of worship, that they formed an assembly of matrons, who on set days, performed much the same devotion, imploring, in concert, of the goddess, a continuance of her gifts, and of that spirit of purity, the fittest to make them edifying examples of conjugal love and maternal tenderness.Innocent amusements having been ever reputed allowable, and even necessary expedients for relaxing both mindand body from the fatigue of serious or robust occupations, Diana had her temples, especially in countries proper for hunting, where the parents used to resort with their children, and encouraged them to partake of the diversions in which dancing had a principal share.The antients have left us an unaccountable description of the Bacchanalians, whose deportment forms a striking contrast to the decent regularity observed in the worship of Diana. The Bacchanalians strolled the country, and, in the course of that vagabond scheme, erected temporary huts, their residence being always short wherever they came. In their intoxication they seemed to defy all decency and order; affecting noise, and a kind of tumultuous, boisterous joy, in which there could never be any true pleasure or harmony.They were, in the licentiousness of their manners, a nuisance to society; which they scandalized and disturbed by their riots, their mad frolics, and even by their quarrels. Their heads and waists were bound with ivy, and in their hands they brandished a thirsus, or kind of lance, garnished with vine-leaves. When by any foulness of weather they were driven into their huts, they passed their time in a kind of noisy merriment, of shoutings and dithirambic catches, accompanied by timpanums, by cymbals, by sistrums, and other instruments, in which noise was more consulted than music, and corresponded to the sort of time they kept to them, in the frantic agitations of their Bacchic enthusiasm. The Corybantes were called so from their disorderly dancing as they went along.The Pirrhic dance differs not much from Plato’s military dance. The invention of it is most generally attributed to Pirrhus, son of Achilles; at least this opinion is countenanced by Lucian, in his treatise upon dancing; though it is most probably derived from the Memphitic dance of Egypt. The manner of it was to dance armed to the sound of instruments. Xenophon takes notice of these dances in armour, especially among the Thracians, who were so warlike a people. In their dance to music, they exhibited the imitation of a battle. They executed various evolutions; they seemed to wound each other mortally, some falling down as if they had received their death-wound; while those who had given the blow sung to the song of triumph, calledSitalia, and then withdrew, leaving the rest to take up their seeming dead comrade, and to make preparations for his mock-funeral, in the pantomime stile of dance. He has also described the dance of the Magnesians, in which they represented their tilling the ground, in an attitude, and in readiness for defence, against expected moroders. They put themselves in a posture of protecting their plough, with other motions expressive of their resolution and courage, all adapted to the sound of the flute. The moroders arrive, prevail, and bind the husbandmen to their plough, and this terminates the dance. Sometimes the dance varies, and the husbandmen prevailing, bind the moroders.The same author mentions also the Mysians who danced in armour, and used a particular sort ofpeltæor targets,on which they received the blows. In short, these armed dances had different names bestowed upon them, according to the countries in which they were used.The Egyptians and Greeks were extravagantly expensive in their public festivals, of which, dancing always constituted a considerable part.The Romans, among whom the more coarse and licentious dances derived from the Hetruscans, had at first prevailed, came at length to adopt the improvements of taste, and consequently of decency and regularity; the festivals, of which dancing was to compose the principal entertainment, were adapted to the season of the year.Every autumn, for example, it was a constant custom, for those who couldafford the expence, to build a magnificent saloon in the midst of a delightful garden. This ball-room was decorated in the most brilliant manner: At one end of the ball-room stood a statue of Pomona, surrounded with a great number of baskets made in the neatest manner, and full of all the finest fruits that the season produced. These, with the statue, were placed under a canopy hung round with clusters of real grapes and vine-leaves, so artfully disposed as to appear of the natural growth. These served to refresh both the eye and mouth. The performers of the ball went up to this part of the saloon, in couples, processionally, to avoid confusion. Each youth took care to help his partner to what she liked best, and then returned, in the same regular manner, to the other end of the room, when they served what remained to the rest ofthe spectators. After which the ball immediately began.I was shown, by an Italian painter, a curious picture in his possession, of the antients celebrating one of this kind of festivals. The attitudes into which the figures were put, and which appeared to have been drawn for the conclusion of the ball, were beautiful beyond imagination.In winter there were balls in the city of Rome; for which the appropriated apartments were commodious; and where the illuminations were so great, that notwithstanding the usual rigor of that season, the room was sufficiently warm.Round the room there were tables and stands, on which was placed the desert; and there were generally twelve personschosen to distribute the refreshments, and do the honors of the ball. The whole was conducted with the utmost decency and regularity, while Rome preserved her respect for virtue and innocence of manners.By the best accounts procurable, their serious dances were properly interspersed and inlivened with comic movements. Their first steps were solemn and majestic, and, by couples they turned under each other’s arms; and when the whole thus turned together, they could not but afford a pleasing sight. After which they resumed the serious again, and so proceeded alternately till they concluded the dance.In the spring, the country became naturally the scene of their dances. The best companies resorted, especially tosuch villages as were noted for the most pure and salubrious springs of water. If the weather was mild, they danced upon an open green; if not, they formed a large covered pavilion, in the middle of which they placed the statue of Flora, ornamented with flowers, round which they performed their dances. First the youth, then those of riper years; and lastly, those of a more advanced age. After each of these divisions had danced separately, they all joined and formed one great circle. The most distinguished for excellence in the performing these dances, had for reward the privilege of taking a flower, with great solemnity, from the statue of the goddess. This was esteemed so high an honor, that it is scarce imaginable how great an emulation this inspired; as this privilege was to be obtained by the impartial determination of the best judges.Summer was however the season in which the pleasure of dancing was carried to the highest pitch. For the scene of it, they chose a shady and delightful part of a wood, where the sunshine could not incommode them, and where care was taken to clear the ground underfoot, for their performance. A young lady of the most eminence for rank and beauty was chosen to personate the goddess Ceres. Her dress was of an exquisite taste, ornamented with tufts of gold, in imitation of wheat-sheaves: while her head was decked with a kind of crown composed of spangles, representing the ears of ripe corn, and perhaps, for the greater simplicity, of the natural grain itself. Those who danced round her, all wore wreaths of the choicest flowers, and were dressed in white, with their hair flowing loose, in the stile of wood-nimphs. On thisoccasion, there was always a great croud of spectators; and the joy that appeared in each parent’s eye, when their daughters were applauded, made no small part of the entertainment. As garlands, and wreaths of flowers composed the principal ornament of the persons who performed in this dance, such a respect was had for it by the people in general, that they abstained from gathering any flowers, till after this festival was over.I have myself seen a drawing of this rural dance, in which I counted no less than sixty performers.The celebrated Pilades is mentioned to have been the great improver of this dance. He excluded from it all jumping or capering, for fear of violating or of disfiguring the graceful regularity ofthe whole, which he considered as the most essential towards preserving a pleasing effect.Not less than two months were the usual time of preparation for this dance, to which there was always a confluence of persons from all the neighbouring parts. But none were allowed the liberty of dancing, except persons of the first rank and distinction in the country; the whole being regulated by some person acting in quality ofchoragus, or director of the dance.The reign of Augustus Cæsar was undoubtedly the epoch, of the establishment in Rome, of the art of dancing in its greatest splendor. Cahusac, an ingenious French author, in his historical treatise of this art, assigns to that emperor a deep political design in giving itso great an encouragement as he undoubtedly did; that of diverting the Romans from seriousthoughtson the loss of their liberty; especially in fomenting a dissention among them, about so frivolous an object as the competition between those two celebrated dancers, Pilades and Bathillus. That something of this sort might be the design of that emperor, is not to be doubted; but Cahusac, over-heated, perhaps, by his subject, exagerates the importance of it beyond the bounds of cool reason. So much however is true, that those two dancers were extremely eminent in their art, and may be esteemed the founders of that theatrical dancing, or pantomime execution, for which it is not sufficient to be only a good dancer, but there is also required the being a good actor; in both which lights, these two artists were allowed to excel, Pilades in theserious or tragic dance, Bathillus in the comic.These also founded a kind of academies of dancing, which produced several eminent artists, but none that ever equalled themselves in performance or reputation. What history records of them, and of their powers, as well as of that theatrical pantomime dance, of which they were the introductors, in Rome, would exceed belief, if it was not attested by such a number of authors as leave no room to think it an imposition.But as to dancing itself, either considered in a religious, or in only an amusive light, it may be pronounced to have been among the Romans, as old as Rome itself, and like that rude in its beginnings, but to have received gradualimprovement, as fast as the other arts and sciences gained ground.Processional dances were also much in vogue among that people. They had especially an anniversary ceremony or procession, called, from its pre-eminence, singly,Pompa, or the Pomp.It was celebrated, in commemoration of a victory obtained over the Latians, the news of which was said to have been brought by Castor and Pollux, in person. This festival, was, at first, consecrated to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. But it was afterwards made more general, and celebrated in honor of all the Gods. This procession was in the month of September. It began at the temple ofJupiter Capitolinus, proceeded to theForum Romanum, from thence to theVelabrum, andafterwards to theGrand Circus. You have in Onuphrius Panvinius, the order of this procession at large, of which the directors were the chief magistrates of the city: the sons of the nobility leading the van. Those of the Equestrian order, whose fathers were worth a hundred and fifty thousand sesterces, followed on horseback. It would be here foreign from my purpose to give the whole description of this procession, and of those who composed it. It is sufficient to observe, that processional dancing constituted a considerable part of it. The Pirrhic dance, executed to a martial air, called theProceleumaticus, employed the men of arms. These were followed by persons who danced and leaped, in the manner of Satirs, some of them in the dress ascribed toSilenus, attended by performers on instruments adapted tothat character of dance. These made the comic part of the procession, and the persons representing Satirs, took care to divert the people by leaps, by a display of agility, and by odd uncouth attitudes, such as were in the character they had assumed. There were also in another part of the procession twelveSalii, or priests of Mars, so called from their making sacred dances in honor of that God, the most considerable part of their worship; these were headed by their master orPræsul, the leader of the dance, a term afterwards assumed by the Christian Prelates. There were also theSalianvirgins, besides another division of theSaliicalledAgonensesorCollini.Nor is the processional dancing any thing surprizing; concerning that among the heathens, and even among theHebrews, they were greatly in use. Who does not know that David’s dancing before the arch was but in consequence of its being one of the religious ceremonies on that occasion?The heathens used especially to form dances before their altars, and round the statues of their gods. TheSalii, or priests of Mars, whose dances were so framed as to give an idea of military exercise and activity, threw into their performance steps so expressive and majestic, as not only to defend their motions and gestures from any idea of levity and burlesque, which it is so natural for the moderns to associate with that of dancing, but even to inspire the beholders with respect and a religious awe. The priests chosen for this function, were always persons of the noblest aspect, suitable to the dignityof the sacerdotal ministry. And so little needs that dignity of the heathen ministry be thought to be wounded or violated by the act of dancing, in religious worship, that dances were actually in use among the primitive Christians, in their religious assemblies. There was a place in their churches, especially allotted for these consecrated dances, upon solemn festivals, which even gave the name ofchoirto those parts of the church now only appropriated to the reading of the divine service, and to singing. In Spain, it long remained an established custom for Christians to assemble in the church-porches, where, in honor of God, they sang sacred himns, and to the tunes of them, performed dances, that were extremely pleasing, for the decent and beautiful simplicity of the execution. All which I mention purely to salve that inconsistence,of the levity of dancing with the gravity of divine worship. An inconsistence of which the antients had no idea; since, on that occasion, they almost constantly joined dancing to singing.They are both natural expressions of joy and festivity; and as such they thought neither of them improper in an address of gratulation to the deity, whom they supposed rather pleased at such innocent oblations of the heart, exulting in his manifold bounties and blessings.From before the altar, among the heathens, the admission of dances upon the theatre, was rather an extension of their power to entertain, than a total change of their destination; since the theatres themselves were dedicated tothe worshipof the heathen deities, of which their making a part was one of the principal objections of the primitive Christians to the theatres themselves. However, it was from the theatres that dancing received its great and capital improvement.As an exercise, the virtue of dancing was well known to the antients, for its keeping up the strength and agility of the human body. There is a remark which I submit to the consideration of the reader, that it is not impossible but that the antient Romans, who were, generally speaking, low in stature, and yet were eminently strong, owed that advantage to their cultivation of bodily exercise. This kept their limbs supple, and rendered their constitution stout and hardy. Now, very laborious exercises would rather wear outthe machine than they would invigorate it, if there was not a due relaxation, which should not, however, be too abrupt a transition from the most fatiguing exercises to a state of absolute rest. Whereas that dancing, of which they were so fond, afforded them, not only a pleasing employ of vacant hours, but, withall, in its keeping up the pliability of their limbs, made them find more ease in the application of themselves to more athletic, or to more violent exercises, either of war or of the chace: while all together bred that firmness of their muscles, that robust compactness and vigor of body, which enabled them to atchieve that military valor, to which they owed all their conquests and their glory.Certain it is then, that among the Romans, even in the most martial days ofthat republic, the art of dancing was taught, as one of the points of accomplishment necessary to the education of youth; and was even practised among the exercises of the Circus. I need not observe, that there were also various abuses of dancing, which they very justly accounted dishonorable to those who practised them, whether in public or private. These, in the degenerate days of Rome, grew to an enormous excess. But I presume no one will judge of an art by the abuse that may be made of it.OFDANCINGIn General.Thisis one of the arts, in which, as in all the rest, the study of nature is especially to be recommended. She is an unerring guide. She gives that harmony, that power of pleasing to the productions of those who consult her, which such as neglect her must never expect. They will furnish nothing but monsters and discordances; or, at the best, but sometimes lucky hits, without meaning or connexion.All the imitative arts acknowledge this principle.In Poetry, a happy choice of the most proper words for expressing the sentiments and images drawn from the observation of nature, constitutes the principal object of the poet.In Painting, the disposition of the subject, the resemblance of the coloring to that of the original, in short the greatest possible adherence to nature, is the merit of that art.In Music, that expression of the passions which should raise the same in the hearer, whether of joy, affliction, tenderness, or pity, can never have its effect without marking and adopting the respective sounds of each passion as they are furnished by nature.In Dancing, the attitudes, gestures, and motions derive also their principle from nature, whether they caracterise joy, rage, or affection, in the bodily expression respectively appropriated to the different affections of the soul. A consideration this, which clearly proves the mistake of those, who imagine the art of dancing solely confined to the legs, or even arms; whereas the expression of it should be pantomimically diffused through the whole body, the face especially included.Monsieur Cahusac, in his ingenious treatise on this art, has very justly observed, that both singing and dancing must have existed from the primeval times; that is to say, from the first of the existence of human-kind itself.“Observe, says he, the tender children, from their entry into the world, to the moment in which their reason unfolds itself, and you will see that it is primitive nature herself,“that manifests herself in the sound of their voice, in the features of their face, in their looks, in all their motions.“Mark their sudden paleness, their quick contortions, their piercing cries, when their soul is affected by a sensation of pain.“Observe again, their engaging smile, their sparkling eyes, their rapid motions, when it is moved by a sentiment of pleasure.“You will then be clearly persuaded of the principles of music and dancing“proceeding from the beginning of the world down to us.”Certain it is, that even in children, the motions and gesture, strongly paint nature; and their infantine graces are not unworthy the remarks of an artist, who will be sure to find excellence in no way more obtainable than by a rational study of her, where she is the purest.The cultivation of the natural graces, and a particular care to shun all affectation, all caricature, unless in comic or grotesque dances, cannot be too much recommended to those who wish to make any figure in this art. It is doing a great injustice to it, to place its excellence in capers, in brilliant motions of the legs, or in the execution of difficult steps, without meaning or significance, which require little more than strength and agility.I have already observed, that the Greeks, who were so famous for this art, as indeed for most others, which is no wonder, since all the arts have so acknowledged an affinity with each other, studied especially grace and dignity in the execution of their dances. That levity of capering, that nimbleness of the legs, which we so much admire, held no rank in their opinion. They were inconsistent with that clearness of expression, and neatness of motion, of which they principally made a point. The great beauty of movements, or steps, is, for every one of them to be distinct; not huddled and running into one another, so as that one should begin before the precedent one is finished. This so necessary avoidance of puzzled or ambiguous motion, can only be compassed by an attention to significance and justness ofaction. This simplicity will arise from sensibility, from being actuated by feelings. No one has more than one predominant actual feeling at a time; when that is expressed clearly, the effect is as sure as it is instantaneous. The movement it gives, neither interferes with the immediately precedent, nor the immediately following one, though it is prepared or introduced by the one, and prepares or introduces the other.This the Greeks could the better effectuate, from their preference of the sublime, or serious stile; which, having so much less of quickness or rapidity of execution, than the comic dance, admits of more attention to the neat expressiveness of every motion, gesture, attitude, or step.As to the great nicety of the Greeks, in the ordering and disposing their dances, I refer to what I have before said, for its being to be observed, how much at present this art is fallen short of their perfection in it, and how difficult it must be for a composer of dances to produce them in that masterly manner they were used to be performed among the antients. Let his talent for invention or composition be never so rich or fertile, it will be impossible for him to do it justice in the display, unless he is seconded by performers well versed in the art, and especially expert in giving the expression of their part in the dance; not to mention the collateral aids of music, machinery, and decoration, which it is so requisite to adapt to the subject.But where all these points so necessary are duly supplied, and dancing is executed in all its brilliancy, it would be no longer looked upon, especially at the Opera, as merely an expletive between the acts, just to afford the singers a little breathing time. The dances might recover their former lustre, and give the public the same pleasure as to the Greeks and Romans, who made of them one of their most favorite entertainments, and carried them up to the highest pitch of taste and excellence.The Romans seem to have followed the Greeks, in this passion for dancing; and the theatrical dances, upon the pantomime plan, were in Rome pushed to such a degree of perfection as is even hard to conceive. Whole tragedies plaid, act by act, scene by scene, in pantomime expression, give an idea of thisart, very different from that which is at present commonly received.Every step in dancing has its name and value. But not one should be employed in a vague unmeaning manner. All the movements should be conformable to the expression required, and in harmony with one another. The steps regular, and properly varied, with a graceful suppleness in the limbs, a certain strength, address, and agility; just positions exhibited with ease, delicacy, and above all, with propriety, caracterise the masterly dancer, and in their union, give to his execution its due beauty. The least negligence, in any of these points, is immediately felt, and detracts from the merit of the performance. Every step or motion that is not natural, or has any thing of stiffness, constraint, or affectation, is instinctively perceivedby the spectator. The body must constantly preserve its proper position, without the least contortion, well adjusted to the steps; while the motion of the arms, must be agreeable to that of the legs, and the head to be in concert with the whole.But in this observation I pretend to no more than just furnishing a general idea of the requisites towards the execution: the particulars, it is impossible, to give in verbal description, or even by choregraphy or dances in score.Many who pretend to understand the art of dancing, confound motions of strength, with those of agility, mistaking strength for slight, or slight for strength; tho’ so different in their nature. It is the spring of the body, in harmony with sense, that gives the great powerto please and surprize. The same it is with the management of the arms; but all this requires both the theory of the art, and the practice of it. One will hardly suffice without the other; which makes excellence in it so rare.The motion of the arms is as essential, at least, as that of the legs, for an expressive attitude: and both receive their justness from the nature of the passions they are meant to express. The passions are the springs which must actuate the machine, while a close observation of nature furnishes the art of giving to those motions the grace of ease and expertness. Any thing that, on the stage especially, has the air of being forced, or improper, cannot fail of having a bad effect. A frivolous, affected turn of the wrist, is surely no grace.One of the most nice and difficult points of the art of dancing is, certainly, the management and display of the arms; the adapting their motion to the character of the dance. In this many are too arbitrary in forming rules to themselves, without consulting nature, which would not fail of suggesting to them the justest movements. For want of this appropriation of gesture and attitude, the movements fit for one character are indistinctly employed in the representation of another. And into this error those will be sure to fall, who deviate from the unerring principles of nature; which has for every character an appropriate strain of motion and gesture.Nothing then has a worse effect, than any impropriety in the management of the arms: it gives to the eye,the same pain that discordance in music does to the ear.There are some who move their arms with a tolerably natural grace, without knowing the true rules rising out of nature into art: but where the advantage of theory gives yet a greater security, consequently a greater ease and a nobler freedom to the motions of the performer; the performance cannot but meet with fuller approbation. And yet it may be as bad to show too much art, as to have too little. The point is to employ no more of art than just what serves to grace nature, but never to hide or obscure her.Great is the difference between the antient and the modern dances. The antient ones were full of sublime simplicity. But that simplicity was farfrom excluding the delicate, the graceful, and even the brilliant. The moderns are so accustomed to those dances from which nature is banished, and false refinements substituted in her room, that it is to be questioned whether they would relish the returning in practice to the purer principles of the art. Myself knowing better, and sensible that the principles of nature are the only true ones, have been sometimes forced to yield to the torrent of fashion, and to adopt in practice those florishings of art, which in theory I despised; and justly, for surely the plainest imitation of nature must be the grounds from which alone the performance can be carried up to any degree of excellence. It is with our art, as in architecture, if the foundation is not right, the superstructure will be wrong.This primitive source then must be studied, known, and well attended to; or we only follow the art blindly, and without certainty. Thence the common indifference of so many performers, who mind nothing more than a rote of the art, without tracing it to its origin, nature.To succeed, we must abandon the false taste, and embrace the true; which is not only the best guide to perfection; but when rendered familiar, by much the most easy and the most delightful. It has all the advantages that truth has over falshood.The greater the simplicity of steps in a dance, the more beautiful it is; and requires the more attention in the performer to exactness and delicacy; for slowness and neatness being in thecharacter of simplicity, afford the spectator both leisure and distinctness for his examination: whereas dances of intricate evolutions, or quick motions, in their confusion and hurry, allow no clearness, or time for particular observation.If the merit of a theatrical dancer were to consist, as many imagine, in nothing but in the motions of the legs, in cutting lively or brilliant capers, in surprizing steps, in the agility of the body, in vigorous springs, in vaulting, in a tolerable management of the arms, and especially in being well acquainted with those parts of the stage where the perspective gives him the greatest advantage; the art of dancing might be, as it is generally looked upon to be, an art easily acquired. Whereas, for the attaining to a just perfection in it, thereare many other points required, but none so much as the close imitation of beautiful nature; and that especially in its greatest simplicity.Nor should it be imagined that the simplicity I recommend, tends to save the composer of dances any trouble of invention: on the contrary, that sort of simplicity of execution intended to produce, by means of its adherence to nature, the greatest effect, will cost him more pains, more exertion of genius, than those dances of which the false brilliants of extravagant decoration, and of mere agility without meaning or expression, constitute the merit. It is with the composition of dances, as with that of music, the plainest and the most striking, are ever the most difficult to the composer.The comic, or grottesque dancers, indeed are in possession of a branch of this art, in which they are dispensed from exhibiting the serious or pathetic; however, they may be otherwise as well acquainted with the fundamental principles of the art, as the best masters. But as their success depends chiefly on awakening the risible faculty, they commonly chuse to throw their whole powers of execution into those motions, gestures, grimaces, and contortions, which are fittest to give pleasure by the raising a laugh. And certainly this has its merit; but in no other proportion to the truth of the art, which consists in moving the nobler passions, than as farce is to tragedy or to genteel comedy. They are in this art of dancing, what Hemskirk and Teniers are in that of painting.The painter, can only in his draught present one single unvaried attitude in each personage that he paints: but it is the duty of the dancer, to give, in his own person, a succession of attitudes, all like those of the painter, taken from nature.Thus a painter who should paint Orestes agitated by the furies, can only give him one single expression of his countenance and posture: but a dancer, charged with the representation of that character, can, seconded by a well-adapted music, execute a succession of motions and attitudes, that will more strongly and surely with more liveliness, convey the idea of that character, with all its transports of fury and disorder.It was in this light, that the antients required the union of the actor and of the dancer in the same person. They expected, on the theatre especially, dances of character, that should express to the eye the sensations of the soul: without which, they considered it as nothing but an art that had left nature behind it; a mere corpse without the animating spirit; or at the best, carrying with it a character of falsity or tastelessness. A thorough master of dancing, should, in every motion of every limb, convey some meaning; or rather be all expression or pantomime, to his very fingers ends.How many requisites must concur to form an accomplished possession of this talent! It is not enough that the head should play on the shoulders with all the grace of a fine connection; northat his countenance should be enlivened with significance and expression; that his eyes should give forth the just language of the passions belonging to the character he represents; that his shoulders have the easy fall they ought to have; let even the motions of his arms be true; let his elbows and wrists have that delicate turn of which the grace is so sensible; let the movement of the whole person be free, genteel, and easy; let the attitudes of the bending turn be agreeable; his chest be neither too full nor too narrow; his sides clean made, strong, and well turned; his knees well articulated, and supple; his legs neither too large, nor too small, but finely formed; his instep furnished with the strength necessary to execute and maintain the springs he makes; his feet in just proportion to the support of the whole frame; allthese, accompanied with a regularity of motion; and yet all these, however essential, constitute but a small part of the talent. Towards the perfection of it, there is yet more, much more required, in that sensibility of soul, which has in it so much more of the gift of nature, than of the acquisition of art; and is perhaps in this, what it is in most other arts and sciences, if not genius itself, an indispensable foundation of genius. There is no executing well with the body, what is not duly felt by the soul: sentiment gives life to the execution, and propriety to the looks, motions and gestures.Those who would make any considerable progress in this art, should, above all things, study justness of action. They cannot therefore too closely attend to the representation of nature,either upon the stage, or in life. I cannot too often repeat it; those who keep most the great original, Nature, in view, will ever be the greatest masters of this art.As to the different characters of dances, there are, properly speaking, four divisions of the characters of dances: the serious, the half serious, the comic, and the grottesque; but for executing any of them with grace, the artist should be well grounded in the principles of the serious dance, which will give him what may be called a delicacy of manner in all the rest.But as one of these divisions may be more adapted to the humor, genius, or powers of an artist, than another, he should, if he aims at excellence, examine carefully for which it is that he is the most fit.After determining which, whatever imperfections he may have from nature, he must set about correcting, as well as he can, by art. Nothing will hardly be found impossible for him to subdue, by an unshaken resolution, and an intense application.Happy indeed is that artist, in whom both the requisites of nature and art are united: but where the first is not grossly deficient, it may be supplemented by the second. However well a beginner may be qualified for this profession by nature, if he does not cultivate the talent duly, he will be surpassed by another, inferior to him in natural endowments, but who shall have taken pains to acquire what was wanting to him, or to improve wheredeficient. The experience of all ages attests this.The helps of a lively imagination, joined to great and assiduous practice, carry the art to the highest perfection. But practice will give no eminent distinction without study. Whoever shall flatter himself with forming himself by practice alone, without the true principles and sufficient grounds of the art, can only proceed upon a rote of tradition, which may appear infallible to him. But this adoption of unexamined rules, and this plodding on in a beaten track, will never lead to any thing great or eminent. It carries with it always something of the stiffness of a copy, without any thing of the graceful boldness of originality, or of the strokes of genius.Vanity should never mislead a man in the judgment he forms of his own talents: much less should an artist resort to the meanness of depending in the support of cabals: it must be the general approbation that must seal his patent of merit.I have before observed that the grave or serious stile of dancing, is the great ground-work of the art. It is also the most difficult. Firmness of step, a graceful and regular motion of all the parts, suppleness, easy bendings and risings, the whole accompanied with a good air, and managed with the greatest ease of expertness and dexterity, constitute the merit of this kind of dancing. The soul itself should be seen in every motion of the body, and express something naturally noble, and evenheroic. Every step should have its beauty.The painter draws, or ought to draw his copy, the actor his action, and the statuary his model, all from the truth of nature. They are all respectively professors of imitative arts; and the dancer may well presume to take rank among them, since the imitation of nature is not less his duty than theirs; with this difference, that they have some advantages of which the dancer is destitute. The Painter has time to settle and correct his attitudes, but the dancer must be exactly bound to the time of the music. The actor has the assistance of speech, and the statuary has all the time requisite to model his work. The dancer’s effect is not only that of a moment, but he must every moment represent a succession of motions andattitudes, adapted to his character, whether his subject be heroic or pastoral, or in whatever kind of dancing he exhibits himself. He is by the expressiveness of his dumb show to supplement the want of speech, and that with clearness; that whatever he aims at representing may be instantaneously apprehended by the spectator, who must not be perplexed with hammering out to himself the meaning of one step, while the dancer shall have already begun another.In the half-serious stile we observe vigor, lightness, agility, brilliant springs, with a steadiness and command of the body. It is the best kind of dancing for expressing the more general theatrical subjects. It also pleases more generally.The grand pathetic of the serious stile of dancing is not what every one enters into. But all are pleased with a brilliant execution, in the quick motion of the legs, and the high springs of the body. A pastoral dance, represented in all the pantomime art, will be commonly preferred to the more serious stile, though this last requires doubtless the greatest excellence: but it is an excellence of which few but the connoisseurs are judges; who are rarely numerous enough to encourage the composer of dances to form them entirely in that stile. All that he can do is to take a great part of his attitudes from the serious stile, but to give them another turn and air in the composition; that he may avoid confounding the two different stiles of serious and half-serious. For this last,it is impossible to have too much agility and briskness.The comic dancer is not tied up to the same rules or observations as are necessary to the serious and half serious stiles. He is not so much obliged to study what may be called nature in high life. The rural sports, and exercises; the gestures of various mechanics or artificers will supply him with ideas for the execution of charracters in this branch. The more his motions, steps, and attitudes are taken from nature, the more they will be sure to please.The comic dance has for object the exciting mirth; whereas, on the contrary, the serious stile aims more at soothing and captivating by the harmony and justness of its movements;by the grace and dignity of its steps; by the pathos of the execution.The comic stile, however its aim may be laughter, requires taste, delicacy, and invention; and that the mirth it creates should not even be without wit. This depends not only upon the execution, but on the choice of the subject. It is not enough to value oneself upon a close imitation of nature, if the subject chosen for imitation is not worth imitating, or improper to represent; that is to say, either trivial, indifferent, consequently uninteresting; or disgustful and unpleasing. The one tires, the other shocks. Even in the lowest classes of life, the composer must seize only what is the fittest to give satisfaction; and omit whatever can excite disagreeable ideas. It is from the animal joy of mechanicsor peasants in their cessations from labor, or from their celebration of festivals, that the artist will select his matter of composition; not from any circumstances of unjoyous poverty or loathsome distress. He must cull the flowers of life, not present the roots with the soil and dirt sticking to them.Even contrasting characters, which are so seldom attempted on the stage, in theatrical dances, might not have a bad effect; whereas most of the figures in them are simmetrically coupled. Of the first I once saw in Germany a striking instance; an instance that served to confirm that affinity between the arts which renders them so serviceable to one another.Passing through the Electorate of Cologne, I observed a number of persons of all ages, assembled on a convenient spot, and disposed, in couples, in order for dancing; but so odly paired that the most ugly old man, had for his partner the most beautiful and youngest girl in the company, while, on the contrary, the most decrepid, deformed old woman, was led by the most handsome and vigorous youth. Inquiring the reason of so strange a groupe of figures, I was told that it was the humor of an eminent painter, who was preparing a picture for the gallery at Dusseldorp, the subject of which was to be this contrast; and that in order to take his draught from nature, he had given a treat to this rustic company, in the design of exhibiting at one view, the floridness of youth contrasted to the weakness and infirmities of old age, in amoral light, of exposing the impropriety of those matches, in which the objection of a disparity of years should not be duly respected.I have mentioned this purely to point out a new resource of invention, that may throw a pleasing variety into the composition of dances; and save them from too constant a simmetry, or uniformity, either of dress or figure, in the pairing the dancers: by which I am as far from meaning that that simmetry should be always neglected, as that it should be always observed.The comic dance, having then the diversion of the spectator, in the way of laughing, for its object, should preserve a moderately buffoon simplicity, and the dancer, aided by a natural genius, but especially by throwing asmuch nature as possible into his execution, may promise himself to amuse and please the spectator; even though he should not be very deep in the grounds of his art; provided he has a good ear, and some pretty or brilliant steps to vary the dance. The spectators require no more.As to the grotesque stile of dance, the effect of it chiefly depends on the leaps and height of the springs. There is more of bodily strength required in it than even of agility and flight. It is more calculated to surprize the eye, then to entertain it. It has something of the tumbler’s, or wire-dancer’s merit of difficulty and danger, rather than of art. But the worst of it is, that this vigor and agility last no longer than the season of youth, or rather decrease in proportion as age advances, and, by thismeans, leave those who have trusted solely to that vigor and agility deprived of their essential merit. Whereas such as shall have joined to that vigor and agility, a proper study of the principles of their art; that talent will still remain as a resource for them. Commonly those dancers who have from nature eminently those gifts which enable them to shine in the grottesque branch, do not chuse to give themselves the trouble of going to the bottom of their art, and acquiring its perfection. Content with their bodily powers, and with the applause their performances actually do receive from the public, they look no further, and remain in ignorance of the rest of their duty. Against this dissipation then, which keeps them always superficial,they cannot be too much, for their own advantage, admonished.They will not otherwise get at the truth of their art, like him who qualifies himself for making a figure in the serious, and half-serious stiles, which also contribute to diffuse a grace over every other kind of dancing, however different from them.But though the grotesque may be a caricature of nature, it is never to lose sight of it. It must ever bear a due relation to the objects of which it attempts to exhibit the imitation, however exagerated. But in this it is for genius to direct the artist. And it is very certain that this kind of dancing, well executed, affords to the public, great entertainment in the way, ifwhat may be called broad mirth; especially where the figure of the grotesque dancer, his gestures, dress, and the decorations, all contribute to the creation of the laugh. He must also avoid any thing studied or affected in his action. Every thing must appear as natural as possible, even amidst the grimaces, contortions, and extravagancies of the character.
WhatI have here to say is rather in the nature of an apology than of a preface or advertisement. The very title of a Treatise upon the art of dancing by a dancing-master, implicitly threatens so much either of the exageration of the profession, or of the recommendation of himself, and most probably of both, that it cannot be improper for me tobespeak the reader’s favorable precaution against so natural a prejudice. My principal motive for hazarding this production is, indisputably, gratitude. The approbation with which my endeavours to please in the dances of my composition have been honored, inspired me with no sentiment so strongly as that of desiring to prove to the public, that sensibility of its favor; which, in an artist, is more than a duty. It is even one of the means of obtaining its favor, by its inspiring that aim at perfection,in order to the deserving it, which is unknown to a merely mercenary spirit. Under the influence of that sentiment, it occurred to me, that it might not be unpleasing to the public to have a fair state of the pretentions of this art to its encouragement, and even to its esteem, laid before it, by a practitioner of this art. In stating these pretentions, there is nothing I shall more avoid than the enthusiasm arising from that vanity or self-conceit, which leads people into the ridicule of over-rating themerit or importance of their profession. I shall not, for example, presume to recommend dancing as a virtue; but I may, without presumption, represent it as one of the principal graces, and, in the just light, of being employed in adorning and making Virtue amiable, who is far from rejecting such assistence. In the view of a genteel exercise, it strengthens the body; in the view of a liberal accomplishment, it visibly diffuses a graceful agility through it; in the view of a private or publicentertainment, it is not only a general instinct of nature, expressing health and joy by nothing so strongly as by dancing; but is susceptible withall of the most elegant collateral embellishments of taste, from poetry, music, painting, and machinery.
One of the greatest and most admired institutors of youth, whose fine taste has been allowed clear from the least tincture of pedantry, Quintilian recommends especially the talent of dancing, as conduciveto the formation of orators; not, as he very justly observes, that an orator should retain any thing of the air of a dancing-master, in his motion or gesture; but that the impression from the graces of that art should have insensibly stoln into his manner, and fashioned it to please.
Even that austere critic, Scaliger, made the principles of it so far his concern, that he was able personally to satisfy an Emperor’s curiosity, as to the nature and meaningof the Pirrhic dance, by executing it before him.
All this I mention purely to obviate the prepossession of the art being so frivolous, so unworthy of the attention of the manly and grave, as it is vulgarly, or on a superficial view, imagined. It is not high notions of it that I am so weak as to aim at impressing; all that I wish is to give just ones: it being perhaps as little eligible, for want of consideration, to see less in this artthan it really deserves, than, from a fond partiality for it, to see more than there is in it.
Inmost of the nations among the antients, dancing was not only much practised, but constituted not even an inconsiderable part of their religious rites and ceremonies. The accounts we have of the sacred dances, of the Jews especially, as well as of other nations, evidently attest it.
The Greeks, who probably took their first ideas of this art, as they did of most others, from Egypt, where it was in great esteem and practice, carried it up to a very high pitch. They were in general, in their bodies, extremely well conformed, and disposed for this exercise. Many of them piqued themselves on rivalling, in excellence of execution, the most celebrated masters of the art. That majestic air, so natural to them, while they preserved their liberty, the delicacy of their taste, and the cultivated agility of their limbs, all qualified them for making an agreeable figure in this kind of entertainment. Nothing could be more graceful than the motion of their arms. They did not so much regard the nimbleness and capering with the legs and feet, on which we lay so great a stress. Attitude,grace, expression, were their principal object. They executed scarce any thing in dancing, without special regard to that expression which may be termed the life and soul of it.
Their steps and motions were all distinct, clear, and neat; proceeding from a strength so suppled, as to give their joints all the requisite flexibility and obedience to command.
They did not so much affect the moderately comic, or half serious, as they did the great, the pompous, or heroic stile of dance. They spared for no pains nor cost, towards the perfection of their dances. The figures were exquisite. The least number of the figurers were forty or fifty. Their dresses were magnificent and in taste. Their decorations were sublime. Acompetent skill in the theatrical, or actor’s art, and a great one in that of dancing, was necessary for being admitted into the number of figurers. In short, every thing was in the highest order, and very fit to prove the mistake of those who imagine that the dances are, in operas for example, no more than a kind of necessary expletive of the intervals of the acts, for the repose of the singers.
The Greeks considered dancing in another point of light; all their festivals and games, which were in greater number than in other countries, were intermixed and heightened with dances peculiarly composed in honor of their deities. From before their altars, and from their places of worship, they were soon introduced upon their theatres, to which they were undoubtedly a prior invention. The strophe, antistrophe,and epode, were nothing but certain measures performed by a chorus of dancers, in harmony with the voice; certain movements in dancing correspondent to the subject, which were all along considered as a constitutive part of the performance. The dancing even governed the measure of the stanzas; as the signification of the words strophe and antistrophe, plainly imports, they might be properly called danced himns. The truth is, that tragedy and comedy, made also originally to be sung, but which, in process of time, upon truer principles of nature, came to be acted and declaimed, were but super-inductions to the choruses, of which, in tragedy especially, the tragic-writers, could not well get rid, as being part of the religious ceremony.
This solves, in a great measure, the seeming absurdity of their interference with the subject of the drama: being deemed so indispensable a part of the performance, that the scene itself was hardly more so: consequently, there was no secret supposed to be more violated by speaking before them, than before the inanimate scene itself. But what was at least excusable, on this footing, in the antients, would be an unpardonable absurdity in the moderns.
Athenæus, who has left us an account of many of the antient dances, as theMactrismus, a dance entirely for the female sex, theMolossic, the PersianSicinnis, &c. observes, that in the earliest ages of antiquity, dancing was esteemed an exercise, not only not inconsistent with decency and gravity,but practised by persons of the greatest worth and honor. Socrates himself, learnt the art, when he was already advanced in years.
Cautious as I am of using a false argument, I should say, that the making dances a part of their religious ceremonies, was a mark of their attributing even a degree of sanctity to them; but that I am aware there were many things that found a place in their festivals and games, which, among those heathens, were so far from having any thing of sacred in them, that they did not even show a respect for common decency or morality.
But as to dancing, it may be presumed, that that exercise was considered as having nothing intrinsically in it, contrary to purity of manners or chastity,since it made a considerable part of the worship paid to the presiding goddess of that virtue, Diana, in the festivals consecrated to her. Her altar was held in the highest veneration by the antients. Temples of the greatest magnificence were erected in honor of this goddess. Who does not know the great Diana of Ephesus? The assemblies in her temples were solemn, and at stated periods. None were admitted but virgins of the most spotless character. They executed dances before the altar, in honor of the deity, with a most graceful decency; invoking her continual inspiration of pure thoughts, and her protection of their chastity. Those of them, who distinguished themselves above the rest, by superior graces of performance, received rewards not only from the priestess of Diana, but from their own parents. Nor were the youngmen but curiously inquisitive, as to who particularly excelled on these occasions. Distinction in these dances was a great incentive to love, and produced many happy unions.
Such of these virgins as married, retained, in quality of wives, such a veneration for this sort of worship, that they formed an assembly of matrons, who on set days, performed much the same devotion, imploring, in concert, of the goddess, a continuance of her gifts, and of that spirit of purity, the fittest to make them edifying examples of conjugal love and maternal tenderness.
Innocent amusements having been ever reputed allowable, and even necessary expedients for relaxing both mindand body from the fatigue of serious or robust occupations, Diana had her temples, especially in countries proper for hunting, where the parents used to resort with their children, and encouraged them to partake of the diversions in which dancing had a principal share.
The antients have left us an unaccountable description of the Bacchanalians, whose deportment forms a striking contrast to the decent regularity observed in the worship of Diana. The Bacchanalians strolled the country, and, in the course of that vagabond scheme, erected temporary huts, their residence being always short wherever they came. In their intoxication they seemed to defy all decency and order; affecting noise, and a kind of tumultuous, boisterous joy, in which there could never be any true pleasure or harmony.They were, in the licentiousness of their manners, a nuisance to society; which they scandalized and disturbed by their riots, their mad frolics, and even by their quarrels. Their heads and waists were bound with ivy, and in their hands they brandished a thirsus, or kind of lance, garnished with vine-leaves. When by any foulness of weather they were driven into their huts, they passed their time in a kind of noisy merriment, of shoutings and dithirambic catches, accompanied by timpanums, by cymbals, by sistrums, and other instruments, in which noise was more consulted than music, and corresponded to the sort of time they kept to them, in the frantic agitations of their Bacchic enthusiasm. The Corybantes were called so from their disorderly dancing as they went along.
The Pirrhic dance differs not much from Plato’s military dance. The invention of it is most generally attributed to Pirrhus, son of Achilles; at least this opinion is countenanced by Lucian, in his treatise upon dancing; though it is most probably derived from the Memphitic dance of Egypt. The manner of it was to dance armed to the sound of instruments. Xenophon takes notice of these dances in armour, especially among the Thracians, who were so warlike a people. In their dance to music, they exhibited the imitation of a battle. They executed various evolutions; they seemed to wound each other mortally, some falling down as if they had received their death-wound; while those who had given the blow sung to the song of triumph, calledSitalia, and then withdrew, leaving the rest to take up their seeming dead comrade, and to make preparations for his mock-funeral, in the pantomime stile of dance. He has also described the dance of the Magnesians, in which they represented their tilling the ground, in an attitude, and in readiness for defence, against expected moroders. They put themselves in a posture of protecting their plough, with other motions expressive of their resolution and courage, all adapted to the sound of the flute. The moroders arrive, prevail, and bind the husbandmen to their plough, and this terminates the dance. Sometimes the dance varies, and the husbandmen prevailing, bind the moroders.
The same author mentions also the Mysians who danced in armour, and used a particular sort ofpeltæor targets,on which they received the blows. In short, these armed dances had different names bestowed upon them, according to the countries in which they were used.
The Egyptians and Greeks were extravagantly expensive in their public festivals, of which, dancing always constituted a considerable part.
The Romans, among whom the more coarse and licentious dances derived from the Hetruscans, had at first prevailed, came at length to adopt the improvements of taste, and consequently of decency and regularity; the festivals, of which dancing was to compose the principal entertainment, were adapted to the season of the year.
Every autumn, for example, it was a constant custom, for those who couldafford the expence, to build a magnificent saloon in the midst of a delightful garden. This ball-room was decorated in the most brilliant manner: At one end of the ball-room stood a statue of Pomona, surrounded with a great number of baskets made in the neatest manner, and full of all the finest fruits that the season produced. These, with the statue, were placed under a canopy hung round with clusters of real grapes and vine-leaves, so artfully disposed as to appear of the natural growth. These served to refresh both the eye and mouth. The performers of the ball went up to this part of the saloon, in couples, processionally, to avoid confusion. Each youth took care to help his partner to what she liked best, and then returned, in the same regular manner, to the other end of the room, when they served what remained to the rest ofthe spectators. After which the ball immediately began.
I was shown, by an Italian painter, a curious picture in his possession, of the antients celebrating one of this kind of festivals. The attitudes into which the figures were put, and which appeared to have been drawn for the conclusion of the ball, were beautiful beyond imagination.
In winter there were balls in the city of Rome; for which the appropriated apartments were commodious; and where the illuminations were so great, that notwithstanding the usual rigor of that season, the room was sufficiently warm.
Round the room there were tables and stands, on which was placed the desert; and there were generally twelve personschosen to distribute the refreshments, and do the honors of the ball. The whole was conducted with the utmost decency and regularity, while Rome preserved her respect for virtue and innocence of manners.
By the best accounts procurable, their serious dances were properly interspersed and inlivened with comic movements. Their first steps were solemn and majestic, and, by couples they turned under each other’s arms; and when the whole thus turned together, they could not but afford a pleasing sight. After which they resumed the serious again, and so proceeded alternately till they concluded the dance.
In the spring, the country became naturally the scene of their dances. The best companies resorted, especially tosuch villages as were noted for the most pure and salubrious springs of water. If the weather was mild, they danced upon an open green; if not, they formed a large covered pavilion, in the middle of which they placed the statue of Flora, ornamented with flowers, round which they performed their dances. First the youth, then those of riper years; and lastly, those of a more advanced age. After each of these divisions had danced separately, they all joined and formed one great circle. The most distinguished for excellence in the performing these dances, had for reward the privilege of taking a flower, with great solemnity, from the statue of the goddess. This was esteemed so high an honor, that it is scarce imaginable how great an emulation this inspired; as this privilege was to be obtained by the impartial determination of the best judges.
Summer was however the season in which the pleasure of dancing was carried to the highest pitch. For the scene of it, they chose a shady and delightful part of a wood, where the sunshine could not incommode them, and where care was taken to clear the ground underfoot, for their performance. A young lady of the most eminence for rank and beauty was chosen to personate the goddess Ceres. Her dress was of an exquisite taste, ornamented with tufts of gold, in imitation of wheat-sheaves: while her head was decked with a kind of crown composed of spangles, representing the ears of ripe corn, and perhaps, for the greater simplicity, of the natural grain itself. Those who danced round her, all wore wreaths of the choicest flowers, and were dressed in white, with their hair flowing loose, in the stile of wood-nimphs. On thisoccasion, there was always a great croud of spectators; and the joy that appeared in each parent’s eye, when their daughters were applauded, made no small part of the entertainment. As garlands, and wreaths of flowers composed the principal ornament of the persons who performed in this dance, such a respect was had for it by the people in general, that they abstained from gathering any flowers, till after this festival was over.
I have myself seen a drawing of this rural dance, in which I counted no less than sixty performers.
The celebrated Pilades is mentioned to have been the great improver of this dance. He excluded from it all jumping or capering, for fear of violating or of disfiguring the graceful regularity ofthe whole, which he considered as the most essential towards preserving a pleasing effect.
Not less than two months were the usual time of preparation for this dance, to which there was always a confluence of persons from all the neighbouring parts. But none were allowed the liberty of dancing, except persons of the first rank and distinction in the country; the whole being regulated by some person acting in quality ofchoragus, or director of the dance.
The reign of Augustus Cæsar was undoubtedly the epoch, of the establishment in Rome, of the art of dancing in its greatest splendor. Cahusac, an ingenious French author, in his historical treatise of this art, assigns to that emperor a deep political design in giving itso great an encouragement as he undoubtedly did; that of diverting the Romans from seriousthoughtson the loss of their liberty; especially in fomenting a dissention among them, about so frivolous an object as the competition between those two celebrated dancers, Pilades and Bathillus. That something of this sort might be the design of that emperor, is not to be doubted; but Cahusac, over-heated, perhaps, by his subject, exagerates the importance of it beyond the bounds of cool reason. So much however is true, that those two dancers were extremely eminent in their art, and may be esteemed the founders of that theatrical dancing, or pantomime execution, for which it is not sufficient to be only a good dancer, but there is also required the being a good actor; in both which lights, these two artists were allowed to excel, Pilades in theserious or tragic dance, Bathillus in the comic.
These also founded a kind of academies of dancing, which produced several eminent artists, but none that ever equalled themselves in performance or reputation. What history records of them, and of their powers, as well as of that theatrical pantomime dance, of which they were the introductors, in Rome, would exceed belief, if it was not attested by such a number of authors as leave no room to think it an imposition.
But as to dancing itself, either considered in a religious, or in only an amusive light, it may be pronounced to have been among the Romans, as old as Rome itself, and like that rude in its beginnings, but to have received gradualimprovement, as fast as the other arts and sciences gained ground.
Processional dances were also much in vogue among that people. They had especially an anniversary ceremony or procession, called, from its pre-eminence, singly,Pompa, or the Pomp.
It was celebrated, in commemoration of a victory obtained over the Latians, the news of which was said to have been brought by Castor and Pollux, in person. This festival, was, at first, consecrated to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. But it was afterwards made more general, and celebrated in honor of all the Gods. This procession was in the month of September. It began at the temple ofJupiter Capitolinus, proceeded to theForum Romanum, from thence to theVelabrum, andafterwards to theGrand Circus. You have in Onuphrius Panvinius, the order of this procession at large, of which the directors were the chief magistrates of the city: the sons of the nobility leading the van. Those of the Equestrian order, whose fathers were worth a hundred and fifty thousand sesterces, followed on horseback. It would be here foreign from my purpose to give the whole description of this procession, and of those who composed it. It is sufficient to observe, that processional dancing constituted a considerable part of it. The Pirrhic dance, executed to a martial air, called theProceleumaticus, employed the men of arms. These were followed by persons who danced and leaped, in the manner of Satirs, some of them in the dress ascribed toSilenus, attended by performers on instruments adapted tothat character of dance. These made the comic part of the procession, and the persons representing Satirs, took care to divert the people by leaps, by a display of agility, and by odd uncouth attitudes, such as were in the character they had assumed. There were also in another part of the procession twelveSalii, or priests of Mars, so called from their making sacred dances in honor of that God, the most considerable part of their worship; these were headed by their master orPræsul, the leader of the dance, a term afterwards assumed by the Christian Prelates. There were also theSalianvirgins, besides another division of theSaliicalledAgonensesorCollini.
Nor is the processional dancing any thing surprizing; concerning that among the heathens, and even among theHebrews, they were greatly in use. Who does not know that David’s dancing before the arch was but in consequence of its being one of the religious ceremonies on that occasion?
The heathens used especially to form dances before their altars, and round the statues of their gods. TheSalii, or priests of Mars, whose dances were so framed as to give an idea of military exercise and activity, threw into their performance steps so expressive and majestic, as not only to defend their motions and gestures from any idea of levity and burlesque, which it is so natural for the moderns to associate with that of dancing, but even to inspire the beholders with respect and a religious awe. The priests chosen for this function, were always persons of the noblest aspect, suitable to the dignityof the sacerdotal ministry. And so little needs that dignity of the heathen ministry be thought to be wounded or violated by the act of dancing, in religious worship, that dances were actually in use among the primitive Christians, in their religious assemblies. There was a place in their churches, especially allotted for these consecrated dances, upon solemn festivals, which even gave the name ofchoirto those parts of the church now only appropriated to the reading of the divine service, and to singing. In Spain, it long remained an established custom for Christians to assemble in the church-porches, where, in honor of God, they sang sacred himns, and to the tunes of them, performed dances, that were extremely pleasing, for the decent and beautiful simplicity of the execution. All which I mention purely to salve that inconsistence,of the levity of dancing with the gravity of divine worship. An inconsistence of which the antients had no idea; since, on that occasion, they almost constantly joined dancing to singing.
They are both natural expressions of joy and festivity; and as such they thought neither of them improper in an address of gratulation to the deity, whom they supposed rather pleased at such innocent oblations of the heart, exulting in his manifold bounties and blessings.
From before the altar, among the heathens, the admission of dances upon the theatre, was rather an extension of their power to entertain, than a total change of their destination; since the theatres themselves were dedicated tothe worshipof the heathen deities, of which their making a part was one of the principal objections of the primitive Christians to the theatres themselves. However, it was from the theatres that dancing received its great and capital improvement.
As an exercise, the virtue of dancing was well known to the antients, for its keeping up the strength and agility of the human body. There is a remark which I submit to the consideration of the reader, that it is not impossible but that the antient Romans, who were, generally speaking, low in stature, and yet were eminently strong, owed that advantage to their cultivation of bodily exercise. This kept their limbs supple, and rendered their constitution stout and hardy. Now, very laborious exercises would rather wear outthe machine than they would invigorate it, if there was not a due relaxation, which should not, however, be too abrupt a transition from the most fatiguing exercises to a state of absolute rest. Whereas that dancing, of which they were so fond, afforded them, not only a pleasing employ of vacant hours, but, withall, in its keeping up the pliability of their limbs, made them find more ease in the application of themselves to more athletic, or to more violent exercises, either of war or of the chace: while all together bred that firmness of their muscles, that robust compactness and vigor of body, which enabled them to atchieve that military valor, to which they owed all their conquests and their glory.
Certain it is then, that among the Romans, even in the most martial days ofthat republic, the art of dancing was taught, as one of the points of accomplishment necessary to the education of youth; and was even practised among the exercises of the Circus. I need not observe, that there were also various abuses of dancing, which they very justly accounted dishonorable to those who practised them, whether in public or private. These, in the degenerate days of Rome, grew to an enormous excess. But I presume no one will judge of an art by the abuse that may be made of it.
Thisis one of the arts, in which, as in all the rest, the study of nature is especially to be recommended. She is an unerring guide. She gives that harmony, that power of pleasing to the productions of those who consult her, which such as neglect her must never expect. They will furnish nothing but monsters and discordances; or, at the best, but sometimes lucky hits, without meaning or connexion.
All the imitative arts acknowledge this principle.
In Poetry, a happy choice of the most proper words for expressing the sentiments and images drawn from the observation of nature, constitutes the principal object of the poet.
In Painting, the disposition of the subject, the resemblance of the coloring to that of the original, in short the greatest possible adherence to nature, is the merit of that art.
In Music, that expression of the passions which should raise the same in the hearer, whether of joy, affliction, tenderness, or pity, can never have its effect without marking and adopting the respective sounds of each passion as they are furnished by nature.
In Dancing, the attitudes, gestures, and motions derive also their principle from nature, whether they caracterise joy, rage, or affection, in the bodily expression respectively appropriated to the different affections of the soul. A consideration this, which clearly proves the mistake of those, who imagine the art of dancing solely confined to the legs, or even arms; whereas the expression of it should be pantomimically diffused through the whole body, the face especially included.
Monsieur Cahusac, in his ingenious treatise on this art, has very justly observed, that both singing and dancing must have existed from the primeval times; that is to say, from the first of the existence of human-kind itself.
“Observe, says he, the tender children, from their entry into the world, to the moment in which their reason unfolds itself, and you will see that it is primitive nature herself,“that manifests herself in the sound of their voice, in the features of their face, in their looks, in all their motions.“Mark their sudden paleness, their quick contortions, their piercing cries, when their soul is affected by a sensation of pain.“Observe again, their engaging smile, their sparkling eyes, their rapid motions, when it is moved by a sentiment of pleasure.“You will then be clearly persuaded of the principles of music and dancing“proceeding from the beginning of the world down to us.”
Certain it is, that even in children, the motions and gesture, strongly paint nature; and their infantine graces are not unworthy the remarks of an artist, who will be sure to find excellence in no way more obtainable than by a rational study of her, where she is the purest.
The cultivation of the natural graces, and a particular care to shun all affectation, all caricature, unless in comic or grotesque dances, cannot be too much recommended to those who wish to make any figure in this art. It is doing a great injustice to it, to place its excellence in capers, in brilliant motions of the legs, or in the execution of difficult steps, without meaning or significance, which require little more than strength and agility.
I have already observed, that the Greeks, who were so famous for this art, as indeed for most others, which is no wonder, since all the arts have so acknowledged an affinity with each other, studied especially grace and dignity in the execution of their dances. That levity of capering, that nimbleness of the legs, which we so much admire, held no rank in their opinion. They were inconsistent with that clearness of expression, and neatness of motion, of which they principally made a point. The great beauty of movements, or steps, is, for every one of them to be distinct; not huddled and running into one another, so as that one should begin before the precedent one is finished. This so necessary avoidance of puzzled or ambiguous motion, can only be compassed by an attention to significance and justness ofaction. This simplicity will arise from sensibility, from being actuated by feelings. No one has more than one predominant actual feeling at a time; when that is expressed clearly, the effect is as sure as it is instantaneous. The movement it gives, neither interferes with the immediately precedent, nor the immediately following one, though it is prepared or introduced by the one, and prepares or introduces the other.
This the Greeks could the better effectuate, from their preference of the sublime, or serious stile; which, having so much less of quickness or rapidity of execution, than the comic dance, admits of more attention to the neat expressiveness of every motion, gesture, attitude, or step.
As to the great nicety of the Greeks, in the ordering and disposing their dances, I refer to what I have before said, for its being to be observed, how much at present this art is fallen short of their perfection in it, and how difficult it must be for a composer of dances to produce them in that masterly manner they were used to be performed among the antients. Let his talent for invention or composition be never so rich or fertile, it will be impossible for him to do it justice in the display, unless he is seconded by performers well versed in the art, and especially expert in giving the expression of their part in the dance; not to mention the collateral aids of music, machinery, and decoration, which it is so requisite to adapt to the subject.
But where all these points so necessary are duly supplied, and dancing is executed in all its brilliancy, it would be no longer looked upon, especially at the Opera, as merely an expletive between the acts, just to afford the singers a little breathing time. The dances might recover their former lustre, and give the public the same pleasure as to the Greeks and Romans, who made of them one of their most favorite entertainments, and carried them up to the highest pitch of taste and excellence.
The Romans seem to have followed the Greeks, in this passion for dancing; and the theatrical dances, upon the pantomime plan, were in Rome pushed to such a degree of perfection as is even hard to conceive. Whole tragedies plaid, act by act, scene by scene, in pantomime expression, give an idea of thisart, very different from that which is at present commonly received.
Every step in dancing has its name and value. But not one should be employed in a vague unmeaning manner. All the movements should be conformable to the expression required, and in harmony with one another. The steps regular, and properly varied, with a graceful suppleness in the limbs, a certain strength, address, and agility; just positions exhibited with ease, delicacy, and above all, with propriety, caracterise the masterly dancer, and in their union, give to his execution its due beauty. The least negligence, in any of these points, is immediately felt, and detracts from the merit of the performance. Every step or motion that is not natural, or has any thing of stiffness, constraint, or affectation, is instinctively perceivedby the spectator. The body must constantly preserve its proper position, without the least contortion, well adjusted to the steps; while the motion of the arms, must be agreeable to that of the legs, and the head to be in concert with the whole.
But in this observation I pretend to no more than just furnishing a general idea of the requisites towards the execution: the particulars, it is impossible, to give in verbal description, or even by choregraphy or dances in score.
Many who pretend to understand the art of dancing, confound motions of strength, with those of agility, mistaking strength for slight, or slight for strength; tho’ so different in their nature. It is the spring of the body, in harmony with sense, that gives the great powerto please and surprize. The same it is with the management of the arms; but all this requires both the theory of the art, and the practice of it. One will hardly suffice without the other; which makes excellence in it so rare.
The motion of the arms is as essential, at least, as that of the legs, for an expressive attitude: and both receive their justness from the nature of the passions they are meant to express. The passions are the springs which must actuate the machine, while a close observation of nature furnishes the art of giving to those motions the grace of ease and expertness. Any thing that, on the stage especially, has the air of being forced, or improper, cannot fail of having a bad effect. A frivolous, affected turn of the wrist, is surely no grace.
One of the most nice and difficult points of the art of dancing is, certainly, the management and display of the arms; the adapting their motion to the character of the dance. In this many are too arbitrary in forming rules to themselves, without consulting nature, which would not fail of suggesting to them the justest movements. For want of this appropriation of gesture and attitude, the movements fit for one character are indistinctly employed in the representation of another. And into this error those will be sure to fall, who deviate from the unerring principles of nature; which has for every character an appropriate strain of motion and gesture.
Nothing then has a worse effect, than any impropriety in the management of the arms: it gives to the eye,the same pain that discordance in music does to the ear.
There are some who move their arms with a tolerably natural grace, without knowing the true rules rising out of nature into art: but where the advantage of theory gives yet a greater security, consequently a greater ease and a nobler freedom to the motions of the performer; the performance cannot but meet with fuller approbation. And yet it may be as bad to show too much art, as to have too little. The point is to employ no more of art than just what serves to grace nature, but never to hide or obscure her.
Great is the difference between the antient and the modern dances. The antient ones were full of sublime simplicity. But that simplicity was farfrom excluding the delicate, the graceful, and even the brilliant. The moderns are so accustomed to those dances from which nature is banished, and false refinements substituted in her room, that it is to be questioned whether they would relish the returning in practice to the purer principles of the art. Myself knowing better, and sensible that the principles of nature are the only true ones, have been sometimes forced to yield to the torrent of fashion, and to adopt in practice those florishings of art, which in theory I despised; and justly, for surely the plainest imitation of nature must be the grounds from which alone the performance can be carried up to any degree of excellence. It is with our art, as in architecture, if the foundation is not right, the superstructure will be wrong.
This primitive source then must be studied, known, and well attended to; or we only follow the art blindly, and without certainty. Thence the common indifference of so many performers, who mind nothing more than a rote of the art, without tracing it to its origin, nature.
To succeed, we must abandon the false taste, and embrace the true; which is not only the best guide to perfection; but when rendered familiar, by much the most easy and the most delightful. It has all the advantages that truth has over falshood.
The greater the simplicity of steps in a dance, the more beautiful it is; and requires the more attention in the performer to exactness and delicacy; for slowness and neatness being in thecharacter of simplicity, afford the spectator both leisure and distinctness for his examination: whereas dances of intricate evolutions, or quick motions, in their confusion and hurry, allow no clearness, or time for particular observation.
If the merit of a theatrical dancer were to consist, as many imagine, in nothing but in the motions of the legs, in cutting lively or brilliant capers, in surprizing steps, in the agility of the body, in vigorous springs, in vaulting, in a tolerable management of the arms, and especially in being well acquainted with those parts of the stage where the perspective gives him the greatest advantage; the art of dancing might be, as it is generally looked upon to be, an art easily acquired. Whereas, for the attaining to a just perfection in it, thereare many other points required, but none so much as the close imitation of beautiful nature; and that especially in its greatest simplicity.
Nor should it be imagined that the simplicity I recommend, tends to save the composer of dances any trouble of invention: on the contrary, that sort of simplicity of execution intended to produce, by means of its adherence to nature, the greatest effect, will cost him more pains, more exertion of genius, than those dances of which the false brilliants of extravagant decoration, and of mere agility without meaning or expression, constitute the merit. It is with the composition of dances, as with that of music, the plainest and the most striking, are ever the most difficult to the composer.
The comic, or grottesque dancers, indeed are in possession of a branch of this art, in which they are dispensed from exhibiting the serious or pathetic; however, they may be otherwise as well acquainted with the fundamental principles of the art, as the best masters. But as their success depends chiefly on awakening the risible faculty, they commonly chuse to throw their whole powers of execution into those motions, gestures, grimaces, and contortions, which are fittest to give pleasure by the raising a laugh. And certainly this has its merit; but in no other proportion to the truth of the art, which consists in moving the nobler passions, than as farce is to tragedy or to genteel comedy. They are in this art of dancing, what Hemskirk and Teniers are in that of painting.
The painter, can only in his draught present one single unvaried attitude in each personage that he paints: but it is the duty of the dancer, to give, in his own person, a succession of attitudes, all like those of the painter, taken from nature.
Thus a painter who should paint Orestes agitated by the furies, can only give him one single expression of his countenance and posture: but a dancer, charged with the representation of that character, can, seconded by a well-adapted music, execute a succession of motions and attitudes, that will more strongly and surely with more liveliness, convey the idea of that character, with all its transports of fury and disorder.
It was in this light, that the antients required the union of the actor and of the dancer in the same person. They expected, on the theatre especially, dances of character, that should express to the eye the sensations of the soul: without which, they considered it as nothing but an art that had left nature behind it; a mere corpse without the animating spirit; or at the best, carrying with it a character of falsity or tastelessness. A thorough master of dancing, should, in every motion of every limb, convey some meaning; or rather be all expression or pantomime, to his very fingers ends.
How many requisites must concur to form an accomplished possession of this talent! It is not enough that the head should play on the shoulders with all the grace of a fine connection; northat his countenance should be enlivened with significance and expression; that his eyes should give forth the just language of the passions belonging to the character he represents; that his shoulders have the easy fall they ought to have; let even the motions of his arms be true; let his elbows and wrists have that delicate turn of which the grace is so sensible; let the movement of the whole person be free, genteel, and easy; let the attitudes of the bending turn be agreeable; his chest be neither too full nor too narrow; his sides clean made, strong, and well turned; his knees well articulated, and supple; his legs neither too large, nor too small, but finely formed; his instep furnished with the strength necessary to execute and maintain the springs he makes; his feet in just proportion to the support of the whole frame; allthese, accompanied with a regularity of motion; and yet all these, however essential, constitute but a small part of the talent. Towards the perfection of it, there is yet more, much more required, in that sensibility of soul, which has in it so much more of the gift of nature, than of the acquisition of art; and is perhaps in this, what it is in most other arts and sciences, if not genius itself, an indispensable foundation of genius. There is no executing well with the body, what is not duly felt by the soul: sentiment gives life to the execution, and propriety to the looks, motions and gestures.
Those who would make any considerable progress in this art, should, above all things, study justness of action. They cannot therefore too closely attend to the representation of nature,either upon the stage, or in life. I cannot too often repeat it; those who keep most the great original, Nature, in view, will ever be the greatest masters of this art.
As to the different characters of dances, there are, properly speaking, four divisions of the characters of dances: the serious, the half serious, the comic, and the grottesque; but for executing any of them with grace, the artist should be well grounded in the principles of the serious dance, which will give him what may be called a delicacy of manner in all the rest.
But as one of these divisions may be more adapted to the humor, genius, or powers of an artist, than another, he should, if he aims at excellence, examine carefully for which it is that he is the most fit.
After determining which, whatever imperfections he may have from nature, he must set about correcting, as well as he can, by art. Nothing will hardly be found impossible for him to subdue, by an unshaken resolution, and an intense application.
Happy indeed is that artist, in whom both the requisites of nature and art are united: but where the first is not grossly deficient, it may be supplemented by the second. However well a beginner may be qualified for this profession by nature, if he does not cultivate the talent duly, he will be surpassed by another, inferior to him in natural endowments, but who shall have taken pains to acquire what was wanting to him, or to improve wheredeficient. The experience of all ages attests this.
The helps of a lively imagination, joined to great and assiduous practice, carry the art to the highest perfection. But practice will give no eminent distinction without study. Whoever shall flatter himself with forming himself by practice alone, without the true principles and sufficient grounds of the art, can only proceed upon a rote of tradition, which may appear infallible to him. But this adoption of unexamined rules, and this plodding on in a beaten track, will never lead to any thing great or eminent. It carries with it always something of the stiffness of a copy, without any thing of the graceful boldness of originality, or of the strokes of genius.
Vanity should never mislead a man in the judgment he forms of his own talents: much less should an artist resort to the meanness of depending in the support of cabals: it must be the general approbation that must seal his patent of merit.
I have before observed that the grave or serious stile of dancing, is the great ground-work of the art. It is also the most difficult. Firmness of step, a graceful and regular motion of all the parts, suppleness, easy bendings and risings, the whole accompanied with a good air, and managed with the greatest ease of expertness and dexterity, constitute the merit of this kind of dancing. The soul itself should be seen in every motion of the body, and express something naturally noble, and evenheroic. Every step should have its beauty.
The painter draws, or ought to draw his copy, the actor his action, and the statuary his model, all from the truth of nature. They are all respectively professors of imitative arts; and the dancer may well presume to take rank among them, since the imitation of nature is not less his duty than theirs; with this difference, that they have some advantages of which the dancer is destitute. The Painter has time to settle and correct his attitudes, but the dancer must be exactly bound to the time of the music. The actor has the assistance of speech, and the statuary has all the time requisite to model his work. The dancer’s effect is not only that of a moment, but he must every moment represent a succession of motions andattitudes, adapted to his character, whether his subject be heroic or pastoral, or in whatever kind of dancing he exhibits himself. He is by the expressiveness of his dumb show to supplement the want of speech, and that with clearness; that whatever he aims at representing may be instantaneously apprehended by the spectator, who must not be perplexed with hammering out to himself the meaning of one step, while the dancer shall have already begun another.
In the half-serious stile we observe vigor, lightness, agility, brilliant springs, with a steadiness and command of the body. It is the best kind of dancing for expressing the more general theatrical subjects. It also pleases more generally.
The grand pathetic of the serious stile of dancing is not what every one enters into. But all are pleased with a brilliant execution, in the quick motion of the legs, and the high springs of the body. A pastoral dance, represented in all the pantomime art, will be commonly preferred to the more serious stile, though this last requires doubtless the greatest excellence: but it is an excellence of which few but the connoisseurs are judges; who are rarely numerous enough to encourage the composer of dances to form them entirely in that stile. All that he can do is to take a great part of his attitudes from the serious stile, but to give them another turn and air in the composition; that he may avoid confounding the two different stiles of serious and half-serious. For this last,it is impossible to have too much agility and briskness.
The comic dancer is not tied up to the same rules or observations as are necessary to the serious and half serious stiles. He is not so much obliged to study what may be called nature in high life. The rural sports, and exercises; the gestures of various mechanics or artificers will supply him with ideas for the execution of charracters in this branch. The more his motions, steps, and attitudes are taken from nature, the more they will be sure to please.
The comic dance has for object the exciting mirth; whereas, on the contrary, the serious stile aims more at soothing and captivating by the harmony and justness of its movements;by the grace and dignity of its steps; by the pathos of the execution.
The comic stile, however its aim may be laughter, requires taste, delicacy, and invention; and that the mirth it creates should not even be without wit. This depends not only upon the execution, but on the choice of the subject. It is not enough to value oneself upon a close imitation of nature, if the subject chosen for imitation is not worth imitating, or improper to represent; that is to say, either trivial, indifferent, consequently uninteresting; or disgustful and unpleasing. The one tires, the other shocks. Even in the lowest classes of life, the composer must seize only what is the fittest to give satisfaction; and omit whatever can excite disagreeable ideas. It is from the animal joy of mechanicsor peasants in their cessations from labor, or from their celebration of festivals, that the artist will select his matter of composition; not from any circumstances of unjoyous poverty or loathsome distress. He must cull the flowers of life, not present the roots with the soil and dirt sticking to them.
Even contrasting characters, which are so seldom attempted on the stage, in theatrical dances, might not have a bad effect; whereas most of the figures in them are simmetrically coupled. Of the first I once saw in Germany a striking instance; an instance that served to confirm that affinity between the arts which renders them so serviceable to one another.
Passing through the Electorate of Cologne, I observed a number of persons of all ages, assembled on a convenient spot, and disposed, in couples, in order for dancing; but so odly paired that the most ugly old man, had for his partner the most beautiful and youngest girl in the company, while, on the contrary, the most decrepid, deformed old woman, was led by the most handsome and vigorous youth. Inquiring the reason of so strange a groupe of figures, I was told that it was the humor of an eminent painter, who was preparing a picture for the gallery at Dusseldorp, the subject of which was to be this contrast; and that in order to take his draught from nature, he had given a treat to this rustic company, in the design of exhibiting at one view, the floridness of youth contrasted to the weakness and infirmities of old age, in amoral light, of exposing the impropriety of those matches, in which the objection of a disparity of years should not be duly respected.
I have mentioned this purely to point out a new resource of invention, that may throw a pleasing variety into the composition of dances; and save them from too constant a simmetry, or uniformity, either of dress or figure, in the pairing the dancers: by which I am as far from meaning that that simmetry should be always neglected, as that it should be always observed.
The comic dance, having then the diversion of the spectator, in the way of laughing, for its object, should preserve a moderately buffoon simplicity, and the dancer, aided by a natural genius, but especially by throwing asmuch nature as possible into his execution, may promise himself to amuse and please the spectator; even though he should not be very deep in the grounds of his art; provided he has a good ear, and some pretty or brilliant steps to vary the dance. The spectators require no more.
As to the grotesque stile of dance, the effect of it chiefly depends on the leaps and height of the springs. There is more of bodily strength required in it than even of agility and flight. It is more calculated to surprize the eye, then to entertain it. It has something of the tumbler’s, or wire-dancer’s merit of difficulty and danger, rather than of art. But the worst of it is, that this vigor and agility last no longer than the season of youth, or rather decrease in proportion as age advances, and, by thismeans, leave those who have trusted solely to that vigor and agility deprived of their essential merit. Whereas such as shall have joined to that vigor and agility, a proper study of the principles of their art; that talent will still remain as a resource for them. Commonly those dancers who have from nature eminently those gifts which enable them to shine in the grottesque branch, do not chuse to give themselves the trouble of going to the bottom of their art, and acquiring its perfection. Content with their bodily powers, and with the applause their performances actually do receive from the public, they look no further, and remain in ignorance of the rest of their duty. Against this dissipation then, which keeps them always superficial,they cannot be too much, for their own advantage, admonished.
They will not otherwise get at the truth of their art, like him who qualifies himself for making a figure in the serious, and half-serious stiles, which also contribute to diffuse a grace over every other kind of dancing, however different from them.
But though the grotesque may be a caricature of nature, it is never to lose sight of it. It must ever bear a due relation to the objects of which it attempts to exhibit the imitation, however exagerated. But in this it is for genius to direct the artist. And it is very certain that this kind of dancing, well executed, affords to the public, great entertainment in the way, ifwhat may be called broad mirth; especially where the figure of the grotesque dancer, his gestures, dress, and the decorations, all contribute to the creation of the laugh. He must also avoid any thing studied or affected in his action. Every thing must appear as natural as possible, even amidst the grimaces, contortions, and extravagancies of the character.