FUTURIST DANCING
That amazing propagandist, Signor Marinetti, of Milan, who favours me from time to time with his manifestos, now sends “La Danse Futuriste.” I confess that I have not a ha’porth of Futurism in my composition. I am what Signor Marinetti would himself call a Passéiste, a mere Pastist. Hence I have generally failed to discover any meaning in these manifestos, and have thrown them into the waste-paper basket. But as the present one happens to arrive at the same time as another Futurist tract—Signor Ardengo Soffici’s “Estetica Futurista”—I have read the two together, to see if one throws any light on the other. It is right to say that “the” Soffici (to adopt an Italianism) disclaims any connexion with “the” Marinetti, explaining that he puts forward a doctrine, whereas official Futurism has no doctrine, but only manifestos. It couldn’t have, he rather unkindly adds, seeing that its very nature is “anticultural and instinctolatrous.” (Rather jolly, don’t you think, the rich and varied vocabulary of these Italian gentlemen?) Nevertheless, I have ventured to study one document by the light of the other; and, if the result is only to make darkness visible, it is acertain gain, after all, to get anything visible in such a matter.
And first for the Marinetti. His manifesto begins by taking an historical survey of dancing through the ages. The earliest dances, he points out, reflected the terror of humanity at the unknown and the incomprehensible in the Cosmos. Thus round dances were rhythmical pantomimes reproducing the rotatory movement of the stars. The gestures of the Catholic priest in the celebration of Mass imitate these early dances and contain the same astronomical symbol—a statement calculated to provoke devout Catholics to fury. (I should like to hear the learned author of “The Golden Bough” on the anthropological side of it.) Then came the lascivious dances of the East, and their modern Parisian counterpart—or sham imitation. For this he gives a quasi-mathematical formula in the familiar Futurist style. “Parisian red pepper + buckler + lance + ecstasy before idols signifying nothing + nothing + undulation of Montmartre hips = erotic Pastist anachronism for tourists.” Golly, what a formula!
Before the war Paris went crazy over dances from South America: the Argentinetango, the Chileanzamacueca, the Brazilianmaxixe, the Paraguayansantafé. Compliments to Diaghileff, Nijinsky (“the pure geometry” of dancing), and Isadora Duncan, “whose art has many points of contact with impressionism in painting, just as Nijinsky’s has with theforms and masses of Cézanne.” Under the influence of Cubist experiments, and particularly under the influence of Picasso, dancing became an autonomous art. It was no longer subject to music, but took its place. Kind words for Dalcroze; but “we Futurists prefer Loie Fuller and the nigger cake-walk (utilization of electric light and machinery).” Machinery’s the thing! “We must have gestures imitating the movements of motors, pay assiduous court to wings, wheels, pistons, prepare the fusion of man and machine, and so arrive at the metallism of Futurist dancing. Music is fundamentally nostalgic, and on that account rarely of any use in Futurist dancing. Noise, caused by friction and shock of solid bodies, liquids, or high-pressure gases, has become one of the most dynamic elements of Futurist poesy. Noise is the language of the new human-mechanical life.” So Futurist dancing will be accompanied by “organized noises” and the orchestra of “noise-makers” invented by Luigi Russolo. Finally, Futurist dancing will be:—
Inharmonious—Ungraceful—Asymmetrical—Dynamic—Motlibriste.
All this, of course, is as plain as a pikestaff. The Futurist aim is simply to run counter to tradition, to go by rule of contrary, to say No when everybody for centuries has been saying Yes, and Yes when everybody has been saying No. But when it comes to putting this principle into practice we see at once there are limitations. Thus, take theMarinetti’s first example, the “Aviation” dance. The dancer will dance on a big map (which would have pleased the late Lord Salisbury). She must be a continual palpitation of azure veils. On her breast she will wear a (celluloid) screw, and for her hat a model monoplane. She will dance before a succession of screens, bearing the announcements 800 metres, 500 metres, etc. She will leap over a heap of green stuffs (indicating a mountain). “Organized noises” will imitate rain and wind and continual interruptions of the electric light will simulate lightning, while the dancer will jump through hoops of pink paper (sunset) and blue paper (night). And so forth.
Was there ever such a lame and impotent conclusion? The new dancing, so pompously announced, proves to be nothing but the crude symbolism to be seen already in every Christmas pantomime—nay, in every village entertainment or “vicar’s treat.” And we never guessed, when our aunts took us to see the good old fun, that we were witnessing something dynamic andmotlibriste!
I turn to the Soffici. He finds the philosophy of Futurism in the clown, because the clown’s supreme wisdom is to run counter to common sense. “The universe has no meaning outside the fireworks of phenomena—say the tricks and acts and jokes of the clown. Your problems, your systems, are absurd, dear sirs; all’s one and nothing counts save the sport of the imagination. Let us away withour ergotism, with the lure of reason, let us abandon ourselves entirely to the frenzy of innovations that provoke wonder.” It is this emancipation, adds the Soffici, this artificial creation of a lyric reality independent of thenexusof natural manifestations and appearances, this gay symbolism, that our æsthetic puts forward as the aim for the new artist.
Well, we have seen how gay was the symbolism devised by the Marinetti. And how inadequate, how poor in invention. Dancing that has to be eked out by labelled screens and paper hoops and pyramids of stuffs! That is what we get from the new artist. The old artists had a different way; when they had to symbolize, they did it bydancing, without extraneous aid. When Karsavina symbolized golf, she required no “property” but a golf-ball. All the rest was the light fantastic toe. When Genée symbolized Cinderella’s kitchen drudgery, she just seized a broom and danced, divinely, with it. But that was before the Marinetti made his grand discovery that music is too nostalgic for dancing purposes and that the one thing needful is organized noise—as organized by Luigi Russolo.... No, it is no use trying; I remain an incorrigible Pastist.