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The San Francisco Sunday Call -64 A * a panse vient la danse," the / \ old Gallic proverb, applies today. ■*■ Alter the feast we demand the dance, and we have a wonderful treasure house of beautiful dances to , choose from, ranging from the revival of the classic movements of the golden days of Greece and the sensuous flexions of the east to the newest scheme of gyrations and combinations of steps that western ingenuity has been able to devise. We Americans have welcomed the dancers of all nations and have taken a leaf from the ■k of each. In the endeavor to discover novelties and to witness exhibitions of skiil. society has gone to the cabaret, to the theater and the opera and lias welcomed the artists of each to per !at private houses and to give lessons to young girls eager to learn the dances of all nations. Even the little children of promi nent families have regular instruction in the ballet nowadays by a master who drills the opera ballet dances and in fancy dances that have been introduced and adapted from other countries. To be smart one must be familiar CMth dances that are not only novel, but at slightly startling. The extreme to which dancers went in their effort to achieve this result lias been abandoned by refined society, but there is still more latitude and vivacity in the dancing of today than in that which suf ficed before the wave of picturesque foreign dancing reached its height of popularity. French Lead in Stage Dancing < hir earlier and more picturesque dancing, in which elegance and grace were the most s< »ught far characteristics, was chiefly a French tradition. The origin of dancing in France is dimly associated with the rise of chivalry. It is known to have followed Cath erine de Medici to France and to have spread from the elegant court entertainments which she arranged to all parts of the country. Jn the ''great century' , Louis XIV founded the Academy of Dancing and himself took part in the wonderful court ballets of the time. In stage dancing the French are still in the lead, although within the last few years the Russians and Americans have been doing some wonderful work along these lines. The ballet and other forms of dancing are effective attri butes of the opera, of which there is a coa ly growing appreciation. The heaviness erious opera is relieved by such dancing and the travety of lighter ones heightened by its introduction. The color effects, the move DANCERS of the NATIONS meats and the music make a combination that gives this feature an unfailing charm. Genee's dancing this year has won an enthusiastic re ception, as did that of Pavlovva and Mordkin when they appeared at the Metropolitan opera house a few years ago. Her imitations of the famous dancers of other times have been espe cially effective. American dancers have won distinction on the stage, too. Isadora Dun can's unique and graceful dancing had a won derful vogue, and her pupils who have fol lowed her methods have interpreted to an in terested public the relation of dancing to other arts. Maude Allan caused a sensation in two continents and Loie Fuller, years ago, made her name famous with a clever arrangement of lights and colors to accentuate her dancing. Lately we have seen some clever dancing by another young American, Miss Grace Muriel Walters, of the same school as Miss Duncan. All of our dancing in recent years has been influenced by the rhythmic body movements of the oriental dances, which in their original form greatly shocked society, but which, as modified, have merely infused a new fascina tion into the western dances. One of the pub lic dancers who brought the unmodified dances of the east before audiences of the west was Sahary Djeli, of whom a critic wrote, after witnessing one of her performances: "As a female contortionist she surpassed all her pre decessors in Salome dancing. She almost suc ceeded in tying herself in a hard knot, then rolled down a flight of stairs and died at the footlights. A large chorus of dancers and negro slaves made an effective background for her." Spanish dancing, too, has had an effect upon that of other countries. The first thing an American tourist wants to see when he goes to Spain is the dancing of that country. There is the fandango. All Spain thrills to it. If a few notes of the music are heard, young men will spring to their feet, rattling their cas tanets or snapping their fingers, the girls, re markable for the willowy languor and light ness of their movements and the voluptuous ness of their attitudes, beating exact time with their tapping heels. The partners tease, en treat and pursue each other by turns. Sud denly the music stops and each dancer re mains motionless, bounding into life as the music strikes up again. The steps arc danced by one person or by several couples, who fol century tells how the fandango scandalized the good people of that time, as it has done those of our own. A protest reached the Vatican and a proscription of those who indulged in it was resolved upon, on pain of excommunica tion. A consistory was convoked to try the matter, but some one suggested that it was unfair to condemn a thing - of which they had no personal knowledge. Two Spanish dancers were, therefore, summoned, one of each sex, who proceeded to show the reverend court what the fandango really was. At iirst the judges sat stern and frown ing, but soon the grace and vivacity of the dancers so impressed them that one after another of the car dinals and other clergy present be gan to join in the rhythmic move ments and presently the council chamber was transformed into a dance hall. Of course, the fandango was pardoned and restored to hon- No Distinctive American Dance The bolero, or volero, another Spanish dance, is more dignified and modest than the fandango, but has, like it, certain affinities with the se guadilla. It is a dance for two per sons, consisting of five parts —the promenade, the dififerencia, cross over, finale and bien parado. The music, which is varied, abounds in cadences. One gets some idea oi the preva- lence of the seguadilla in Spain by the fact that fans, tambourine? and many of the old carriages are deco rated with pictures of the dance, in which there is always a fine lady, with arm akimbo, who is "not ashamed of her garters." Nearly every Spanish province has its spe cial seguadilla, modified by the tem perament of the inhabitants and bearing a special name. Russian dancing is of Slavonic origin mixed \vith a Tartar element, and displays many of the features common to all oriental dancing— quickness of movement of the hips and naked feet. Much of the Russian dancing represents a love drama and is both picturesque and moving. All of the Slavs are great votaries <>t the dance, none of them more so than the Bohemians, whose dances are perhaps the most varied of all, no baptism, marriage or funeral services being complete without the fitting dance. We have levied upon the dances of all the nations for those with which to elaborate our pageants, of which we have had so many in recent years; we have watched with growing appreciation the dancing in "Coppelia," in "Bacchus," in "Orfeo ed Eurydice," in 'Tarsi far , and in "Die Meistersinger." The dancers of all lands have made life gayer and brighter, both socially and in our public entertainments. There is no distinctive American dance, but the Americans are distinctive in that they dance everything.