Felix Cherniavsky - News Clippings 1900s 2

Added 18th Mar 2022 by Beth Dobson (Archives and Programming Assistant, DCD) / Last update 18th Mar 2022

Maud Allan 381 51 2008-1-29.jpg
Maud Allan 381 51 2008-1-29.jpg
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Felix Cherniavsky - News Clippings 1900s 2

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Maud Allan Research Collection
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N Mac 21 , 199 Accident Oct 23/1908 3 O SHEA MISS MAUD ALLAN'S SALOME The Preaders DANCE March 211.190 > 8 We have the largest Eastern Empire the world has ever seen , and yet we not only neglect to study Eastern thought and custom , we even shrink with horror , which is instinc tive , but which we like to believe virtuous , from anything Eastern . That is the real reason why such dancing as that now being exhibited by Miss Maud Allan at the Palace has never before been received with even lukewarm sentiment in England : Racial instinct , island prejudice , and national conceit have kept our eyes closed to a whole garden of beauties , and have condemned to flow in a narrow channel an art which should spread its beneficent charm over all the fields of life . Posture - dancing is not a Western growth . In the earliest days we may imagine that the men and maidens who danced at the coming of spring or the mid - winter feast were content to " foot it , " clumsily enough no doubt . Long before Puritanism dawned on the world , even before Christianity came to hallow the common sacraments of life , we may believe that in the West the dancing was essentially " proper . " Out of that coarse and scanty seed we have evolved the type of dancing of which Malle . Adeline Genée is the supreme exponent . In its strict conventions , its complicated laws of practice , its minute and delicately - finished beauties , it is as different as could be from its rude , bucolic origins . But meanwhile the East has been evolving its own type of dancing . Out of the emnere provocative posturing of the body , upon which a more matter - of - fact moral code than ours has always looked as legitimate entertainment , there has grown , possibly under Western influence the influence of the Roman pantomimist , for instance , who , though pro vocative enough , was provocative in a different way -- the totally different art up to which Miss Allan is now educating the London public . This art has rules less strict , and conventions fewer and less imperative , than the corresponding art of the West . In European dancing everything is wrapped in a cloud and done by implication . Certain movements of the fingers over and round the face , for instance , imply admiration for the beauty of the person at whom they are aimed . How does the Salome at the Palace express admiration for the head of St. Jobn ? By no conventional movements , by no movements at all that can be noted and written down . It is done by attitude , by the flow of rhythm in the moving limbs , by the expression of the face , by the transformation of the whole body into a musical instrument striking that one note . And so with other passions -- the fear , the horror , the exultation which are so vividly expressed . The rudiments of the Western art can be mastered by any agile young body ; such dancing as Miss Allan's is only possible to an imaginative artist , who can create , without conventions or symbols to save trouble , the poetic impression desired . It is not possible to dance in the Western manner like Malle . Genée , unless , like Mdlle . Genée , you are a great artist . It is not possible to dance in the Eastern manner at all unless , like Miss Allan , you are a great artist . Your posturings may be pretty , but they will mean nothing ; and the chances are that you will slip back into the old and gross appeal from which the flower sprang . For the essence of this artwhich is Eastern , though Miss Allen has never been to the East - is that it is dramatic . Much of Western dancing ( we exclude from this term the peculiar Spanish dancing , which doubtless owes much to Moorish influence , and has never progressed far ) is not dramatic ; " there is no drama in a pirouette , whatever pleasure may be gained from it when perfectly performed . Drama is the soul of the other art , and it cannot be doubted that it has been from very early ages dramatic . What was the dance of the two , armies ” which the Shulamite danced in the " Song of Songs , " and which led to the outburst of " How beautiful are thy feet with shoes , o prince's daughter I ” and the glowing imagery which follows ? It was a dance , clearly , with some sort of story in it . All Miss Allan's dances that we have seen are dramatic ; most of all the wonderful “ Salome . " We know now how Salome danced ; not toute nue , as in some mediaeval illustrations , nor tumbling , standing on her head , as in others ; but clothed in jewels and with these marvellously beautiful sinuous movements in which the dancer's will and emotions play upon the lovely instrument of her body to produce what music she will . The beauty of these movements there is no describing . Did Miss Allan realise when she came to London how bold a thing she was doing ? It was nothing less than beginning our education in a branch of art which we have persistently neglected , and mainly through our uncomfort able suspicion of its " propriety . " Courage is usually rewarded , and Miss Allan has conquered . Night after nigbt crowds flock to see this princess of the East first win the head of her victim and , having won it , go through a torrent of mingled passions over it , all sublimated by art into things of beauty . And so far , we believe , there has been ' no whisper of ribaldry or prudery . Not all the visitors to the Palace , we ; suspect , have read Browning's " The Lady and the Painter , " but it looks as if all had realised its message -- the absolution , " in Browning's mistaken phrase , won by artist's model and dancer alike . J. C. F 5 ) .