The Art of Stage Dancing Part 13

The cartwheel is the hand stand done sidewise. Instead of kicking up, as in the hand stand, put one hand down and then the other, going sidewise, kicking your feet up. Keep your head back, so as to retain your sense of direction.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Cartwheel_]

One of my star pupils in acrobatic dancing is Miss Evelyn Law, a princ.i.p.al dancer of the "Follies," and in "Louie the Fourteenth." She came to me four years ago, a little girl fifteen years old. There are few girls who have worked so hard to succeed as has Evelyn, and there are certainly few who have achieved the top line in their profession as quickly as she has. In every respect, Miss Law is a credit to the American stage. She started in her first appearance in an engagement which I got for her at a salary of $75.00 a week. Then her salary jumped to $125.00 a week, in "Two Little Girls in Blue," plus her mother's fare; later, as a featured member of the "Follies," which engagement I was also very happy to secure for her, her weekly salary reached the $750.00 mark. But Evelyn deserves her good fortune, because she has worked hard. Indeed, no girl could do the remarkable work which she is doing were she to live anything but a life of rigorous attention to every detail pertaining to health and physical fitness. She not only has ability, but she has the capacity for putting her heart into her job. She writes: "The encouragement which I have received urges me on to greater effort; and I am constantly trying to improve myself. I realize that only by constantly striving can I hope to win the recognition of producers and at the same time please the public." She writes of her present work that it is "a privilege which must be honored by my unflagging effort to put forth my best."

There's inspiration for all my dancing pupils in Evelyn Law's success.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NW]

[Ill.u.s.tration: EVELYN LAW]

MR. WAYBURN ADDRESSES A CLa.s.s IN ACROBATIC DANCING

I have watched this cla.s.s with a great deal of interest. You really are getting a physical foundation here for wonderful dancing; you are beginning to handle yourselves in a scientific way. I congratulate you.

To make a success at acrobatic or any other dancing you must not strain yourselves. Train, but don't strain. Be patient and keep practicing, and you will go far.

You are very wise to develop your ability along the line of acrobatic dancing rather than as an acrobat. There is a vast difference. As a mere acrobat one has to be a top-liner and wonderfully expert to get any kind of a salary at all, but as an acrobatic dancer you can command a place in the very best stage productions, high cla.s.s musical comedies, musical revues, vaudeville, etc., and also in the better grade motion pictures and presentations, and get a very good salary.

But if you let the acrobatic tricks dominate your dance, you will be cla.s.sed as an acrobat, and not as an acrobatic dancer; so look out--keep your dancing up to grade and throw in these acrobatic tricks as a surprise and a climax, and you've got something the public and the producers want and will pay for.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

After you have acquired these wonderful tricks and gotten hold of your bodies, and succeeded in bringing out in a physical way all the grace that nature gave you, then you can be taken and schooled in the soft, beautiful Americanized ballet work, and you will find that after this training you are now getting, our ballet technique will delight you and be comparatively easy for you. You know, of course, that in this course the ballet is not taught in the old, antiquated way, taking years of your time before you are permitted to do solo work. We teach you our own modern, scientific way, giving you first our foundation technique, then letting you learn how to use your arms, head, the upper part of your body and your legs gracefully and prettily, and making you as good ballet dancers as the old long-drawn-out practice ever made, enabling you to qualify for a paying engagement without a discouraging wait of years and years. Pavlowa, you know, was kept subordinate twelve years before she was permitted to attempt a solo dance in public. Imagine our American girls submitting to such apprentices.h.i.+p! Not one of you would consider such a thing. And fortunately you do not have to, for we have revolutionized all that.

Now you are getting a wonderful dancing repertoire, with acrobatic dancing, musical comedy work and the tap and step dancing. When you add our ballet course to that, then you are ready for any call that may come to you in your lifetime. This is my aspiration for you. We are trying to realize ideals. When you have finished here you will be accomplished dancers, not mere machines going through a bunch of set exercises. Add the spiritual touch to your work now as you start on the home stretch. Finish here going strong, and your speed will carry you far.

Don't be satisfied to qualify merely as acrobats. When you come to me for a letter of recommendation to some first-cla.s.s theatrical manager, I don't want to have to say to him: "Enclosed you will please find one acrobat." I have better hopes of the graduate pupils of my courses than that.

I want to say a word here to any who feel that they are slow and not keeping up with the pace set by the rest of the cla.s.s, and that word of advice is, take the same cla.s.s for another four weeks' period.

Don't have any false pride about it. You want to fit yourself perfectly for your profession. If the four weeks you have already had here are not time enough to do that, go in for another month. Really, two months is a very short time for completing a training of so much value to you.

I tell pupils in the courses in the other branches of dancing we teach, that if they feel stiff or have difficulty in performing their steps, they would do well to go into this cla.s.s, the acrobatic dancing cla.s.s, for a month, because here the students get all sorts of primary acrobatic tricks and gain in strength and flexibility. All dancing is easier to those who take this work. And besides, if you go out and accept an engagement you will be proficient in cartwheels, splits, and many other neat tricks that will be of great service to you. These are stunts that you cannot learn in a theatre; no one has time to teach them to you, nor the necessary equipment or facilities, and you want to be ready when the stage director calls for those who are capable of doing something unusual, to show him on the spot. And you cannot afford to try to learn things from another girl. You may injure yourself severely if you do. These difficult feats should only be attempted under the best instruction. Do not allow any girl or boy who is inexperienced to try to teach you anything in the line of acrobatic work.

Fresh air in your lungs, correct diet, and nine gla.s.ses of water a day will do wonders for you in many ways. You have heard me say this before. Well, I shall say it a good many times more, just as long as I have students under my charge who want to be "healthy, wealthy and wise"--and good looking and good dancers. And please do not treat this advice lightly. I can only ask you to observe these simple rules. I have no way of enforcing them, and possibly because they are simple you do not give them the consideration they deserve. Now let me tell you some facts, and then you decide whether or not you think it wise to neglect yourself.

Surely none of you will object to taking a gla.s.s of water nine times a day. Do not drink ice water, nor take water with meals. Liquids taken while eating will bloat you, make you fat, or make it impossible to a.s.similate your food properly, and that will keep you underweight.

Take a gla.s.s on arising, one after breakfast, one before and after dinner and luncheon, one at about eleven in the morning and another at four, and one just before getting into bed. Water taken into the system this way induces a healthful perspiration which eliminates the bodily impurities. Your skin must be ventilated, which means that the pores must be opened, and water-drinking as I have directed will do this. If you drink milk, sip it slowly; don't pour it down. Don't eat between meals. Have a meal an hour and a half before cla.s.s or before a performance, then the digestive process will have had time to complete its work and leave you in the best condition for mental and physical exertion.

After exercising here in your cla.s.s, do not dress and hurry out into the street until your pores are closed. You have free shower baths at your disposal in your dressing rooms here in the studios, put there for just the purpose of enabling you to get into perfect condition before you go outdoors. Use them, with my compliments, please, and keep fit; then take a good rub down.

It is important to you to have a good clear skin and complexion. Some of you have it, and you want to keep it; some will be glad to know how to get it. I am going to tell you just how to acquire it and keep it, and clear up any little blemishes on your skin,--but it is so simple I am afraid you won't think it worth doing. To have clear skins you must have pure blood and good circulation of the blood, and to obtain these you must breathe deeply and correctly and so get fresh air, full of oxygen, into your lungs. That's all there is to it. And now, here is the correct way to breathe to accomplish all this, and I wish you would practice it now here in the cla.s.s as I tell you about it:

Breathe in through your nostrils, with the mouth closed. Inhale slowly and way down deep, filling your lungs as full as you can; then exhale slowly through your mouth. Do this as an exercise, and do it ten times before you stop. Then do it again whenever you think of it, not less than three times a day. You cannot do it too often, no danger of that!

It won't hurt you or cost you a cent. The air drawn into your lungs this way expands your chest and increases your lung capacity. This makes good wind for dancing, and all dancers need lots of wind; you have to have it, you have to call for lots of breath when you dance rapidly or long. Start in right now, and by the time you have a stage engagement you will be prepared with a bellows that will furnish all the air you call for--and meanwhile watch your skin and your complexion put on the clear, healthy, beautiful appearance that every woman envies. The air in this room, as in any room, is not entirely free of impurities; it is not the best air for your breathing exercises. Outdoors--say, over in Central Park, only a block from here--is where you find the beautifying, pure oxygen that will start your blood tingling, expand your chest, and give you the real beauty of skin and complexion that nature meant all women should have. Walk.

Exercise. While you're out walking, take your beauty-breathing exercise as you go.

In my office I have a list of foods, with sixteen rules for good health. The word "diet" suggests starvation and going hungry and a lot of disagreeable things like that, I suppose, and so you would much rather not hear about it. Well, it isn't as bad as you think, and a proper diet is a health insurance, and should be carefully observed.

Do you know that I have made a study of diets and dieting, and of anatomy--the structure of the human body? My interest in dancing and in my pupils here--and in my own health--has prompted me to study that subject thoroughly. I could tell you a great deal about getting and keeping healthy, if you cared to hear it and if I had time to go into the subject.

My best dancers, and all good dancers, diet. That is, they are careful to eat what is best for them, and not everything that may tickle the palate yet raise a rumpus inside one and upset the whole system, and make them cross and cranky and homely and bad actors generally.

Good food, pure air, plenty of water, internally and externally, the right amount of sleep, not more than eight hours, and not less than seven, proper exercise and practice--all of these are essential to make good dancers--to make _you_ good dancers.

Come in to my office tonight after cla.s.s. Weigh yourselves before you come in. Then talk to me about yourself and get my diet list to take home, please.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LINA BASQUETTE]

NED WAYBURN'S MODERN AMERICANIZED BALLET TECHNIQUE

[Ill.u.s.tration]

I have invented a method of teaching the ballet that eliminates the long and tedious training formerly considered necessary, and fits the pupil for a stage appearance in the briefest possible length of time.

That my method is a perfect success is evidenced in the best theatres everywhere. I have taken amateurs who never did a ballet step in their lives, put them in training by my personally devised method, and made perfect solo dancers of them in a few months' time, secured them engagements, and their fame as ballet dancers par excellence is today world-wide. Elsewhere in this book I shall name several of these whom you know best, and you will admit that I am right in what I have just said when you peruse their names.

I am a.s.suming that you are aware of the fact that in all foreign countries the ballet student is taught for years before she is allowed to attempt a public appearance or permitted to consider a professional engagement. This ultra-conservative custom has been brought across the water, and the idea has always held here in America that the four, six, ten year apprentices.h.i.+p was a necessity; that no dancer could qualify for a professional appearance in a shorter period. It was taken for granted that there was no short cut to this trade, and up to the recent present there has been none. But our American girls who are gifted with a talent for this superb form of graceful dancing will not consent to devote the best years of their lives to unproductive labor. The idea of signing away several years of their happy lives in order to become ent.i.tled merely to a critical teacher's approval, and all this time without compensation of a financial nature, does not appeal to any, and least of all to that very person, the young person who would make the best dancer.

Yet there was an increasing demand for capable ballet dancers, and the supply was limited and dwindling. So, in order to make a world happy, I put my wits to work and evolved a plan that has revolutionized the entire industry. And I have called it Ned Wayburn's Modern Americanized Ballet Technique; and it is a Ballet Technique at its very best. If I had done nothing else in the years of my theatrical experience, I should still feel that I had accomplished much that is worth while.

And, really, it is all very simple. The wonder is that others did not figure it out before I did. And it is no secret. I am going to tell you all about it, and what the results have been, and then you can see for yourself why it is no longer best or necessary to go to foreign lands and take lessons the old way, for years and years.

There is what is called the Universal Ballet Technique. It is the standard of the dancing world, recognized and observed everywhere that the ballet is taught or danced. My method follows this Universal Technique closely, and is identical in many of the essentials. The chief difference between the old way and my new method is in the preparatory work. Now, this will never become a world full of ballet dancers, because not everyone could learn this graceful undulation if they wanted to. (All the more reason, I say, why those who have the talent should profit by it.) Not all of my pupils, nor all of my best pupils in other forms of the art, can hope to become solo artistes in ballet work. I can glance over a cla.s.s at work in any of my studios, and select the few who may hope to perfect themselves in the ballet. I have had to discourage and no doubt disappoint some of my ambitious ones who have aspired to master the great art of ballet dancing; but I know I did what was best for them in advising them as I did. These same girls will be topnotchers in other fields of stage dancing, and I would rather direct their pathway to sure success than to let them wander into byways where their feet might stumble. So first of all, the candidate for ballet dancing must have my approval, she must be qualified according to my high standards, and when I say "Yes," and the student enters faithfully upon the work as I lay it out, she is going to make good.

And the first instruction she will receive in my courses is in the nature of a muscle culture, a foundation technique that consists of exercises, on the felt floorpad, in limbering and stretching. It is very beneficial to everyone in every way, and unqualifiedly essential to the beginner in stage dancing in any of its forms. The prospective ballet dancer, by going through these exercises in the studio for a series of twenty lessons or so, and practicing three hours or more at home daily during the same period, develops strength in the muscles of the back, legs, ankles and feet that fits her for the ballet technique; and it is this foundation work that enables her to eliminate the antiquated exercises and some combinations of steps, and the unduly long, tedious and once necessary trials that fell to the lot of the old-country ballerina. So the secret is out; it is our special foundation work in limbering and stretching combined with my Americanized Ballet Technique that builds our American pupil into a strong, healthy, flexible, graceful person, well prepared for advancement into the beautiful art of the ballet.

This does not mean that the entrant for ballet honors has nothing to do but go at once upon the stage, a completed artiste. If this statement of my easier plan suggests such a thing, let me hasten to correct so erroneous an impression. There is work, and hard work, too, and lots of it, before our pupil becomes a ballet dancer, even under our less strenuous and much shortened course of training.

Grace of the entire body is sought and taught, graceful movements of the head, arms, legs and torso. In addition to grace and poise, there is need of great muscular strength, and this we are able to develop in our pupils without bunching the muscles of their calves, thighs or arms into unsightly knots. And this fact is not one of the least of the recommendations of our system. We insist upon symmetry and beauty of figure. This is really more important to the professional dancer than beauty of face. To possess both, a beautiful face and form, is the ideal condition, of course, but the figure is susceptible of being made attractive by our development technique, and any imperfections of the facial contour or features, and any defects in the complexion, are easily disguised or corrected by my method of teaching stage-makeup.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARION CHAMBERS]

It must be considered that in the ballet the movement of the arms is very important, and to perform it properly requires long study and extreme accuracy. Just as the art of painting blends and composes colors, and by the composition of scenes and figures makes a whole that is pleasant to the eye, so the movements of the arms in dancing add many and diverse forms of grace to the body, guiding and regulating its movements so as to result in a harmonious whole. One authority has styled dancing "the music of the eye." The dancer who neglects the difficult study which the arms require because she believes that the only necessity is brilliant execution in the legs, will be an imperfect artist. It is not enough to know how to dance with one's legs; the ballet must also be executed with the trunk of the body and the arms. Their movements must be graceful and in harmony with those of the legs, since they const.i.tute a weight for the equilibrium of the body when it rests on one leg. The arms must accompany the trunk, making a frame for it.

The movements of the head, of the eyes, the expression of the face, all are of tremendous importance in perfecting the ballet. It is because of the necessity of bearing constantly in mind the various att.i.tudes of head, torso, arms and legs that I believe that the ballet contributes more than any other type of dancing to the general development of grace and poise of the whole body.

In addition to teaching what we call the legitimate American Ballet, we add to the students' repertoire what are known as "tricks," which earn applause for the dancer. Many of our pupils go directly from our courses to the professional stage, since it would be difficult for them to earn a supporting salary in the musical comedy field doing straight ballet work alone. We teach straight toe dances, and also eccentric toe dances, as will be demonstrated in another chapter.

You are now a student in our beginner's ballet cla.s.s. First, you must provide yourself with soft ballet slippers, as without them it would be impossible to do this type of work. As you enter our ballet room you note full length mirrors on the walls, to enable you to watch yourself as you dance--the original "watch your step" propaganda. Also you will see a wooden rod, technically known as a "bar," running around the walls of the studio. This is about three and a half feet above the floor, and is easily grasped by the hand for support in practicing.

In your practice at home, in the absence of such a bar, subst.i.tute an ordinary chairback or other firm object as a support, being careful that its height is correct.

Now the first thing to acquire is a knowledge of the fundamental rules of the dance, since everything depends upon them, and no one may hope to attain proficiency without this knowledge.