The Art of Stage Dancing Part 32

And while on the subject of beauty, here is another thing:

A girl has a pretty face. On the strength of her beauty she thinks she would make a success as an actress. (Hollywood is overflowing with this type of girl.) She is a good home dancer, and surely dancing on the stage is no different! Perhaps she is right in her estimate of herself, and then again she may be mistaken, for it requires more than mere physical appearance to be a top notcher in anything outside of an exclusively beauty show. Not that any lady's pulchritude is a handicap to a stage career or in any way undesirable. On the contrary, the stage has always welcomed beautiful women, and will continue to do so.

But, here is another girl in the same social set who makes no claim to being a beauty, and does not think of herself as being of a type that lends charm to the stage--and this Cinderella may possess the very qualities that go to make the professional actress and dancer, and yet let the opportunity pa.s.s because of her failure to recognize her own value. Her face, with proper makeup under our skilled direction, with the correct treatment of its features, consideration of the stage lighting, and her hair becomingly and appropriately dressed, may far outcla.s.s that of the pretty girl who has only aspiration without the necessary qualities to back it.

In other words, beauty of the street and the home is a vastly different thing from beauty on the stage behind the footlights. So do not worry at what your mirror tells you. If you have the other qualities that make for professional success, my courses will instruct you fully as to the way to look your best, and you will be surprised at the latent possibilities for personal beauty that we will discover for you.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NW]

WHO'S AFRAID!

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I have never known a graduate of our courses to have a bad case of stage fright. This doubtless is attributable to the fact that our pupils are thoroughly grounded in all their stage work before going before a critical audience. They know their steps and routines perfectly, have mastered the physical side of dancing. Their first dancing is done before their cla.s.s, their instructor and myself. Once a month we have Visitors' Day, for relatives and friends, here in the studio. Our students appear in action before them, and at other times before some neighborhood or church benefit audience. They are properly dressed for their part, and their makeup is right when they go "behind the footlights" for their first professional performance--all of which gives the necessary self-confidence that carries the dancer through the trying ordeal of a first appearance.

STAGE FRIGHT--WHAT IT IS AND HOW TO OVERCOME IT

When you step out upon the stage to do your turn for the first time, you will be very grateful to me for having instilled into your mind the necessity for doing your work over and over till it has become second nature to you. You will thank me, too, for the long series of foundation work, limbering and stretching exercises, that you have gone through, that have kept you from being muscle-bound, given you confidence as well as ability, and left you without fear of not being able to go through with what you have undertaken. This and the knowledge that your costume and makeup are perfect, are of the greatest help in begetting that confidence that overcomes the danger of stage fright, not only on a first but also on all subsequent appearances. Knowing that you look right is half the battle; the other half is the certainty that you know what you are about to do and know it perfectly.

Stage fright is the uncontrollable fear of an audience. It is the result of excessive nervousness. The orator, the actor and the singer experience this dread more often than does the dancer or the instrumental musician. The mouth becomes dry and the throat contracts as the speaker or singer attempts to get his voice across the footlights and out to the audience. One's voice becomes faint and unnatural, weak and uncontrollable. Those who afterwards have become the world's great actors and singers have many of them been overcome with stage fright, and even left the stage on a first appearance.

Richard Mansfield was one of these. He fainted from stage fright at his first appearance, yet he afterwards became one of the greatest dramatic stars in the world.

The stage dancer does not have this difficulty with her voice, and if trained right while acquiring her art should never be subjected to the bugaboo of fear. But I am going to lay down some general rules here for the prevention and control of stage fright that will give you confidence and also serve to instruct you how to act if the worst does happen and nervousness gets the best of you. In chorus work, of course, there is little danger. Your mates will carry you along if you miss a step or break your routine, and you'll soon get back all right.

In solo work, don't try to look at your audience nor single out any individuals. Don't glue your gaze on the orchestra leader, though he alone is the audience of which you have any right to be at all conscious. He and his baton are your friends and are giving you your tempo. Be aware of them incidentally but not conspicuously, and forget the rest of the folks in front entirely. Forget yourself, forget everything but the music that fills your ears, and let your dancing absorb you completely. Radiate an air of conscious certainty in all you do. Smile. Look happy. Your dance is a good one and you know how to do it Well. You know you do. Pretty soon a ripple of applause starts. It grows and fills that big half-dark place down there before you. That is a tonic. Your stage fright or your fear of it is gone for good. Your audience has accepted you. Now you glow with the happiness that is yours by every right. Applause is to you and your art as the shower and the sun are to the flowers. You live on it. Without it you are a failure.

Suppose you had let your fear master you. Suppose you had quit cold, got cold feet, let yourself be scared out of your wits, and not braved the thing you feared. That would have been a calamity. Your promising career would have ended before it began, after all your expenditure of time and money for lessons. Don't let anything scare you. Go on when your turn comes. Keep going. No matter what happens, don't give up--keep right on till you get your nerve back.

I saw a young singer come out in front of a large audience once, get her cue from the orchestra, and stop dead. She looked out over the crowded auditorium. The leader held his baton suspended in air.

"Wait," she said. "I've forgotten it." The audience was dead silent, understanding just what had happened, and very sympathetic. The orchestra leader spoke a single word to her.

"Oh, yes!" she smiled, and her voice swelled out into the song she had so nearly forgotten.

Did she get a hand? I'll say she did, and a couple of encores and a press notice next morning that told all about it, and her career was launched. She had presence of mind and control of herself. Cultivate this by first gaining perfect control of every muscle in your body, by persistent practice of all of your dancing exercises, technique and dance routines; great confidence in your ability will come with this.

I am going to advise you to do as I have always done, and that is, write your routines down and keep them. Each has a name. Ask your instructor, he can tell you the name for every step. Write these routines in sequence, and remember each one. Go through each one every day, no matter how many you collect. The more of them you have the richer you are, for they are valuable. You will be a solo dancer one of these days and with this list you have you can make up your own routines,--take a step from this one and that one and build a new dance for yourself. After a year or two you'll find this easy to do, and it gives you a chance to work in your own personality. In writing down the routines in the first place, while still in the courses, as I have advised, you are helping yourself become fit, so fit and so familiar with your work that you couldn't get stage fright if you wanted to. So in doing this you are really accomplis.h.i.+ng two very important things, enlarging your dance vocabulary and making yourself stage-fright proof.

Always go on the stage with the firm conviction that you are going to do well and make a hit. Say to yourself with deep feeling, "I shall do well tonight. I shall have a big success. Everything will go just as I want it to."

[Ill.u.s.tration: CLEO MAYFIELD]

This is called auto-suggestion, if you want to know, and it is a self-starter, too, and makes the wheels of success go 'round. Step on it! It is good for every performance.

Be satisfied with small beginnings at first. Exhibit your work in public whenever you can, to gain confidence and experience. Keep your eye on Broadway and work toward that great thoroughfare, of course--all dancers do that--but don't think of making your first appearance there. The farther away from Broadway you make your first appearance the better it will be. Learn the art of costuming yourself for your part, and learn the art of makeup. They come next in importance to the actual dances themselves that you are patiently practicing. When you start out, take with you a knowledge of dress and makeup as well as of dancing, and when you are mistress or master of these three arts and make use of them properly, you can go on the professional stage without dread of being overcome by stage fright. No real artist ever is, although any great artist will be a little bit nervous perhaps before making the first entrance in a new play on an important first night. But the sight of the audience cures that.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NW]

THE DANCE AND THE DRAMA

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The art of acting as it has been known for thousands of years, derives from the dance, and is a direct evolution from the representation of the emotions as portrayed by the primitive dancers. Joy, anger, love, jealousy, hatred, revenge, triumph and defeat were all interpreted in the Grecian dances of the period antedating the introduction of the speaking actors, who told in words and gestures the stories that had formerly been conveyed through the dance. The victorious warriors returned from battle danced to show how they had fought and destroyed the enemy. The hunter described in a dance how he had slain wild animals. The traveller who had visited what to him were distant lands, told of the strange people he had met by imitating them while he danced. Gradually there was evolved the addition of spoken words supplementing the action, accompanied by appropriate gestures and facial expression. Man had discovered his ability to become for the moment another person, and to interpret certain emotions more vividly than through the medium of the dance. The stage became the opportunity not only for the representation of elemental forces and actions, but also for the princ.i.p.al creations of the imagination.

While the slowly developing drama departed widely from the limitations of its origin, there has, nevertheless, remained an a.s.sociation with the dance that will continue for all time. Especially is this true of the lighter branch of the drama, comedy, and the modern combination known as musical comedy or comic opera. In the popular stage entertainments of the day dancing forms an important feature of a large percentage of all productions that appear in the leading theatres. In many of the cla.s.sical plays, by great dramatists, that are annually chosen for revivals, the dance appears, and the actor or actress who cannot dance misses many opportunities for profitable engagements. There has always been a kins.h.i.+p between the dance and the legitimate drama, and many prominent stars began their apprentices.h.i.+p for the stage in the ranks of musical comedy or as vaudeville dancers.

With few exceptions it will be found that the men and women who have achieved success on the stage are enthusiastic devotees of dancing, and they will agree that to those intending to make acting their life work a thorough training in the art of the dance is an essential part of their education.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NW]

PERSONALITY IN THE DANCE

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Every individual possesses something that for lack of a better word is termed "personality;" something elusive and evasive, that cannot easily be defined or explained, but nevertheless remains the essential quality that distinguishes its possessor from every other human being.

But while all may have the potentiality for some distinct and special attribute, unfortunately for by far the greater number this is never developed or expressed, and they pa.s.s through their uneventful, monotonous existence, without even realizing their capacity for being or doing something outside the routine of their daily occupations.

In this era of the newest of sciences, psychoa.n.a.lysis, which is attracting the study and investigation of millions, much attention is being given to the explanation of the failure of so many persons to find an outlet for hidden capacities by the well-worn "inferiority complex." The flower of personality, we are told, is born to blush unseen because of an individual's belief that he or she is in some way inferior. Despite all the books that have been written, and the good advice that has been given, urging the development of self-confidence as the starting point for worthy accomplishment, there is still all too prevalent an att.i.tude of timidity and hesitation that says in effect: "I can't be what I would like to be, so what's the use of trying."

This inability or unwillingness to believe in one's self; the disposition to doubt one's powers, to admit defeat before trying, is nowhere more clearly apparent than in the att.i.tude of many persons who possess the physical and mental qualifications that with proper training would bring distinction and profit as exponents of the dance.

They admire the successful dancers; they feel that they too are capable of expressing themselves through this art. But,--and here comes the cold water that quenches the spark of their ambition,--they are timid; afraid of failure; they fear that they haven't the persistence and capacity for application that is needed to a.s.sure success. Perhaps they do make an attempt, but the work is hard, they just know that they won't be able to stick it out, and after a few futile efforts they give it up, and spend the rest of their lives wondering what they might have accomplished if they had persevered.

To these too easily discouraged persons the message of the dance is: "What others have done you can do. You have the physique, or at least it can be developed. You have the intelligence to accept instruction.

You have the patience needed for the continued repet.i.tion of movement that makes perfection. You have an individuality that can be expressed in the subtle shadings and delicate touches that growing skill will enable you to show in every graceful movement. You have in you the capacity for artistic and harmonious expression of your personality.

Why not develop it?"

I cannot emphasize too strongly the importance of _personality_ in a successful stage career. Along with the actual mastering of the dancing steps and the acquisition of health and a beautiful body, comes just as surely the development of one's personal qualities. And because each person has an individuality which is distinctive from that of everyone else, all must select the type of dancing which is best suited to their own personalities. That is why the performance of stars like Evelyn Law, Marilyn Miller, Ann Pennington, Gilda Gray and Fred and Adele Astaire leaves a lasting impression. Every step, every movement is designed to drive home the characteristics of their individuality.

Even more important than the actual dancing steps they do is the manner in which they execute them--the individuality that they express. It is the almost indefinable factor called personality which lifts one out of the ranks of the chorus and makes the solo dancer. In this book I am trying to help you develop your personality, in the same way that I have discovered and developed that quality in so many of today's theatrical stars.

Most emphatically I want to impress upon you that it is not "chorus work" you are learning in my courses. It is professional and individual dancing, that when mastered gives one that certain something that one lacked before, a feeling of having accomplished a.s.surance of success.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AL JOLSON]

Anyone who masters the dances takes on a certain confident feeling in time, after exercising great patience in practice. With this confidence, the happy pupil radiates a new magnetic personality which the audience feels--but more about this later on, when you will learn just how one's self is injected into the dances, until they are vitalized and become the living embodiment of the emotions and spirit of the dancer. This is putting one's own personality into the dance, and is one secret of every great artist's success, which we seek to instill into the minds of all our students.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NW]