Читать книгу The Art of Ballet - Mark Edward Perugini - Страница 8

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There is no lack of testimony, pictorial and literary, to the ancient Greek love of the Dance.

Among the various arts of war and peace that Vulcan engraved upon that wondrous shield which he fashioned at the entreaty of sad Thetis for her son Achilles, the Dance was not forgotten; and the Homeric singer must have been a lover of the art to limn as clear a picture as is given in the eighteenth book of the Iliad.

“There, too, the skilful artist’s hand had wrought

With curious workmanship, a mazy dance,

Like that which Dædalus in Knossos erst

At fair-haired Ariadne’s bidding framed.

There, laying each on other’s wrists their hand,

Bright youths and many-suitored maidens danced.”

“Now whirled they round with nimble practised feet,

Easy, as when a potter, seated, turns

A wheel, new-fashioned by his skilful hand

And spins it round, to prove if true it run:

Now featly moved in well-beseeming ranks.

A numerous crowd, around, the lovely dance

Surveyed, delighted; while an honoured Bard

Sang, as he struck the lyre, and to the strain

Two tumblers, in the midst, were whirling round.”

The “two tumblers” is an interesting detail, but it does not necessarily refer to the sort of acrobatic “tumbling” we are familiar with to-day. There have always been two phases of the Dance which can best be understood by noting the distinction marked by the use of two words in French—at least by their use among the masters and writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—namely, danser and sauter. The former means to dance, “terre-à-terre,” that is, always with the feet, or one foot at least, on or close to the ground; sauter, means invariably to leap into the air, or even to perform steps while both feet are in the air.

We usually speak of “a somersault,” a “double somersault,” and so forth. The word is a corruption from the old French soubresault, from the Latin supra, over, and saltus, leap.

Early historians of the Dance frequently speak of “saltation,” without any reference to the “somersault” as we know it, but to what we should call simply dancing.

The Homeric picture must have been repeated innumerable times since it was first limned, whenever and wherever there has been a gathering of men and maids on a village green, dancing in a circle, with a couple of high-leaping lads in the centre inciting all to quicken the rhythm of the whirling dance. Many an Elizabethan village must have realised such a scene; and for all the artifice of the stage, with its paint and footlights, does it not hold something of the antique tradition in the picture often seen, of a circle of dancing girls enclosing two wildly turning “stars”? Is it impossibly un-Hellenic to presume that the “Two tumblers, in the midst, were whirling round” in pirouettes? At least it may be considered—a presumption!

Far later in Hellenic days we have a gracious picture of the Dance in Theocritus’ eighteenth Idyll, “The Bridal of Helen,” which reads delightfully in Calverley’s translation:

“Whilom in Lacedæmon tripped many a maiden fair

To gold-pressed Menelaus’ halls with hyacinths in her hair,

Twelve to the painted chamber, the queenliest in the land,

The clustered loveliness of Greece came dancing hand-in-hand.

With woven steps they beat the ground in unison and sang

The bridal hymn of triumph till all the Palace rang.”

The Greek dance, it should be noted, was almost invariably accompanied by singing; and the poet probably was often indebted to the dance for the rhythm of his verse. The bridal dance was of very ancient institution. Indeed, there were few occasions which were not celebrated with dancing, and the Greeks even followed the Egyptian custom of having “dancers” at their funerals! It is not to be thought, however, that the steps were exactly gay; nor need there have been anything incongruous, for we can be sure the instinctive taste of the people would not have admitted such a thing, and, moreover, a dance and a dancer as they saw it, were rather different from the vision we have recalled by such words.

To the ancient Greeks the Dance was a cult, an element in the religious and physical well-being of the individual and the State: and the dance that was taught to the child became an important and lasting factor in the physical growth and culture of the man.

We who, most of us, are only too apt to look on dancing as a mere trivial pastime, may wonder that it was so seriously considered by the Greeks, and that it should have so earnestly engaged the attentions of such philosophers as Plato and Lucian. But perhaps that is only because we have not considered it sufficiently ourselves and have associated it too closely with theatrical display.

In any form in which it is at its best the theatre is one of the noblest and most influential institutions of civilisation; as dancing, at its best, is one of the finest, because most comprehensive, of the theatrical arts. But there is a vast difference between the dance which was a means of physical and mental development, pursued amid the health-giving surroundings of sunshine and fresh air, and, let us say, some such degradation of art as some examples of the “classic” dance we have seen of recent years, performed in the glare of footlights, amid the smoke-laden atmosphere of a music-hall.

The contrast is an obvious one, but the thing to consider is that we in England have allowed an art which held an important place in Greek national life, and which should be of the greatest educational value to ourselves, to become mainly a spectacle of the theatre, where more often than not it is seen at its best, not necessarily because it is the result of the best system, but because it is the fruit of the greatest practice.

It is obviously impossible to deal very fully with the Hellenic dance in the space of a chapter in a volume which is not intended to trace the evolution of the Dance but of Ballet. An entire book were needed to treat the subject adequately—and we have not such a book in English, as yet. But Emmanuel’s masterly technical review of Hellenic dancing in his volume La Danse Grecque, is invaluable, and is testimony to the sound and catholic scholarship which in France scorns no subject as “trivial” merely because those ignorant of its history dismiss it as such; and which finds sympathetic students in a country where all the arts are treated with a respect that is at least as great as that offered to commercialism.

The Greeks are said to have derived their earlier dances from Egypt. This may be questionable, because it is equally likely that there was a traditional, indigenous dance in Greece. But it was through the Greeks, certainly, that dancing first assumed that variety and perfection of form and style which all the arts seemed destined to attain under their quickening, purifying, and inspiring influence; and it was the Greeks, too, who first began to develop the art of mimicry.

First, as already suggested, there would probably have been some occasion for joy, tending to express itself by dancing; and a victory over an enemy, or gratitude for a full harvest (the more exalted when the harvest was of the grape!) would have been such occasions. Later must have come the idea of representing the victory celebrated, or the imagined characteristics of the being or beings who were supposed to be the cause of the earth’s fruition, and who, if propitiated by this tumultuous acknowledgment of gratitude, perhaps might renew their favours.

Thus, in time, out of the ritual of the Dance would have grown the ritual of representation—Mimicry, miming, or “acting,” as we call it; and little by little, from the wild exuberance of recurring poetic festivals, such as those in honour of Dionysus, would have grown the ordered sense of Drama, the representation of thanksgiving, of feelings, events and things by Mimicry, the actor’s art; either allied with, or separate from, dancing.

The Greeks, improving on the Egyptians, invented and developed the idea of the Theatre. But though the Greeks in their Drama utilised the arts of dancing and mimicry, it would seem that they were quite subordinated to the literary and dramatic art of the all-inspiring Poet, and that words, with a meaning behind them, words representing, as far as words can, thoughts, passions, emotions, actions, things, were the essential medium of Greek Drama, not the art of the Dancer or the Mime.

It should be noted that the Greek orcheisthai (ὀρχεῖσθαι), to dance, implied more than mere steps with the feet. It included much that goes to make a really good ballet-dancer of to-day—interpretative dancing and mimetic gesture. The Greeks in fact had some of the material, if they did not have as we know it—the Ballet.

The earliest dramatic poets, Thespis, Phrynichus, were called “dancers” because in addition to providing the drama as poets, their function was to train their choruses in the dances which, accompanied by singing, were introduced in the play.

One of the most celebrated of the actors in the plays of Æschylus, Telestes, was said not merely to indicate feelings but to “describe” events with his hands; and this, which was really miming, was considered as part of dancing, which Aristotle defined as “the representation of actions, characters and passions by means of postures and rhythmic movements.”

Plutarch analyses dancing as “Motions, Postures and Indications,” a “posture” being the attitude of the dancer at the moment of arrested movement, and an “indication,” the gesture which indicated an external object referred to in a poet’s lines, such as the sky; or such as an orator would use when raising his hand heavenward invoking the gods.

The chief dances used in the Greek drama were the Emmeleia, a stately measure; Hyporchemata, lively dances; the Kordax, a very coarse and rough comic dance; and finally the Sikinnis, which was attached especially to satyric comedies and parodied as a rule the measure of the Emmeleia.

These were all a part, though a subordinate part, of the classic drama, and, according to some authorities, had their foundation in the rhythm of the poet’s verse as it was sung by the chorus or declaimed by the chief actors.

But apart from these there were mimetic dances. One, in which we may perhaps even see a hint of the origin of dancing itself, is found in Longus’ novel, Daphnis and Chloe, in which Dryas performs a vintage-dance, “pretending to gather grapes, to carry them in panniers, to tread them in a vat and pour the flowing juice into jars, and then to drink of the wine thus newly made”; and all done so cleverly that the spectators were deceived for the time and thought they really saw the grapes, the vats, and the wine the actor made pretence of drinking. This, probably an incident drawn from life, was indeed a “representation ingenieuse,” and even suggests yet another of the many possibilities as to the origin of the Dance, namely—that dancing itself may have originated from the treading of grapes.

The famous Pyrrhic dance was of course mimetic and represented a series of war-like incidents, all of which had an educational purpose, as by their means the youthful soldier was taught how to advance and retreat, how to aim a blow or hurl a javelin and to dodge them; and how to leap and vault, in event of meeting ditches and walls. Apart from military dances in which physical culture and grace were the chief aims, there were many dances of a purely festival character taken part in by young men and girls, and by girls alone.

The close association between religion and the Dance in ancient Hellenic days is seen in the number of festivals in honour of the gods, at which special dances were performed, apart from those which formed part of the classic drama and others which were merely by way of joyous pastime. Certain dances were performed annually in honour of Jupiter; others, such as the Procharysteriæ, were in honour of Minerva; then there was the Pæonian dance in honour of Apollo; the Ionic, and the Kalabis and the famous Dance of Innocence, instituted by Lycurgus, and executed to the glory of Diana, by young Lacedæmonian girls before the altar of the goddess. The Delian dance, special to the isle of Delos, was much the same in character and closed with the offering of floral garlands on the altar of Aphrodite. One of the most solemn incidents of the Eleusinian mysteries was the mystical dance-drama representing the search of Ceres for her daughter Proserpine—practically a “ballet,” in the older acceptance of the word.

The secular dance of the Greeks was essentially an individualistic form. Men and women only rarely danced together, and when they did, the joining of hands, or anything like chain-dancing was exceptional. One of these exceptions was the Hormos, or Collar-dance as it was called, which Lucian describes as being danced by youths and maidens advancing one by one in the form of a collar, made up of the alternating jewels of feminine grace and manly strength, the dance being led by a youth. Most of the Greek dances had a leader, and the favour in which the art was held is shown by the fact that they termed their Chief Magistrate Pro-orchestris, or Leader of the Dance. As a rule, chain-dances were performed by one or the other sex.

In another sense also the Hellenic dance was individualistic. We are accustomed to see entire groups, eight, sixteen, or even thirty-two or more dancers all performing the same step simultaneously. It is one of the conventions of Ballet, like the chorus in “musical comedy.” But the Greeks had not that convention.

Although their dance was based on strict rhythm and was governed by rigid rules, they governed the dance of the individual, not of groups. He, or she, was adjudged a good dancer by the grace of line displayed and rhythmic balance of movement, and many a vase painting exhibits groups of dancers who, though dancing in the mass, are each doing different steps; and equally the gestures and mimetic expression of each differed.

The system unquestionably had its advantages, for while the rhythm of the song or poetic verse which accompanied the performers was the common basis of the dance for all, the individuality of expression undoubtedly gave a vitality to the group which accounts for the vividness and charm of their representation on many an antique vase.

Numerous indeed were the various forms of the Hellenic dance, sacred, dramatic, secular—Meursius catalogues some two hundred—but further description would detain us too long en route towards the culmination of all these earlier types of mimetic and other dances in the Ballet of to-day, and we have next to trace the growth of Latin Mime and Pantomime.