In General.

This is one of the arts, in which, as in all the rest, the study of nature is especially to be recommended. She is an unerring guide. She gives that harmony, that power of pleasing to the productions of those who consult her, which such as neglect her must never expect. They will furnish nothing but monsters and discordances; or, at the best, but sometimes lucky hits, without meaning or connexion.

All the imitative arts acknowledge this principle.

In Poetry, a happy choice of the most proper words for expressing the sentiments and images drawn from the observation of nature, constitutes the principal object of the poet.

In Painting, the disposition of the subject, the resemblance of the coloring to that of the original, in short the greatest possible adherence to nature, is the merit of that art.

In Music, that expression of the passions which should raise the same in the hearer, whether of joy, affliction, tenderness, or pity, can never have its effect without marking and adopting the respective sounds of each passion as they are furnished by nature.

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In Dancing, the attitudes, gestures, and motions derive also their principle from nature, whether they caracterise joy, rage, or affection, in the bodily expression respectively appropriated to the different affections of the soul. A consideration this, which clearly proves the mistake of those, who imagine the art of dancing solely confined to the legs, or even arms; whereas the expression of it should be pantomimically diffused through the whole body, the face especially included.

Monsieur Cahusac, in his ingenious treatise on this art, has very justly observed, that both singing and dancing must have existed from the primeval times; that is to say, from the first of the existence of human-kind itself.

“Observe, says he, the tender children, from their entry into the world, to the moment in which their reason unfolds itself, and you will see that it is primitive nature herself, “that manifests herself in the sound of their voice, in the features of their face, in their looks, in all their motions. “Mark their sudden paleness, their quick contortions, their piercing cries, when their soul is affected by a sensation of pain. “Observe again, their engaging smile, their sparkling eyes, their rapid motions, when it is moved by a sentiment of pleasure. “You will then be clearly persuaded of the principles of music and dancing “proceeding from the beginning of the world down to us.”

Certain it is, that even in children, the motions and gesture, strongly paint nature; and their infantine graces are not unworthy the remarks of an artist, who will be sure to find excellence in no way more obtainable than by a rational study of her, where she is the purest.

The cultivation of the natural graces, and a particular care to shun all affectation, all caricature, unless in comic or grotesque dances, cannot be too much recommended to those who wish to make any figure in this art. It is doing a great injustice to it, to place its excellence in capers, in brilliant motions of the legs, or in the execution of difficult steps, without meaning or significance, which require little more than strength and agility.

I have already observed, that the Greeks, who were so famous for this art, as indeed for most others, which is no wonder, since all the arts have so acknowledged an affinity with each other, studied especially grace and dignity in the execution of their dances. That levity of capering, that nimbleness of the legs, which we so much admire, held no rank in their opinion. They were inconsistent with that clearness of expression, and neatness of motion, of which they principally made a point. The great beauty of movements, or steps, is, for every one of them to be distinct; not huddled and running into one another, so as that one should begin before the precedent one is finished. This so necessary avoidance of puzzled or ambiguous motion, can only be compassed by an attention to significance and justness of

This the Greeks could the better effectuate, from their preference of the sublime, or serious stile; which, having so much less of quickness or rapidity of execution, than the comic dance, admits of more attention to the neat expressiveness of every motion, gesture, attitude, or step.

As to the great nicety of the Greeks, in the ordering and disposing their dances, I refer to what I have before said, for its being to be observed, how much at present this art is fallen short of their perfection in it, and how difficult it must be for a composer of dances to produce them in that masterly manner they were used to be performed among the antients. Let his talent for invention or composition be never so rich or fertile, it will be impossible for him to do it justice in the display, unless he is seconded by performers well versed in the art, and especially expert in giving the expression of their part in the dance; not to mention the collateral aids of music, machinery, and decoration, which it is so requisite to adapt to the subject.

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But where all these points so necessary are duly supplied, and dancing is executed in all its brilliancy, it would be no longer looked upon, especially at the Opera, as merely an expletive between the acts, just to afford the singers a little breathing time. The dances might recover their former lustre, and give the public the same pleasure as to the Greeks and Romans, who made of them one of their most favorite entertainments, and carried them up to the highest pitch of taste and excellence.

The Romans seem to have followed the Greeks, in this passion for dancing; and the theatrical dances, upon the pantomime plan, were in Rome pushed to such a degree of perfection as is even hard to conceive. Whole tragedies plaid, act by act, scene by scene, in pantomime expression, give an idea of this

Every step in dancing has its name and value. But not one should be employed in a vague unmeaning manner. All the movements should be conformable to the expression required, and in harmony with one another. The steps regular, and properly varied, with a graceful suppleness in the limbs, a certain strength, address, and agility; just positions exhibited with ease, delicacy, and above all, with propriety, caracterise the masterly dancer, and in their union, give to his execution its due beauty. The least negligence, in any of these points, is immediately felt, and detracts from the merit of the performance. Every step or motion that is not natural, or has any thing of stiffness, constraint, or affectation, is instinctively perceived G2

But in this observation I pretend to no more than just furnishing a general idea of the requisites towards the execution: the particulars, it is impossible, to give in verbal description, or even by choregraphy or dances in score.

Many who pretend to understand the art of dancing, confound motions of strength, with those of agility, mistaking strength for slight, or slight for strength; tho’ so different in their nature. It is the spring of the body, in harmony with sense, that gives the great power

The motion of the arms is as essential, at least, as that of the legs, for an expressive attitude: and both receive their justness from the nature of the passions they are meant to express. The passions are the springs which must actuate the machine, while a close observation of nature furnishes the art of giving to those motions the grace of ease and expertness. Any thing that, on the stage especially, has the air of being forced, or improper, cannot fail of having a bad effect. A frivolous, affected turn of the wrist, is surely no grace.

One of the most nice and difficult points of the art of dancing is, certainly, the management and display of the arms; the adapting their motion to the character of the dance. In this many are too arbitrary in forming rules to themselves, without consulting nature, which would not fail of suggesting to them the justest movements. For want of this appropriation of gesture and attitude, the movements fit for one character are indistinctly employed in the representation of another. And into this error those will be sure to fall, who deviate from the unerring principles of nature; which has for every character an appropriate strain of motion and gesture.

Nothing then has a worse effect, than any impropriety in the management of the arms: it gives to the eye,

There are some who move their arms with a tolerably natural grace, without knowing the true rules rising out of nature into art: but where the advantage of theory gives yet a greater security, consequently a greater ease and a nobler freedom to the motions of the performer; the performance cannot but meet with fuller approbation. And yet it may be as bad to show too much art, as to have too little. The point is to employ no more of art than just what serves to grace nature, but never to hide or obscure her.

Great is the difference between the antient and the modern dances. The antient ones were full of sublime simplicity. But that simplicity was far

This primitive source then must be studied, known, and well attended to; or we only follow the art blindly, and without certainty. Thence the common indifference of so many performers, who mind nothing more than a rote of the art, without tracing it to its origin, nature.

To succeed, we must abandon the false taste, and embrace the true; which is not only the best guide to perfection; but when rendered familiar, by much the most easy and the most delightful. It has all the advantages that truth has over falshood.

The greater the simplicity of steps in a dance, the more beautiful it is; and requires the more attention in the performer to exactness and delicacy; for slowness and neatness being in the H

If the merit of a theatrical dancer were to consist, as many imagine, in nothing but in the motions of the legs, in cutting lively or brilliant capers, in surprizing steps, in the agility of the body, in vigorous springs, in vaulting, in a tolerable management of the arms, and especially in being well acquainted with those parts of the stage where the perspective gives him the greatest advantage; the art of dancing might be, as it is generally looked upon to be, an art easily acquired. Whereas, for the attaining to a just perfection in it, there

Nor should it be imagined that the simplicity I recommend, tends to save the composer of dances any trouble of invention: on the contrary, that sort of simplicity of execution intended to produce, by means of its adherence to nature, the greatest effect, will cost him more pains, more exertion of genius, than those dances of which the false brilliants of extravagant decoration, and of mere agility without meaning or expression, constitute the merit. It is with the composition of dances, as with that of music, the plainest and the most striking, are ever the most difficult to the composer.

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The comic, or grottesque dancers, indeed are in possession of a branch of this art, in which they are dispensed from exhibiting the serious or pathetic; however, they may be otherwise as well acquainted with the fundamental principles of the art, as the best masters. But as their success depends chiefly on awakening the risible faculty, they commonly chuse to throw their whole powers of execution into those motions, gestures, grimaces, and contortions, which are fittest to give pleasure by the raising a laugh. And certainly this has its merit; but in no other proportion to the truth of the art, which consists in moving the nobler passions, than as farce is to tragedy or to genteel comedy. They are in this art of dancing, what Hemskirk and Teniers are in that of painting.

The painter, can only in his draught present one single unvaried attitude in each personage that he paints: but it is the duty of the dancer, to give, in his own person, a succession of attitudes, all like those of the painter, taken from nature.

Thus a painter who should paint Orestes agitated by the furies, can only give him one single expression of his countenance and posture: but a dancer, charged with the representation of that character, can, seconded by a well-adapted music, execute a succession of motions and attitudes, that will more strongly and surely with more liveliness, convey the idea of that character, with all its transports of fury and disorder.

It was in this light, that the antients required the union of the actor and of the dancer in the same person. They expected, on the theatre especially, dances of character, that should express to the eye the sensations of the soul: without which, they considered it as nothing but an art that had left nature behind it; a mere corpse without the animating spirit; or at the best, carrying with it a character of falsity or tastelessness. A thorough master of dancing, should, in every motion of every limb, convey some meaning; or rather be all expression or pantomime, to his very fingers ends.

How many requisites must concur to form an accomplished possession of this talent! It is not enough that the head should play on the shoulders with all the grace of a fine connection; nor

Those who would make any considerable progress in this art, should, above all things, study justness of action. They cannot therefore too closely attend to the representation of nature,

As to the different characters of dances, there are, properly speaking, four divisions of the characters of dances: the serious, the half serious, the comic, and the grottesque; but for executing any of them with grace, the artist should be well grounded in the principles of the serious dance, which will give him what may be called a delicacy of manner in all the rest.

But as one of these divisions may be more adapted to the humor, genius, or powers of an artist, than another, he should, if he aims at excellence, examine carefully for which it is that he is the most fit.

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After determining which, whatever imperfections he may have from nature, he must set about correcting, as well as he can, by art. Nothing will hardly be found impossible for him to subdue, by an unshaken resolution, and an intense application.

Happy indeed is that artist, in whom both the requisites of nature and art are united: but where the first is not grossly deficient, it may be supplemented by the second. However well a beginner may be qualified for this profession by nature, if he does not cultivate the talent duly, he will be surpassed by another, inferior to him in natural endowments, but who shall have taken pains to acquire what was wanting to him, or to improve where

The helps of a lively imagination, joined to great and assiduous practice, carry the art to the highest perfection. But practice will give no eminent distinction without study. Whoever shall flatter himself with forming himself by practice alone, without the true principles and sufficient grounds of the art, can only proceed upon a rote of tradition, which may appear infallible to him. But this adoption of unexamined rules, and this plodding on in a beaten track, will never lead to any thing great or eminent. It carries with it always something of the stiffness of a copy, without any thing of the graceful boldness of originality, or of the strokes of genius.

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Vanity should never mislead a man in the judgment he forms of his own talents: much less should an artist resort to the meanness of depending in the support of cabals: it must be the general approbation that must seal his patent of merit.

I have before observed that the grave or serious stile of dancing, is the great ground-work of the art. It is also the most difficult. Firmness of step, a graceful and regular motion of all the parts, suppleness, easy bendings and risings, the whole accompanied with a good air, and managed with the greatest ease of expertness and dexterity, constitute the merit of this kind of dancing. The soul itself should be seen in every motion of the body, and express something naturally noble, and even

The painter draws, or ought to draw his copy, the actor his action, and the statuary his model, all from the truth of nature. They are all respectively professors of imitative arts; and the dancer may well presume to take rank among them, since the imitation of nature is not less his duty than theirs; with this difference, that they have some advantages of which the dancer is destitute. The Painter has time to settle and correct his attitudes, but the dancer must be exactly bound to the time of the music. The actor has the assistance of speech, and the statuary has all the time requisite to model his work. The dancer’s effect is not only that of a moment, but he must every moment represent a succession of motions and

In the half-serious stile we observe vigor, lightness, agility, brilliant springs, with a steadiness and command of the body. It is the best kind of dancing for expressing the more general theatrical subjects. It also pleases more generally.

The grand pathetic of the serious stile of dancing is not what every one enters into. But all are pleased with a brilliant execution, in the quick motion of the legs, and the high springs of the body. A pastoral dance, represented in all the pantomime art, will be commonly preferred to the more serious stile, though this last requires doubtless the greatest excellence: but it is an excellence of which few but the connoisseurs are judges; who are rarely numerous enough to encourage the composer of dances to form them entirely in that stile. All that he can do is to take a great part of his attitudes from the serious stile, but to give them another turn and air in the composition; that he may avoid confounding the two different stiles of serious and half-serious. For this last,

The comic dancer is not tied up to the same rules or observations as are necessary to the serious and half serious stiles. He is not so much obliged to study what may be called nature in high life. The rural sports, and exercises; the gestures of various mechanics or artificers will supply him with ideas for the execution of charracters in this branch. The more his motions, steps, and attitudes are taken from nature, the more they will be sure to please.

The comic dance has for object the exciting mirth; whereas, on the contrary, the serious stile aims more at soothing and captivating by the harmony and justness of its movements;

The comic stile, however its aim may be laughter, requires taste, delicacy, and invention; and that the mirth it creates should not even be without wit. This depends not only upon the execution, but on the choice of the subject. It is not enough to value oneself upon a close imitation of nature, if the subject chosen for imitation is not worth imitating, or improper to represent; that is to say, either trivial, indifferent, consequently uninteresting; or disgustful and unpleasing. The one tires, the other shocks. Even in the lowest classes of life, the composer must seize only what is the fittest to give satisfaction; and omit whatever can excite disagreeable ideas. It is from the animal joy of mechanics K

Even contrasting characters, which are so seldom attempted on the stage, in theatrical dances, might not have a bad effect; whereas most of the figures in them are simmetrically coupled. Of the first I once saw in Germany a striking instance; an instance that served to confirm that affinity between the arts which renders them so serviceable to one another.

Passing through the Electorate of Cologne, I observed a number of persons of all ages, assembled on a convenient spot, and disposed, in couples, in order for dancing; but so odly paired that the most ugly old man, had for his partner the most beautiful and youngest girl in the company, while, on the contrary, the most decrepid, deformed old woman, was led by the most handsome and vigorous youth. Inquiring the reason of so strange a groupe of figures, I was told that it was the humor of an eminent painter, who was preparing a picture for the gallery at Dusseldorp, the subject of which was to be this contrast; and that in order to take his draught from nature, he had given a treat to this rustic company, in the design of exhibiting at one view, the floridness of youth contrasted to the weakness and infirmities of old age, in a K2

I have mentioned this purely to point out a new resource of invention, that may throw a pleasing variety into the composition of dances; and save them from too constant a simmetry, or uniformity, either of dress or figure, in the pairing the dancers: by which I am as far from meaning that that simmetry should be always neglected, as that it should be always observed.

The comic dance, having then the diversion of the spectator, in the way of laughing, for its object, should preserve a moderately buffoon simplicity, and the dancer, aided by a natural genius, but especially by throwing as

As to the grotesque stile of dance, the effect of it chiefly depends on the leaps and height of the springs. There is more of bodily strength required in it than even of agility and flight. It is more calculated to surprize the eye, then to entertain it. It has something of the tumbler’s, or wire-dancer’s merit of difficulty and danger, rather than of art. But the worst of it is, that this vigor and agility last no longer than the season of youth, or rather decrease in proportion as age advances, and, by this

They will not otherwise get at the truth of their art, like him who qualifies himself for making a figure in the serious, and half-serious stiles, which also contribute to diffuse a grace over every other kind of dancing, however different from them.

But though the grotesque may be a caricature of nature, it is never to lose sight of it. It must ever bear a due relation to the objects of which it attempts to exhibit the imitation, however exagerated. But in this it is for genius to direct the artist. And it is very certain that this kind of dancing, well executed, affords to the public, great entertainment in the way, if

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