Part 12

Among the savages of North-America, we are told there are various dances practised, such as that of the calumet, the leaders dance, the war-dance, the marriage-dance, the sacrifice-dance, all which, respectively differ in the movements, and some, amidst all the wildness of their performance, are not without their graces. But the dance of the calumet is esteemed the finest; this is used at the reception of strangers whom they mean to honor, or of ambassadors to them on public occasions. This dance is commonly executed in an oval figure.

The AMERICANS, in some parts, prescribe this exercise by way of phisic, in their distempers: a method of treatment, not, it seems unknown to the antients: but, in general, their motive for dancing, is the same as with the rest of the world, to give demonstrations of joy and welcome to their guests, or to divert themselves. On some occasions indeed, they make them part of the ceremony at their assemblies upon affairs, when even their public debates are preceded by dancing, as if they expected that that exercise would rouse their mental faculties, and clear their heads. The war-dance is also used by them, by way of proclamation of war against their enemies.

The foregoing summary sketch of some of the various dances, which are practised in different parts of the globe, and which, to describe universally and minutely, would fill whole volumes, may serve to show that nature has, in all parts of the inhabited world, given to man the instinct of dancing, as well as of speaking, or of singing. But it certainly depends on the nations who encourage the polite arts, once more to carry it up to that pitch of excellence, of which the history of the Greeks and Romans shows it to have been susceptible, among the antients, however the moderns may have long fallen short of it. There has indeed lately appeared a dawning hope of its recovery; which, that it may not be frustrated, is the interest of all who wish well to an innocent and even useful pleasure.

Of PANTOMIMES.

As this branch of the art of dancing is often mentioned, especially in this country, without a just idea being affixed to it, or any other idea than what is vulgarly taken from a species of compositions which are sometimes exhibited after the play, on the theatre here, (not to mention Sadler's wells) and go by the name of pantomime entertainments; it may not be unacceptable to the reader, my laying down before him the true grounds and nature of this diversion, which once made so great a figure in the theatrical sphere of action.

And as, on this point, Monsieur Cahusac, an ingenious French writer, has treated the historical part of it with so much accuracy, that it was hardly possible to offer any thing new upon it, beyond what he has furnished; and that not to make use of his researches would only betray me into a fruitless affectation of originality, I am very ready to confess, that for the best and greatest part of what I am now going to offer upon this subject I am indebted to his production.

That prodigious perfection to which the antients carried the pantomime art, appeared so extraordinary to the celebrated abbot Du Bos, that, not being able to contradict the authorities which establish the truth of it, he was tempted to consider the art of dancing in those times as something wholly different from what is at present understood by dancing.

The chevalier Ramsay places it also among the lost arts. Both, no doubt, grounding their opinion on that deficiency of execution on the modern theatres, compared to what is incontestably transmitted to us, by history, of the excellence of the antient pantomimes.

But none have more contributed to establish the opinion of the pantomime art being an art totally different from that of dancing, and not merely an improvement of it, as was certainly the case, than some of the professors of the art themselves, who even exclaimed against M. Cahusac, for his attempts to give juster notions, and to recommend the revival of it.

We are too apt to pronounce upon possibilities from our own measure of knowledge, or of capacity. Nothing is more common than to hear men of a profession declare loudly against any practice attempted to be established for the improvement of their art, and peremptorily to aver such a practice being impossible, for no other reason than that their own study and efforts had not been able to procure them the attainment of it. In this too they are seconded by that croud of superficial people who frequent the theatres, and who can believe nothing beyond what themselves have seen: any thing above the reach of what they are accustomed or habituated to admire, always seems to them a chimera.

The reproach of incredulity is commonly made to men of the greatest knowledge, because they are not over-apt to admit any proposition without proof: but this reproach may, with more justice, be oftenest made to the ignorant, who generally reject, without discussion, every thing beyond their own narrow conception.

To these it may sound more than strange; it may appear incredible, that on the theatre of Athens, the dance of the Eumenides, or Furies, had so expressive a character, as to strike the spectators with irresistible terror. The Areopagus itself shuddered with horror and affright; men grown old in the profession of arms, trembled; the multitude ran out; women with child miscarried; people imagined they saw in earnest those barbarous deities commissioned with the vengeance of heaven, pursue and punish the crimes of the earth.

This passage of history is furnished by the same authors, who tell us, that Sophocles was a genius; that nothing could withstand the eloquence of Demosthenes; that Themistocles was a hero; that Socrates was the wisest of men; and it was in the time of the most famous of the Greeks that even upon those highly privileged souls, in sight of irreproachable witnesses, the art of dancing produced such great effects.

At Rome, in the best days of this art, all the sentiments which the dancers expressed, had each a character of truth, so great a power, such pathetic energy, that the multitude was more than once seen hurried away by the illusion, and mechanically to take part in the different emotions presented to them by the animated picture with which they were struck. In the representation of Ajax in a frenzy, the spectators took such violent impressions from the acting-dancer who represented him, that they perfectly broke out, into outcries; stripped, as it were, to fight, and actually came to blows among each other, as if they had caught their rage from what was passing on the theatre.

At another time they melted into tears at the tender affliction of Hecuba.

And upon whom were these lively impressions produced? Upon the cotemporaries of Mecenas, of Lucullus, Augustus, Virgil, Pollio; upon men of the most refined taste, whose criticism was as severe as their approbation honorable; who never spared their censure nor their applause, where either was due. How, especially under the eyes of Horace, could any thing pass the approbation of the public, unless under the seal of excellence in point of art and good taste? Would Augustus have declared himself the special patron of a kind of entertainment that had been deficient as to probability and genius? Would Mecenas, the protector of Virgil, and of all the fine arts, have been pleased with a sight that was not a striking imitation of beautiful nature?

The proofs shown of the perfection of dancing at Athens, and under the reign of Augustus, being incontestable, it is plain that what now passes for the art of dancing, is as yet only in its infancy. To display the arms gracefully, to preserve the equilibrium in the positions, to form steps with a lightness of air; to unfold all the springs of the body in harmony to the music, all these points, sufficient to what may be called private, or to assembly-dancing, are little more than the alphabet of the theatrical dances, or of pantomime execution. The steps and figures are but the letters and words of this art. A writing-master is one who teaches the mechanical part of forming letters. A mere dancing-master is an artist who teaches to form steps. But the first is not more different from what we call a man of letters, or a writer, than the second is from what may deserve on the theatre, the name of principal dancer.

Besides the necessity of learning his art elementally, a dancer, like a writer, should have a stile of his own, an original stile: more or less valuable, according as he can exhibit, express, and paint with elegance a greater or lesser quantity of things admirable, agreeable, and useful.

Speech is scarce more expressive, than the gestual language. The art of painting, which places before our eyes the most pathetic, or the most gay images of human life, composes them of nothing but of attitudes, of positions of the arms, expressions of the countenance, and of all these parts dancing is composed, as well as painting.

But, as I have before observed, painting can express no more than an instant of action. Theatrical dancing can exhibit all the successive instants it chuses to paint. Its march proceeds from picture to picture, to which, motion gives life. In painting, life is only imitated; in dancing, it is always the reality itself.

Dancing is, evidently, in its nature, an action upon the theatres; nothing is wanting to it but meaning: it moves to the right, to the left; it retrogrades, it advances, it forms steps, it delineates figures. There is only wanting to all this an arrangement of the motions, to furnish to the eye a theatrical action upon any subject whatever.

The history of the art proves that the dancers of genius, had no other means or assistance in the world but this to express all the human passions, and the possibilities of it are in all times, the very same.

Both here, and in France, there have been some of these dramatic pieces in action, by dance, attempted, which have been well received by the public.

Some years ago, the Dutchess of Maine ordered simphonies to be composed for the scene of the fourth act of the Horatii; in which the young Horatius kills Camilla. Two dancers, one of each sex, represented this action at Sceaux; and their dance painted it with all the energy and pathos of which it was susceptible.

In Italy especially many subjects of a what may be called low comedy, are very naturally expressed by dancing. In short, there is hardly any comic action but what they represent upon their theatres, if not with perfection, at least satisfactorily. And certainly the dance in action has the same superiority over sheer unmeaning dancing, that a fine history-piece has over cutting flowers in paper. In the last there is little more required than mechanical nicety, and, at the best, it affords no great pretention to merit. But it is only for genius to order, distribute and compose, in the other. A Raphael is allowed to take place in the Temple of Fame, by a Virgil; and the art of dancing is capable of having its Raphaels too. Pilades, and Bathillus were painters, and great ones, in their way. Picturesque composition is not less the duty of a composer of dances, than of a painter.

Among the antients, that Protheus, of whom fabulous history records such wonders, was only one of their dancers, who, by the rapidity of his steps, by the strength of his expression, and by the employment of the theatrical deceptions, seemed at every instant, to change his form. The celebrated Empusa was a female dancer, whose agility was so prodigious that she appeared and vanished like a spirit.

But it was at Rome that the Pantomime art received its highest improvement. Pilades born in Cilicia, and Bathillus of Alexandria, where the two most surprising geniuses, who, under the reigns of Augustus Cæsar, displayed their talents in their utmost lustre. The first invented the solemn, grave and pathetic dances. The compositions of Bathillus were in the lively, gay, and sprightly stile.

Bathillus had been the slave of Mecenas, who had given him his freedom in favor of his talents. Having seen Pilades in Cilicia, he engaged him to come to Rome, where he had disposed Mecenas in his favor, who, becoming the declared protector of both, procured to them the encouragement of the Emperor.