Part 23

It is very practical instruction and you will obtain much positive benefit from it. It is not always the girl who is most beautiful on the street or in the parlor who makes up best. Often the contrary is the case, and the girl with the ordinary street appearance becomes very attractive looking on the stage with the proper makeup. In any event, my makeup directions will make a vast improvement in your appearance for stage effect, as well as for street.

There is no doubt but that you are obtaining in my courses the most valuable ballet instruction in America, if not in the entire world. The instructors I am supplying you with have had years of professional ballet training and experience both abroad and in this country, as I am sure you all know. Furthermore, they are not only remarkable dancers, but also very competent as teachers. So if you give attention to their instruction and watch them as they illustrate the various elements that constitute the complete ballet technique, and learn the several basic positions and the graceful movements and attitudes and kicks that go to make up the complete whole, you may expect to become expert in this beautiful art yourselves. But you must practice, practice at home, every day, many hours a day, and keep it up right along. There is no other way to succeed in any dancing, and especially in ballet work.

You have been told in your former classes in this studio about keeping yourselves fit and healthy and charming by consuming nine glasses of water daily, aided by deep breathing, correct and careful diet and eight hours' sleep. Continue to observe these simple laws of health and beauty, if you value your present opportunities and your future success, as I am certain you do. Form regular habits now, treat your bodies well. The recompense is so great if you do, you cannot afford to be careless in any respect.

Feel free to come to my private office any time, or write me, and discuss with me personally any matters that concern yourself in relation to your health or prospects for the future. We are both, you and I, interested in and working steadily for your future. This is a forward-looking establishment where futures are made to order. Your future, and that of the hundreds of young pupils who favor us here with their presence, may depend in large measure upon your energy and studiousness while you are with us and under our tutelage. Let us help you. Let me help you. It is my mission in life to direct folks straight along the pleasant paths of health, beauty and financial independence, and I feel sure I can be of aid to you and your future if you will give me the opportunity to do so.

NED WAYBURN'S TOE DANCING

All forms of modern toe dancing--and there are several--are based upon the ballet technique, of which a synopsis of my own Americanized form appears in a preceding chapter.

There is toe dancing of the really classical school in the perfected ballet. That is the kind with which we are most familiar. When a mother says, "I want my child to be taught toe dancing," she usually expects to be understood as referring to the ballet in its entirety, of which dancing on the toes seems symbolical.

But of later years there has developed in the terpsichorean art other forms and combinations of toe dancing besides the strictly classical, as for instance, the eccentric toe dance and the acrobatic toe dance.

As to the classical form, reference to the ballet chapter will find its present development duly set forth.

The eccentric toe dance and its fellow, the acrobatic toe dance, both have their beginnings in the fundamental ballet technique, in which one must be well and properly schooled before expecting to succeed in the more advanced work of these laterday favorites.

For they are favorites, as an hour at any modern playhouse where the newer dances are featured, will demonstrate.

It is at the behest of the great American audience that these newer toe dances are with us. You and the rest of the public that constitute our audiences demand action, tricks--or at least tricky and novel touches here and there--in your dancing entertainment. The old stuff doesn't "get over" with you any more. So we invent new things that present what you are bound to like, and the eccentric and acrobatic toe dances are the result.

It may be jumping down a flight of steps on the toes, or a continued hopping on one toe for 16 counts to music, or a swinging of one leg back and forth, like a pendulum, in an acrobatic way while the dancer hops on one toe--such stunts as these are the applause-getters nowadays, and they are well worth applauding, too, for they are pleasing demonstrations of real skill, and are acquired by the dancer only after long and continued effort and practice. Few if any, I am sure, fully appreciate the time and labor it takes to make a modern toe dancer, one who shall be able to perform something new and catchy in a clever way,--a real feat nowadays, and one that theatrical producers are quick to see and seize when it appears.

The fact is, the tricks I have spoken of must never dominate the dancing, but must be entirely secondary and incidental, as it were. Otherwise the dancer becomes an acrobat. You don't care for straight acrobatics, Mr. Public, but acrobatic dancing, or dancing with a neat acrobatic stunt thrown in incidentally as a bit of seasoning, is really very palatable and pleasing to you. It must remain a beautiful dance, aided and added to by a pretty surprise in the form of a bit of unexpected toe work--then you like to see it, so we are careful in my courses to promote in this kind of work only that form for which there is a demand,--and this is equally true with every other kind of dancing that we teach.

Before any toe dancing is undertaken by the ambitious student there must be a foundation laid to build upon that shall be lasting and efficient. The body must be under perfect control; every muscle immediately responsive and ready, strength placed where it is essential. Our students who have passed through the limbering and stretching course (foundation technique) and have advanced to the ballet work and through that, are ready for the advanced features in modern toe dancing. We work this way with such of our more promising pupils as desire it, and then teach them the "tricks," as we call it, that are so effective when properly done. Every toe dancer should have one-hour lessons five days each week till perfected, and at least three hours daily practice six days in the week at home.

I have already stated and now say it once more in this connection, that children should not go on their toes in the dance until they have taken what I know to be a necessary foundation course, to fit them to do so without danger of permanent distortion of feet and legs, enlarged ankles, and other ill effects. It is the parents' fault, of course, when children are forced into toe dancing at too early an age or without proper preparation. I simply will not consent to do it. I have seen children of sixteen who ought to be at their best at that age in this work, yet because of the forcing process in early years were incapable of sustaining themselves on their deformed feet.

Many of my well-known graduate pupils have been seen in the Follies and other first class productions. Their work is an inspiration to all who love exquisite dancing of this kind. They secured the right foundations on the start, and now have strength, speed, grace, and ability to do what their dances call for. There are lots and lots of toe dancers graduated from my courses, and I cannot think of one who has failed to make good.

That, I think, is because their personality plus practice plus honest and capable instruction and a knowledge of showmanship and stage-craft absorbed from my "inspirational talks" has brought forth the natural result.

NED WAYBURN'S SPECIALTY DANCING

There is a wonderful field for the dancer who can create an appealing dance of his or her own, or who can take some type of dance and by sheer personality so develop it as to be identified with it as the representative of that form of dancing.

Not everyone can be a specialty dancer of this sort, but to be one is well worth the effort of every ambitious exponent of the dancing art.

Any kind of stage dancing may become a specialty dance. But it really takes a person with good mental capacity as well as expert dancing ability to develop what others may do well, make of it an outstanding and triumphant success, and identify it with one's self before the public as one's very own.

But the rewards are great for those who accomplish this, and I am always glad to see an effort made along these lines, since it means so much in the way of fame and fortune to those who make the grade.

And one may become a specialty dancer in more than one line. Gilda Gray, for instance, in the Follies of 1922 did three separate and distinct specialties in her work at every performance: A musical comedy specialty, an Hawaiian dance, and her "Come Along" character dance, which she built up under my direction into a pronounced hit.

So with these facts before us, that any dance may be made into a specialty, taken out of the ordinary and individualized, and that no dancer is limited to a single line in this work, but can spread out over the entire field if competent to do so, there is surely ample encouragement to the dancing pupil to make an effort to profit by the opportunity my studio instruction affords, and become not only a good dancer but also a good, better, best specialty dancer--something quite worth while on every stage, European as well as American.

Almost any pupil will naturally specialize in some one form of dancing in the learning process. Thus one may show a preference for the musical comedy work, or tap and step, clogging, acrobatic dancing, whatever it may be. It is preferred because one takes to it easiest, or is most proficient in it, or has a personal liking for it. That is the dance for you to specialize in. Perfect yourself in it. Do a little better than anyone else does, and you are on the boulevard headed toward becoming a specialty dancer.

Legmania is a form of specialty dancing. The Charleston, at present so popular with the multitude, is another. The Hula Hula and all other kinds of character dancing are specialties. Clogging, the ballet, interpretive and toe dances--why enumerate them. Let it go at this: Any form of dancing that you like best and are most efficient in can be made your specialty dance if you give it personality, atmosphere,--if you vitalize it so that it stands out alive and distinctive--your very own.

It takes brains as well as legs to become a specialty dancer of real quality, capable of controlling the public's interest. Yes, and it takes competent instruction to guide you right, and it takes practice on your part after you get the instruction, too. But it is quite worth while. The rewards are sure if you merit them.