Part 45

Fortunately, it is not necessary to wear French-heeled shoes in order to have pretty feet. There are an abundance of attractive shoes on the market that one can choose with assurance of enhancing the beauty of their feet, without this deforming heel. If one uses the words "sensible" or "solid comfort" when speaking of shoes--women's shoes especially--it suggests something sloppy and unattractive, and some young women will have none of it.

There is no intention to advocate the wearing of such shoes, nor any others that are not attractive and good looking. Get becoming shoes for every occasion, by all means, but see to it that they do not have the fatal, high French heels. Before you take a single lesson in the dancing art, dress your feet with proper shoes properly fitted, and thank me for starting you right.

Most large cities have shoe stores with dancing shoe departments, but if you are not able to supply your needs locally, write to the Ned Wayburn Studios for information and it will be forthcoming. But please bear in mind that no shoes are dealt in at the studios and no direct orders for shoes will be considered.

THE QUEST OF BEAUTY

Every person desires health, vigor, grace, poise--and I know of no woman who would object to personal beauty of form and face.

Beauty of face may or may not consist of bewitching features and perfect complexion; many a woman is admired for her good looks while her features may not be considered classically correct. The quality of one's complexion can be improved by exercise and correct diet, and, for stage or social purposes, by the proper makeup.

Beauty of form is a matter of training. The "female form divine" can be improved and kept at the "divine" standard if the possessor wills it, goes at it right and persists in the effort. Bodily health is a factor in all beauty. Get your body healthy, and the rest of the way to beauty is easy.

When I state that stage dancing, as taught in the Ned Wayburn courses, is a developer of health and vigor, a sure road to grace, poise and personal beauty of form and face--in a word, a maker of beautiful and attractive women--I am making a statement of fact that is irrefutable, based on actual and frequent occurrence. You never saw a properly trained dancer who was not in perfect physical condition.

Many ladies learn my dances for the benefits to be derived from the training; young ladies and others not so young; the stouts and the thins, especially, and both profit alike by the health-producing activities they find in our courses. These ladies neither need nor desire a stage career; what they do want is freedom from awkwardness, a bit of pleasant reducing or filling out of hollows, a lasting development of the foundation of beauty. They come from professional, industrial and social circles. An hour a day, except Saturdays and Sundays, for a few weeks, and we have their blessing forevermore.

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 pass 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 outclass 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.

WHO'S AFRAID!

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 class, 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 accomplishing 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."

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.

THE DANCE AND THE DRAMA