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DANCING
The Lancers were invented by Laborde in Paris in 1836. They were brought over to England in 1850, and were made fashionable by Madame Sacre at her classes in Hanover Square Rooms. The first four ladies to dance the Lancers in England were Lady Georgina Lygon, Lady Jane Fielding, Mdlle Olga de Lechner, and Miss Berkeley. The Polka, the chief of the Bohemian national dances, was adopted by Society in 1835 at Prague. Josef Neruda had seen a peasant girl dancing and singing the Polka, and had noted down the tune and the steps. From Prague it rapidly spread to Vienna, and was introduced to Paris by Cellarius, a dancing-master, who gave it at the Odeon in 1840. It took the public by storm, and spread like an infection through England and America. Everything was named after the Polka, from public-houses to articles of dress. Mr Punch exerted his wit on the subject weekly, and even The Times complained that its French correspondence was interrupted, since the Polka had taken the place of politics in Paris. The true Polka has three slightly jumping steps, danced on the first three beats of a four-quaver bar, the last beat of which is employed as a rest while the toe of the unemployed foot is drawn up against the heel of the other. The Polka has recently fallen into disuse in England because of the craze for waltzing to every possible and impossible measure. The Galop is strictly speaking a Hungarian dance, which became popular in Paris in 1830. But some kind of a dance corresponding to the Galop was always indulged in after Voltes and Gontredanses, as a relief from their grave and constrained measures. The Washington Post, Pas de Quatre, and several varieties of Barn Dance are of American origin, and have recently become fashionable. The general tendency of American dances is to be of a lively and romping measure, in which kicking and hopping and waving of the arms take the place of symmetrical figures and rhythmically designed steps. The Polka-Mazurka is extremely popular in Vienna and Buda-Pest, and is a favourite theme with Hungarian composers. The six movements of this dance occupy two bars of 3—4 time, and consists of a mazurka step joined to the polka. It is of Polish origin. The Polonaise and Mazurka are both Polish dances, and are still fashionable in Russia and Poland. Every State ball in Russia is opened with the ceremonious Polonaise. The Schottische, a kind of modified Polka, was “created” by Markowski, who was the proprietor of a famous dancing academy in 1850. The Highland Schottische is a fling. The Fling and Reel are Celtic dances, and form the national dances of Scotland and Denmark. They are complicated measures of a studied and classical order in which free use is made of the arms and of cries and stampings. The Strathspey is a slow and grandiose modification of the Reel. Sir Roger de Coverlet is the only one of the old English social dances which has survived to the present day, and it is frequently danced at the conclusion of the less formal sort of balls. It is a merry and lively game in which all the company take part, men and women facing each other in two long rows. The dancers are constantly changing places in such a way that if the dance is carried to its conclusion everyone will have danced with everyone else. The music was first printed in 1685, and is sometimes written in 2-4 time, sometimes in 6-8 time, and sometimes in 3-9 time. The Cotillon is a modern development of the French dance of the same name referred to above. It is an extremely elaborate dance, in which a great many toys and accessories are employed; hundreds of figures may be contrived for it, of which the chief are La Conversation,
Le Mouchoir, La Trompeuse, Les Dames Cackles, Le Huit entre deux chaises, Les Quatre Coins, Le Fandango, L’Artichaut, La Finale. There are also several figures in which presents, toys, lighted tapers, biscuits, air-balloons, and hurdles are used. Some of these are Pile on Face, La Parapluie, La Peche a la Ligne, La Loterie, Le Chevalier de la Triste Figure, Les Ballons, Steeplechase, Le Chasse a Ccmrre, and Le Postilion. The Ballet is a performance in which dancing, music, and pantomime play equally important parts. The origin of the modern ballet is identical with the revival of dancing, the earliest on record being that given by Bergonzio di Botta at Tortona to celebrate the marriage of the Duke of Milan in 1489. The ballet, like other forms of dancing, was developed and perfected in France; it is closely associated with the history of the opera; but in England it came much later than the opera, for it was not introduced until the 18th century, and in the first Italian operas given in London there was no ballet. During the regency of Lord Middlesex a ballet-master was appointed and a corps of dancers formed. The ballet has had three distinct stages in its development. For a long time it was to be found only at the court, when princely entertainments were given to celebrate great occasions. At that time ladies of the highest rank performed in the ballet, and spent much time in practising and perfecting themselves for it. Catherine de’ Medici introduced these entertainments into France, and spent large sums of money on devising performances to distract her son’s attention from the affairs of the State. Baltasarini, otherwise known as Beaujoyeulx, was the composer of a famous entertainment given by Catherine in 1551 called the “ Ballet Comique de la Reyne.” This marks an era in the history of the opera and ballet, for we find here for the first time dance and music arranged for the display of coherent dramatic ideas. Henry IV., Louis XIII. and XIV., were all lovers of the ballet and performed various characters in them, and Richelieu used the ballet as an instrument for the expression of political purposes. Lully was the first to make an art of the composition of ballet music, and he was the first to insist on the admission of women as ballet dancers, feminine characters having hitherto been assumed by men dressed as women. When Louis XIV. became too fat to dance, the ballet at court became unpopular, and thus was ended the first stage of its development. It then was adopted in the colleges at prize distributions and other occasions, when the ballets of Lully and Quinault were commonly performed. The third period in the history of the ballet was marked by its appearance on the stage, where it has remained ever since. It should be added that up till the third period dramatic poems had accompanied the ballet, and the dramatic meaning was helped out with speech and song; but with the advent of the third period speech disappeared, and the purely pantomime performance, or Ballet d’Action, was instituted. The father of ballet dancing as we know it at the present day was Jean George Noverre, who appeared in 1749. He has left voluminous writings; they are remarkable for a refined literary style, and in them he sets forth at length his theories and practices as an artist of dancing. The Ballet d’Action was really invented by him; in fact, the ballet has never advanced beyond the stage to which he brought it; it has rather gone back. Noverre held the opinion that words only served to weaken the action and partly destroy its effects. He held that a pantomime which, in order to be understood, had to borrow the help of a verbal explanation, was imperfect. “ When dancers shall feel, and, Proteus-like, transform themselves into various shapes,” he says, “to express to the fife the
