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It should be borne in mind that it is possible to dance and not represent an idea save that of dancing, as when a child dances for joy, not in order to represent the joy of another. That is the province of the Mime. It is equally possible to mimic without dancing.
The best ballet-dancer is one who has intelligence and training to do both, whose dancing and mimicry are interpretative.
Speaking of certain Egyptian and Greek figure-dances and the approach of some of them to the Ballet as he knew it towards the end of the seventeenth century, Menestrier wrote: “J’appelle ces Danses Ballets parce qu’elles n’etoient pas de simples Danses comme les autres, mais des Representations ingenieuses, des mouvements du Ciel et des Planétes, et des evolutions du labyrinthe dont Thésée sortit.” That is a distinction to be remembered by any who may look on the Art of Ballet as simply—dancing.
It is necessary to-day to make another distinction, that between “ballet,” and “the ballet of the theatre.” In a sense the Hindus, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, indeed all peoples in past ages have had ballets; that is, dances which were “representations ingenieuses,” which represented an idea or told a story.