The Universal Art

1910

In a splendid series of matinees extending over two weeks, Prof. William P. Jones danced the whole of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

The first two colonies were danced in slow time, to the accompaniment of two flutes and a lyre. The poses were statuesque rather than graceful, and the gestures had to them a great deal of the oratorical.

But, beginning with the story of the barbarian invasions in the third volume, Professor Jones' interpretation took on a fury that was almost bacchantic. The sack of Rome by the Vandals in the year 451 was pictured in a veritable tempest of gyrations, leaps and somersaults. The subtle and hidden meanings of the text called for all the resources of the professor's eloquent legs, arms, shoulders, lips and eyes.

A certain obscure passage in life of Attila the Hun, which had long puzzled the scholars, was for the first time made clear to the average man when Professor Jones, standing on one foot, whirled around rapidly in one direction for five minutes, and then instantly reversing himself spun around for ten minutes in the opposite direction.

In the ballroom of the Hotel Taftoftia, during Christmas week, William K. Spriggs, Ph. D., held a number of fashionable audiences spellbound with his marvelous lucid dances in euclid and algebra up to quadratics. Perhaps the very acme of the terpsichorean art was attained in the masterly fluency of body and limbs with which Mr. Spriggs demonstrated that the sum of the angles in any triangle is equal to two right angles. — Simeon Strunsky, in Harper's Weekly.

Dancing Craze Has Grip on New York

1910

NEW YORK. — It has become a sort of madness in New York, the desire to see dancing. Some 15 years ago a Spanish dancer like Carmencita might create something of a seven-days' wonder, besides having her name written down as an artist in the books which posterity is supposed to read. But nowadays dancing of all sorts is fairly worshiped.

Isadora Duncan brought the Greek dance, which later was kept alive by Maud Allen and other imitators of Miss Duncan. Ruth St. Denis introduced the Hindoo dance; Mistinguett and Max Dearly at the Moulin Rouge in Paris created the Apache dance, which has since been given in every possible form in America, ending with Polaire's vivid performance, and the Salome dance was a craze of itself for a summer.

For three seasons no vaudeville bill has been deemed complete unless some dancer appeared in the list of performers. More than generally that dancer's name, like that of Abou Ben Adam, has led all the rest. The masked dancers at the rival vaudeville theaters, are the latest examples of the music hall craze for dancing sensations. We had "story" dances, toe dances, clog dances, cake walks, cancans, everything, it seemed, that the mind of man has been able to invent or resuscitate.

It remained, however, for some enterprising manager to take advantage of the idea and give the public an entire evening of contrasted and almost unbroken dancing.

From the beginning to the end it is almost one unbroken dance. Between the dances and between the acts the audience has a chance to rest its eyes and prepare for a new round.

Now a glimpse at the popular supper places or the tea rooms at the big hotels would give a stranger from Oshkosh the idea that the hobble skirt was quite as much of a craze in its way just now as, well, let us say, the dance.

No play, therefore, which attempted to call itself apotheosis of the dance could be considered complete without an attempt to show how a woman would look dancing in a hobble skirt. The hobble skirt dance, to say the least, is amusing.

Cleo Shows Her Ears

1922

Famous French Beauty Disproves A Suspicion

Friend of Edward VII of England and Leopold of Belgium Reveals Them to Reporters

PARIS, (By Mail) — "Kings may come, and kings may go, but I go on forever," sang Cleo de Merode the other day when, after an absence from the public eye of a quarter of a century, the erstwhile famous dancer jumped right back into the first pages of all the Paris newspapers by proving that she had ears.

Time was, in the days when Edward, prince of Wales, and Leopold, king of the Belgians were citizens of Paris by unanimous vote of the boulevards, when it pleased Cleo de Merode to twist her hair flat and low around her shapely head and launch the Merode curl. The style still persists, as did, until a few days ago, the legend that the dancer was imbued not so much with the desire to create a new fashion in coiffure, but to hide the fact that a jealous rival had slashed her ears, or, as some of the stories had it, that a discarded lover, had bitten them off.

It was the heyday of the "grandes vedettes" — of the demimonde — Liane de Pougy, Emilienne d'Alencon and a half dozen others whose gowns and horses and whims set the pace for the entire cosmopolitan crowd who brought their millions and their appetites for the new and startling to the city on the Seine. Kings and kinglets shared honors in their train with diamond kings from the Rand and from iron kings from Pittsburgh.

Was Veritable Queen

Cleo de Merode's beauty and her undoubted choreographic gifts, which had brought her from the music halls to the Paris Opera stage, combined with the unhidden interests which the Belgian sovereign displayed in her, made the dancer a veritable queen. It brought upon her also the bitter hate of less favored aspirants to royal honors. Hence the tale of the blemish under the flat curls.

Now comes this beauty of an age that has vanished to remind the world that she is still here and that her reputation is as much to her in the second decade of the twentieth century as was her fame in the closing years of the nineteenth. All because an American film producer thought fit to bestow the name Cleo on the heroine of a "life story" screen drama having to do with the loves and adventures of a Parisian dancer "the Great Parisian Dancer," to be accurate.

"Why, my name is Cleo and I am The Great Parisian Dancer," exclaimed Mlle. de Merode, and straightway she decided the public must be warned that the film didn't represent in the slightest particular the intimate life of the oldtime music-hall favorite. Certainly, most certainly, King Leopold and King Edward and King Whatshishame and Prince Fromthesouth were her friends and admirers, but what of that? She appealed to the courts to silence the wicked tongues that whispered tales of scandal about her friendships.

Proves Her Ears

While waiting for the court machinery to get into operation, Cleo de Merode allowed her present address to be known to the principal newspaper offices and selected the most stunning of her photographs of the days of triumph.

"It is horrible," she wailed to her visitors, "that I, the most modest, the most classical, the most dressed, of music-hall dancers, should be represented as an exponent of the lewd."

When one of the reporters suggested that perhaps after all there was some basis of truth in the film representation, Mlle. de Merode got furious.

"You remember," she exclaimed, "the story about my not having any ears, that I dressed my hair so as to cover up the deficiency. Well, look here."

And with a quick gesture, she threw back her hair and displayed to the gaze of the newspapermen the pink and pearlies that nature gave her and nobody had destroyed or deformed.

This victory over maleficent gossipers was quickly followed by another when the presiding judge of the court of referees granted her plea that the offending film be ordered withdrawn from the boulevard theater where it was being shown until a final decision is handed down.

—The Lincoln State Journal, Lincoln, NE, Nov. 15, 1922, p. 11.

Tango Dances Drive 'Em Mad

1914

New York, Jan. 1. — The extent of the present dancing madness is shown in no manner more vividly than the way in which many society women now madly vie with each other for the questionable honor of tangoing with former chorus men and other cheap actors whom a few short months ago they would not have deigned to accept an introduction.

Now they wait their turn like outcasts in the bread line for the exhilarating experience of stepping the latest measures with individuals who, before the prevalence of this twentieth century lunacy, were content to be seen, unheard and untouched, in the rear of a musical comedy ensemble.

A new dance, the "Paul Jones," is the latest and most amazing manifestation of the craze.

In this exhibition, at a blast from a whistle, all present, dance with those next to them whether acquainted with them or not. No introductions are necessary.

Although some of these affairs are high priced and are conducted in high toned neighborhoods under "society" auspices, the crowds are exceedingly mixed and there can be no telling what may be the character of the man with whom some woman from exclusive circles may grab for a partner.

Many men of no standing and little repute are patronizing these "swell" affairs regularly under the assurance that they may tango or trot madly with women who heretofore have been supposed to hold themselves dearly.

Couple, 109 and 104, Join "Shimmy" Class

1920

Both Are Still Able to "Shake a Lively Foot"

BARLEY MILLS, N.Y., Feb. 26. — It may or it may not have been a coincidence that the first piece struck up by the jazz band when Lon Tiller, 109, and his wife, 104, joined the dancing class at the town hall here was, "He may be old, but he's got young ideas!"

Tiller and his wife have taken several lessons and are now as proficient at the new steps as the younger couples. Mrs. Tiller was especially interested in learning the "shimmy" and danced it with youths of this village, among whom was her great grandson, Franklyn K. Tiller.

"It would be hard to find a girl in her teens who can shake a livelier foot than my grandmother," declares young Tiller.

The elder Tiller asserts that he owes his longevity to keeping abreast of the times as far as the modern dances are concerned. He declares that he has been dancing since he was a youth of 16 and expects to live at least another decade.

Burlesque Queen Dances to Disprove Charge of Indecency

1916

Burlesque "Queen" Edifies Chicago Court as She's "Walkin' the Dog"

Chicago, Oct. 18. — Judge Samuel A. Trude's court in the city hall had all the aspects of a burlesque show for five or ten minutes yesterday afternoon.

A petite brunette stepped to the judge's bench, tossed her head, flashed a smile to the jury, then threw off her heavy outer cloak, and in a trice was "Walkin' the Dog" and doing other syncopated steps about the small enclosure in a dance to a ragtime accompaniment sung by herself.

It was Miss May Mills, leading lady of the "Follies of Pleasure," dressed in her spangled costume of gold and silver, demonstrating the exhibition for which J. H. Herk is on trial on charges of keeping a disorderly house, alleged to have permitted immoral dancing and acting in the Gaiety theater, 531 South State street, of which he is manager.

"Just Walked Like This"

Miss Mills was the star witness for the defense. It is upon her interpretation that the attorneys for Herk hope to prove the charges against him groundless.

"I simply walked like this," said Miss Mills between snatches of the song, as she deftly paced the small enclosure.

"I swayed like this and I waved my arms like that," demonstrating.

She pirouetted in front of the jury box, skirting the fenced enclosure, and brought up with a stamp of her foot, an appealing gesture and a toss of her head.

"Whoopee!"

"Whoopee!" cried some one in the rear of the courtroom, carried away momentarily. A stern bailiff quickly restored him to order. Then the spectators in the courtroom broke into applause, but this, too, was quickly silenced. There were some, however, who did not applaud. They were the members of the Women's Church federation, complainants to the charge, and others allied with the prosecution.

Judge Trude at the beginning of the song and dance was seated viewing the exhibition with becoming austerity. Before it was half over however, he was pacing back and forth behind his chair, his hands folded behind his back, his face beaming in a broad smile.

His opinion of the dance, however, he refused to communicate.

No Jass Band Around

"I'm afraid I won't do very well," said Miss Mills when called to perform. "You see, I have no music."

"Attorneys for the defense will probably whistle for the young lady," suggested Assistant City Attorney Bippus. But this they declined to do.

The name of Chief of Police Healey was drawn into the hearing yesterday. Witnesses for the prosecution testified to making repeated complaints of alleged immorality and lewdness permitted at the theater. No action so far as they knew, they testified, had ever been taken on the complaint.

Tights Shock Copper

Herk, the manager, when called to the stand, told of one complaint which had been brought to his attention. A policeman, he testified, had notified him that he would have to prohibit the wearing of tights by actresses. He saw the chief personally, he said, and complained that such action was discrimination and was told to "go ahead and run the theater as usual."

It is expected the case will be given to the jury this morning.

Mrs. George W. Hall, of 416 West Forty-sixth place; Mrs. J. G. Boor, of 832 Buckingham place, members of the Women's Church federation, and F. A Beale, of 4806 Forrestville avenue, testified to the immorality of the dance of Miss Mills. In their testimony they described the dance in detail, asserted that the costume worn by her was transparent, and that she deported herself offensively. It was to disprove this that Miss Mills gave her "skit." The costume worn by her yesterday, which she asserted was the one used by her in the dance, was not transparent.

—The Fort Wayne Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Oct. 19, 1916, p. 7.

The Beauty of the Feet and Dancing

New York, July 1914

Feet Underestimated, Says Mrs. Vlissengen, Patron of Dancing

"God made feet as well as hands, the devil had nothing to do with them," declared Mrs. Jean Vlissengen, who arrived yesterday from Chicago.

Mrs. Vlissengen put on the pageant which was intended as the culmination of the recent Federation of Women's Clubs in Chicago, but which ended in an investigation by the Chicago police. She indignantly denies, however that the girls were required to wear tights, only the Apollo's costume — or lack of it — was criticized.

"The foot is just as expressive as the hand," she continued. "The Greeks understood this, but we have allowed ourselves to be deprived of its beauty through silly conventions."

Two of the girls who took part in the Chicago pageant, Misses Patsy Shelley said to be a descendant of the poet, and Roschen Turck-Baker, the niece of a well-known Chicago physician will arrive later and do ballroom dancing. Both are 16 years old, and have received all their training from Mrs. Vlissengen. They do no modern dances.

"I have never received any money for my work with these girls," she said. "I wish merely to raise dancing to its proper place among the arts. So I take two or three promising girls a year and train them. I gave Isadora Duncan all her training." — New York Sun.

Cabaret Girls Tell of Songs and Dances: Sensual, Improper

Chicago, 1913

CABARET GIRLS TELL OF SONGS AND DANCES

They Admit That Songs Are Improper and That Dances Are Sensual

Chicago, April 12. — Agents of the Illinois vice commission late last night and early today brought consternation to the fashionable guests of the two down-town restaurants — Rector's and the States — against whose reputations there rested, no question except the nature of their cabaret entertainments.

While the cabaret was in full blast investigators entered the down-town restaurants and a wine room in the tenderloin at midnight and brought performers, managers and guests to a hotel for interrogation. The inquiry lasted until 2 o'clock this morning.

From some of them the senators drew reluctant admissions that a few of the songs and dances "might be" suggestive and "perhaps had been a bad effect on the diners."

"In My Harem."

A girl singer, crying as she testified asserted she never would sing "In My Harem," a song Lieutenant Governor O'Hara was particularly inquisitive about.

The manager of a well known restaurant said the restaurant business had degenerated into a vaudeville show, and he did not know when it would stop. After investigators and members of a "slumming" party said they had heard an improper song in a place in Twenty-first street, the commission voted to recommend to Mayor Harrison that the cafe's license he revoked. The commission will call the attention of the state's attorney to the testimony of the manager, who said nothing indecent went on.

Senator Beall said he saw girls not more than 15 or 16 years imbibing mixed drinks in the cafe, and some at them were more or less intoxicated.

Mrs. Maud Joseph told of the singing and dances at a downtown restaurant. She said in one dance the performer "might just as well have had no skirts at all."

She stated that a girl did an Oriental dance, wearing pink tights and a "sort of a skirt of black chiffon." She thought the dance was suggestive. She said a couple did a fancy dance, a combination between the "Tango" and the "Apache."

"Was it art or suggestion?" asked the lieutenant-governor.

"There was no art in it."

Free For All Dance.

The performers led a free for all dance on a space made by clearing away tables.

The professional who led the dance said they had tried to eliminate anything which might appear sensual in their act, but admitted they might not have been entirely successful.

"Don't you think that where you see art others might see vice?" asked Mr. O'Hara. "I guess it appeals differently, but I do not see anything obscene about it," was a reply.

O. B. Stimpson, manager of another down-town restaurant, asserted the business had drifted into a show, but he was compelled to put up a first class cabaret to get the trade. He was of opinion that some popular songs have gone too far. He said guests did the "bear" dance in the aisles, between the tables, but that they never got "raw." An entertainer in this restaurant said there was nothing out of the way in the song "All Night Long." "It's all in the way you sing it," she stated. "Some people are so weak minded that they will take up anything."

Time to Revoke.

When the vice commissioners reassembled they received a telephone message from Mayor Harrison saying, "This looks like a good day to revoke some licenses."

The mayor referred to unsavory restaurants which survived when the old segregated district on the south side was closed several months ago. He said he had made up his mind to close two places as a result of testimony at the night session of the commission and would investigate others.

Frank Benent, manager of "Dream Land," where the dancers number from 500 to 1,000 a night, testified that no liquor was sold there, and that "dummy" dancers hired by the management mingled with the crowds to prevent suggestive dancing.

"We couldn't make money if we sold liquor or permitted lewd action," said the witness. "If the dance halls of Chicago want to make money they should work in harmony with this commission." Girls at previous sessions have testified that it was at "Dream Land" they made acquaintances who led them on their first steps downward.

—The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia, April 13, 1913, page 1B.