CULT OF BEAUTY.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 224, 21 September 1929, Page 4 (Supplement)

CULT OF BEAUTY.

CHARM IN LIFE. LACK OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. (By A PARIS BEAUT? EXPERT.) "Indefinable charm," people are always saying. And yet, is it really so indefinable? Barrie once described it, as nearly as I can remember, as "a sort A bloom upon , a woman," which is exquisitely put. Only, for practical purposes, you don't get very far with it. I know most persons think charm is a God-given gift, that it cannot be acquired if you haven't it. But I am not one of those. I believe it can be acquired, because I have seen it done in many ways, and more especially through dancing. Or, perhaps, it is that many women have a hidden charm of which they and the world are unaware, and dancing brings it out. I believe, too, that charm can be pinned down, and dissected, even as the elusive butterfly. What Charm Is Not. Let's ask, first of all, what charm is not. It doesn't necessarily lie in beauty, does it? Because we all. know certain plain women—the stage lias numbers of them that anyone can name off-hand — who are full of magnetism. It doesn't consist of health, or brains, or intelligence, or smart clothes. A woman may have each or all of these and still be lacking in what we call charm. For example, there is a dancer with quite a reputation in vaudeville, who is an instance of this very thing. I mean, she has beauty, radiant health, intelligence, smart clothes, grace of a kind— the grace of perfected smoothness —and. yet she lacks charm. She lacks it so much that she even gives some people who see here the impression of clumsiness. What is Charm? So then, what is charm ? Well, I dou't think you can have it without three things, poise, unself-consciousness, and variety, all three of them. And nothing in the world, it seems to me, can give you these qualities, or develop them from your inner consciousness so. quickly as dancing. I don't mean jazzing, but the serious study of dancing, and especially of the ballet. Poise, of course, means both physical and mental poise. You are taught the c trol of all your muscles for the ends of grace. You can learn to walk well, to stand, to sit with ease, to use your hands gracefully. This gives your body a feeling of delicious freedom, and that feeling immediately imparts itself, to the mind. Voila! You have the double poise of body and mind. The desired all-round poise. Unself-consciousness. Next, as to the unself-consciousness. And here I may tell you a little bit about a child who has now become a, charming professional dancer. So far back as she can remember, so she says, she was afflicted with the most horrible shyness and self-consciousness. She used to tremble on the threshold of any room that held more than two or three people. If she saw a group laughing or talking she always imagined it was about her-

self. Her mother insisted upon her taking dancing lessons. And almost immediately from starting tliem, this miserable feeling of self-consciousness passed away. Dancing entirely dispelled her self-consciousness. She no longer cared whether she was being discussed or not, and she was so anxious to improve that she lost track of herself in her work. And now, nightly, she faces large audiences, with never a tremor, and as for meeting people, she positively enjoys it, whether they are entire strangers to her or friends. Variety—The Third Element in Charm. As to variety, the third element iii eharm, and a most important one, too— dancing demands and develops that. A dancer, to be even partly go-jd, has to have knowledge of so many phases of i life- < She must understand, not only music, but as much as possible about sculpture and painting, "about poetry and history of all sorts," particularly the history of costume. Equally with the actress is she an interpreter and creator. If she is at all ambitious, and intends to bring her art to the- highest point of which she is capable, there are innumerable angles to be considered and explored, of which the average person doesn't dream. And all this produces subtlety and pliability and variety. And again we get round to our quality of charm. Dancing creates a harmony throughout one's whole system, and where you have harmony can you vfery well lack charm? Might I paraphrase it: If harmony comes, can eharm be far behind ? And so, taken all and all to study dancing is a wonderful thing-' for any girl, even if she never intends to make a career of it.