THE BALLETOMANE

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 157, 31 March 1937, Page 13

THE BALLETOMANE

A Vogue and Its Symptoms

DANCE LOVING—IN THE GRAND MANNER (By M.E.) There was something familiar about the man in the grey suit who stood in the foyer of Wellington’s New Opera House. From where I sat I could see only his back, but my attention had been caught by the intensity with which he was 'conducting a conversation in halting French with a pretty fair-haired girl. The girl appeared to be doing most of the listening. Often she looked puzzled, then light would come and she would answer, “Oui,” most politely. Presently the man turned and I recognised my old friend Oliver. I had not seen him for seven years, but when he parted, bowing, from the girl, and we shook hands he did not greet me with the enthusiasm of a long-lost friend. Instead there was about him a strange, absent-mindedness. ’ He talked amiably, but his thoughts were wandering. He seemed, mentally, not of this world. “I have been brushing up my French,” he murmured, nodding toward a door through which the girl had disappeared. I asked him if he were enjoying the Russian Ballet’s matinee, the first part of which had concluded a few minutes before. He looked at me with disapproval. ‘■What do you mean by ‘enjoying’,” he said. “One doesn’t ‘enjoy’ the ballet. One absorbs it.”

Light began to dawn. On and off, Oliver is a professional critic of the theatre, but unlike most professional critics he has always allowed himself to be gripped by enthusiasm. I remembered various theatrical passions of seven years before, and explored further.

“Have you seen many of the ballets?”

This time he regarded me with loathing, and I knew my guess was correct. “I have seen,” said this balletomane repeating and emphasising my verb as though it were some unspeakable vulgarism, “I have seen, as you call it, gyery performance since the company reached .New Zealand.” He paused, then added, simply: “I love the ballet.”

Knowing Oliver of old, I was on guard at once, and became deliberately matter-of-fact. "Do you .like the music, or the dancing, or both?” “Bah!” said Oliver, and registered relief when I changed the subject. We continued to be polite, but I could see he had labelled me as a balletophobe, or perhaps a pariah de ballet, if there be such creatures. We soon parted and I had my last glimp...: of him from a distant seat. His hand was on his chin and his eyes left the stage only to gaze with horror at a small girl across the aisle who was bouncing up and down in her seat, unconsciously imitating the more rhythmic leaps of a shapely ballerina. So I had met a balletomane. True, it was only Oliver, who by this time next year, as like as not, will be singing the praises of verse-speaking choirs. But as balletomanes appear to go, Oliver had gone. No doubt with any encouragement he would have talked like Arnold Haskell, shattering me with such technicalities as elevation ( arabesque, barre, and foutte, whatever they may mean. Your balletomane must be lightly familiar with them, just as he must have a decisive answer for that vexed question: Is ballet correctly pronounced “ballay” or “ball-et”? He must know —if ho would avoid making a fool of himself when meeting members of tin? Russian Ballet —-that dancers do not have “understudies,” instead they “share their roles.” He must learn that to ask a ballerina if she rehearses everj’ day is like asking a professional boxer if he exercises between fights. He must long ago have grasped the fact that some members of the modern Russian Ballet are Russians only in the sense that carefree artists of a certain clique may be called Bohemians; that the language common to the ballet is French, not Russian. If one does not know these things, and a great many more; if one is not able to talk a little French, or to exhibit the knack of slipping one’s tongue round almost unpronounceable Russian names, it is better not to be a balletomane, like Oliver. It is better to be just a humble lover of beautiful dancing inspired by beautiful music.