THE BEST DANCERS

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 30, 5 February 1927, Page 20

THE BEST DANCERS

%m?G&WSyS SALTjATOB3r ,'« ;f .""" E-XCELLESfCE. . '

.? .JW^\ ia^e been too modest. There are some f eye human activities - in vhich we always believed that England led the world, but not hitherto had it; occurred to us that our national genius is for dancing (says the London "Daily Telegraph"). This revelation weowe to the president of the International Dance Federation, who must surely know. He speaks vfith an impartiality more than human. H,e is a Frenchman. He had gone to Berlin to arrange for a world competition, and there' he made occasion to say that it ja in England dancing is seen at its purest and most beautiful. Grace, we read with blushes, is our chief consideration, and- our dancing has airways distinction. ■ Like Sir Andrew 'Agueeheek, we "have the back-trick simply as strong, as any man," we are surpassing good at these kickshaws. ,We almost expected to read on and find our president exhorting us in the manner of , Sir Toby, "wherefore are these.. things ' Hd? "Wherefore have these gifts a curtain before them?" Why do'we not go to church in a gal-liard-and come home-in a coranto?..The president is, psychological and analyti-'! caL ~H6j undertakes -to expound the cause of our saltatory excellence. With' amazement we discover that it is mainly'and mostly and chiefly our English self-control.' Very few people can have thought of this before M. Camille de Bhynal. We are in England rather-stiff, rather slow and shy of lotting ourselves go. Frenchmen hava often noted this,. They have a phrase about "la morgue britannique." But they never told us that it was just the thing to make a dancer. M. Cam 8 ille de Ehynal has worked it out very ingeniously. This self-control of ours allows no ,v careless" movement of the body. All is studied, all is art. So it happens 'that "Englishmen dance with their legs and feet, Latins with their Hearts," other races, as certain modern dances not too obscurely suggest, with other parts of the body. But to mention that would, have been beneath the dignity of our president. It was enough to glance at tho disadvantages of the dancing which is heartfelt and hearty. "So even we Frenchmen," he concludes, "have to recognise the superiority of the English dancing." There has been nothing like this since Mary of Scotß, coming back from the graces of the French court, was led out by my Lord Darnley to dance a galliard, and confided afterwards to a sympathetic ear that., "he was the properest and best proportioned long man she had over seen." . Darnley, to be sure, was a Scot, or half a one. But M. de Ehynal would doubtless allow that in the matter of self-control Scotland ranks with England—or befpro. '