DANGERS' SKIRTS.

Waikato Argus, Volume XXXI, Issue 4853, 14 November 1911, Page 2 (Supplement)

DANGERS' SKIRTS.

The corps de ballet at the Paris j Opera is up in arms. A new ballet | master —a Russian, of courae--has i just been appointed, and he threatens . to obolish the tutu. The ballerina > would rather die than discard her short horizontal flounces, and put on long clinging skirts, or at least some : would. The Russian ballet master. ' on the contrary, is not fond of the tutu. Will he do away with it? He will probably restrain its use and j keep it within bounds. Everyone j acknowledges that the short, flounced j skirt is often absurd, hut nobody can I be found to maintain that it is not sometimes the only wear for a bal- , lerina. Madame Mariquita, the famous bullet mistress, pointJJ out that while the question of the abolition of the tutu is about twenty years old, the tutu itself barely dates back more than half a century, to 1860. The fact is that for everyone except the star the tutu will be discouraged, but for the star the tutu is often essential and the new Russian ballet master at the Paris Opera would not dream of banning it from her. In• deed, it often figures in the Russian ballets, and Madame Pavlova, for one, dances some of her best dances in the classic, short-frilled petticoats.