Wonderful Russian Dancers.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 6, 10 August 1910, Page 16

Wonderful Russian Dancers.

LONDON’S LATEST SENSATION. LONDON, June 25. “Have you «<*<•« Pavlova?” The words have become almost a catch phrase. At the dinner tables or in the clubs, wherever two people meet together, the talk turns on Anna Pavlova and iMichael Mordkin, the dancers from Russia, whose art is of a kind which has never before been seen in Txmdon. 'J’hey have become a cult. People go to bt‘f‘ them again and again. Their

dancing is so wonderful that it is not enough to see them once. Just as you could look for ever on a beautiful picture, or never tire of the Venus de Milo, or read and reread some masterpiece of literature, so the desire to see Anna Pavlova and Michael Mordkin is luring people of all classes io the Palace Theatre.

There have been world-famous entertainers at this house before; there have been sensations of a season, but never until to-day has there been a sensation of a century. That is why, every night at about ten o’clock, motor-cars and carriages arrive at the Palace and set down stately women in beautiful dresses who are content to stand at the back of the stalls, for there are no seats left, rather than forego the wonder and the fascination of the dancers.

Expectancy. When the electric numbers on each side of the stage tell of Pavlova’s appearance a wave of expectancy sweeps over the audience. Look along the rows of faces and it will be seen that every one is tense with anticipation, every chin uplifted, every body set forward to get the best view of the stage. The

chatter in the promenade ceases. The liglits die down, and the house is very still. The orchestra begins very softly the music of Glinka’s mazurka, and the curtain rises on a garden of roses and statues of dryads and nymphs brooding over a marble-balustraded lake, with the trees stretching away to the distant hills that meet the sky. Then the stage is filled with Russian dancers, and the Russian Nights Entertainment begins. It is not yet the time of Pavlova; these are the dancers who come first to give the atmosphere, to attune the audience to the right key. These dancers—the men in snow-white hussar uniforms, feathered hats of crimson velvet, and jingling gold-tasselled boots, the women with pearls in their irair and fur-trimmed dress—make the audience realise for the first time what a mazurka really means. They tell the temperament and the character of the ■Slav with their restless feet. There is the majesty of manhood, the recklessness of spirit, the gay bravado of life in every movement.

They are followed by Mlle. Eduardova, who dances a hornpipe as a Russian sailor —and then there is a pause. It is the turn of Pavlova. Into the garden a Roman comes —a great broad-chested man of wide shoulders and limbs that are large with muscles. His handsome face is crowned with a jewelled circlet round his hair. His legs are brown and bare, and he stands like the statue of a Roman gladiator for a moment. He is the picture of triumphant virility. Poem of Motion And then from the other side of the stage, like a rose-leaf blown on the wind, Pavlova dances towards him. Dancing does not describe the lightness of her movements. She floats. The tips of her feet tremble on the stage like the quivering, shimmering wings of a butterfly. She seems to be a thing of air—a ghost of lightness—gliding across the garden with trembling feet. The pas de deux is danced, and every poise, every change of expression, speaks its story to the looker-on. They personify the music. She, light, laughing and elusive, is the rippling stream wooed by the sun, the brown, strong Mordkin. It is a poem of motion. Later, he comes alone, a Roman boy, dancing springtime, sending the arrows from his quiver into the woods. Every turn of his body is taken from some ancient vase. Those who have travelled to Rome and the cities of Italy to see the frescoes of a dead civilisation see them joyously living again in the modernity of London. Once again Pavlova flits across the stage, visualising every note of the music. Her finger tips and the ripple of her white arms speak to us. She does not follow the musicians, but she leads them. She is the soul of the musie itself, and. as light as the sound. Did Rubinstein’s dream, when he wrote

the “ Valse Caprice,” that it would inspire such dancers as Pavlova and Mordkin. They are neither Russian nor Roman now. They are a Grecian boy and girl, and the eternal spirit of love is over the garden with its roses and its lake. The everyday things of life fade away —there are no motor-cars, there is no theatre! we seem to have lived before and to have danced in a garden of Hellas, just as this boy end girl are dancing, their heads garlanded with leaves. Elusive Dancer. Here is all the art of gesture. The “ Valse Caprice ” becomes a poem of love that eludes and escapes. Pavlova tantalising. pouting, coy, now escaping a kiss; Mordkin pleading, wistful, seeking to capture and imprison her in his arms. And through the drama, the glide and the flicker of feet that never seem to touch the stage, and yet each footstep has its note as clearly as if it were sung. And lastly the “Danse Baeehanale,” with, the boisterous music of Glazounov —the “Danse Baeehanale,” as it really must have been danced in the sunset of the woods in the dead centuries. They call up a vision of the revels of Rome, and the purple juice of grape as they rush on, Pavlova with parted lips and hair dishevelled and poses of magnificent abandon, Mordkin snatching the crimson veil of gauze from her shoulders, dancing, dancing, dancing to the Pipes of Pan until Pavlova sinks and swoons to the grass pressing the red roses to her lips. Then it is that when the curtain falls on the Bacchanalian dance, and the lights go up, the people in the theatre look round at each other as if they had awakened from a splendid dream, and they realise that it was. the spell of the dancers that led them back to the days of Greece and Rome.