Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Stories of the Russian Ballet
It requires but little imagination to picture a regiment of Russian Cossacks doing a wild dance before going into battle, or in celebration Of victory. A little more imagination, and we can see a company of French Chasseurs laughing and leaping in the air: still a little more and the Fifth Uhlans' is celebrating the glory Of Bloodshed.
But can anyone outside Hanwell picture a detachment Of our English Guards behaving so indecorously?
True, they waltzed before Waterloo and with the Germans won the battle. But after Africa we, stay-at-home soldiers, became drunk - there was some excuse for that, I admit, which is best forgotten. The English people are forced to the public house for their Bacchanalia. To dance on the village green on the Sabbath would be to desecrate it. To dance down Piccadilly would mean a night in the police cell and a dull morning with an unimaginative magistrate.
It is interesting to notice how the rise and fall Of the dance has accompanied the rise and fall Of great nations. It has ever been the outward and visible sign Of an inward and spiritual grace, Of the health and happiness of a virile people. In ancient times the dance was an expression of Religious, patriotic or military feeling. The Choric and Pyrrhic dances are examples. And do not let us forget when we Object to an artist dancing before the (property) head Of John the Baptist at Covent Garden, that David danced before the Ark of the Lord. But Of course the solemn character of dancing has declined with the progress Of civilisation.
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