Advertisement

Anna Pavlowa Reveals Her Opinions of Modern Dancers--"Some Are Nice, Yes, Very Nice,--But the Others!"

"This modern dancing? Ah, it is wild they rush and twist like wild people!" gesticulated Madame Anna Pavlowa, world famous dancer, when asked for her opinion of modern ball-room dancing by a CRIMSON reporter who interviewed her after the performance at the Boston Opera house on Friday night. "Of course, it matters how you do it. Some are nice, yes, very nice,--but the others, they put themselves into it. It must be impersonal." Madame Pavlowa was still in the costume she had worn in her last dance, and on her face was the heavy make-up made necessary by her brilliant lighting effects. The dressing room walls were lined with brilliant draperies which had been used earlier in the evening.

"It kills," Madame Pavlowa turned to the much-discussed spiritual effect of modern dancing. "It does not raise you as dancing should,--it kills you. I do it myself, one-step, two-step, and I see the people in these big hotels, like where I stay, the Plaza, is it? When you do it as they do, you do not go up, you go down, do you not feel that yourself? And the music this jazz! It is too noisy, too harsh. It might do for the grotesque, for clowns and acrobats. It has a rhythm, but it is not for dancing, do you see?" Madame talks as expressively with her arms and hands as with words: at this point she pressed both her hands to her face in an eloquent pantomime which showed how she felt the contrast between jazz and the music which she chooses to accompany her dancing.

Madame Pavlowa expressed her regret that this would have to be her last extended tour of the United States.

"I will still go to the big places," she said, "Boston, New York, Chicago. But the smaller ones ah. I regret but it is too hard. I cannot. I like them! Some of them are wonderful and like me very much, but I cannot any more."

Advertisement

Recommended Articles

Advertisement