OCR Text |
Show 72 THE CODE OF TERPSICHORE. CHAPTER V. PRINCIPAL POSITIONS WITH THEIR DERIVATIVES, PREPARATIONS AND TERMINATIONS OF STEPS AND TEMPS; POSES, ATTITUDES, ARABESQUES, GROUPS, AND ATTITUDES DE GENRE. ALWAYS draw your body well up, and especially your head, even in your minutest poses, (See plate V , &c.) if not, your performance will be void of expression, and your position or attitude become insipid. In some of the first positions of dancing the head is placed fronting ; those are poses of attitude. Action of the Head. " Never let your head rest perpendicularly upon your shoulders, but incline it a little to the right or to the left, whether your eyes are cast up or downwards or straight forwards; as it is essential that it should have a pleasing yet natural vivacity of motion, and not appear inactive and heavy." Endeavour to hold your body in a perfect equilibrium ; to which end never let it depart from the perpendicular line that should fall from the centre of the collar bone down through the ankles of both feet. (See fig. 4 and 5, plate I; fig. 5, plate II; fig. 1, plate I V ; fig. 1,2, 3, and 4, plate V ; fig. 4, plate VII. See Chap. III.) Attitude. > The pit of the neck must correspond perpendicularly with the feet; if you move one leg forwards the pit then goes back out of its perpendicularity on the foot; if back- |