OCR Text |
Show THEOR Y OF THEATRICAL DANCING. 61 lower than the usual height. By this means you conceal the defect that exists in the construction of your body. In your steps and terns of vigour be energetic and strong, but, at the same time, beware lest these qualities degenerate into faults, by stiffness and a painful tension of the nerves. As there are many persons so formed that their legs are closely joined to each other, and, on the contrary, a great number naturally bow-legged, I shall here point out the means of remedying, or, at least, of hiding those two defects. A man is close-legged when his hips and thighs are firmly contracted, his knees thick, and apparently joined together, and the lower part of his legs, that is to say, from the bottom of the calf to the heels, forming a triangle, of which the ground is the base; the inside ankles very large, the instep high, and the tendo Achillis thin, long, and but faintly distinguished. (See plate III, fig. 5.) The bow-legged person is he in w h o m the opposite defect is conspicuous. His thighs are too much divided, his knees very distant from each other, his calves do not join, and the light that should be perceived only in certain parts, is seen throughout the whole length of his legs, which are, therefore, in appearance very similar to two bows, whose extremities are turned to each other. Persons of this description have a long flat foot, their exterior ankles stick out, and the tendo Achillis is thick and too close to the joints. (See plate III, fig. 4.) These two natural defects, so diametrically opposite, prove how much the rules of instruction must vary according to the peculiar make of a pupil, as those that are fit for the one to pursue, are prejudicial in the extreme to the other : the studies, therefore, of two dancers so different in point of shape, cannot, in any manner, be the same. |