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Show 82 THE CODE OF TERPSICHOKE. CHAPTER VII. PIROUETTES. OF THE MANNER IN WHICH A DANCER MUST PREPARE FOR THE EXECUTION OF HIS PIROUETTES; OF THE VARIOUS POSITIONS HE MAY TAKE IN TURNING, AND OF THE DIFFERENT WAYS OF STOPPING AND ENDING THEM. THE art of dancing has been Carried to so eminent a degree of perfection by Dauberval, Gardel, Vestris, and other famous artists, that Noverre, who died during the finest period known in the annals of Terpsichore, must have felt surprised at the rapidity of its progress. The dancers of the last century were inferior to those who flourished towards the latter end of it, and still more so to those of the beginning of the present age. W e cannot but admire the perfection to which modern dancers have brought their art. They have a much more refined taste than their predecessors, and their performance is full of gracefulness and charms. Among our ancient artists those beautiful terns of perpendicularity and equilibrium, those elegant attitudes and enchanting arabesques were unknown. That energetic execution, that multiplicity of steps, that variety of enehainemens, and pirouettes were not then in practice ; and the rising art, unadorned with those complicated embellishments, encircled the performer in the narrow limits of simplicity*. * Sec in the Encyclopedia;, those articles written by Noverre, on ancient dancers. |
