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Show T H E O R Y OF THEATRICAL DANCING. 91 and steps which the art of dancing possesses. Their performance, however, must be noble and elegant, their terns d'abandon executed with some little restraint, and a certain amiable dignity ought to accompany their dance throughout. The demi-caractere does not admit those grands terns of the serious kind. A dancer of the demi-caractere class is chiefly adapted to perform in the characters of Mercury, Paris, Zephyrus, or of a Faun, and to represent the elegant and graceful manners of a Troubadour, &c. The comic and pastoral must be the department of those whose persons, of the middle stature, are thick set and vigorously constructed ; and if a dancer, together with these almost athletic proportions, possesses a stature a little above the ordinary size, he is perfectly framed for the performance of characteristic steps, the greater part of which are united to the comic branch. In m y opinion, the very type of this branch consists in the imitation of all those natural motions which have been denominated dances in every age, and amongst every people. To offer a true picture of pastoral life, the dancer, in his performance, must copy and mimic the steps, attitudes, simplicity of manner, and sometimes even those frolicsome and rude motions of the villager, who, inspired by the sound of his rustic instruments, and animated by the society and liveliness of his cherished companion, or beloved mistress, gives his whole soul up, without restraint, to the pleasures of dancing. The pupil that aspires to excellence in these imitations should study nature, and the best painters who have enlivened their canvass with these interesting images. All other dancers of the comic cast may study characteristic steps, and render themselves servile imitators of every kind of dancing, peculiar to different countries, giving their attitudes and movements the true national |