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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (July 27, 1913)
12 TO Florence Fleming Noyes, Sharon,. Mass., Opens School for Development 4 - V.J I v -,xsi "xx . BT GERTRUDE STEVENSON. (Copvright. 1913. by Gertrude Stevenson.) BOSTON, Mass., July 26. (Special.) Emerson said something- to the fffect that if a man can preach a better sermon, write a better book, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world, will make a beat en pathway to his ioor. Something of the same worldly atti tude may be the reason for the beaten path from hte railroad station at, Sha ron, Mass., to a certain little white cot tage calTed "Studio House," where grlrls from New York and Washington, Kan sas City and Cleveland. Chicago and any number of other big cities have come to study the art of lyro-rhythmlo expression with Florence Fleming Noyes. Lyro-rhythmlo expression? Even so. You and X and Mrs. O'Flaherty would call it classic danc ing, but you and I and Mrs. O'Flaherty must bow to the edict of the high priestess ' of the colony and accept "lyro-rhythmlo expression." Lyro-rhythmic expression, according to the fair expounder, is the art of ac quiring rhythm. With rhythm one may be in tune with the twitter of birds. In sway with the soughing of the winds in the trees, in accord with all nature, in harmony with the musio of the spheres and filled with the joy of liv ing. Without it one is a mere clod of earth, hampered by conventionality, re stricted by contracted muscles and in capable of the expression of the high est ideals. Tnnk "Sot Ew. If you are a composer and. have rhythm, your melodies will be sweeter. If you are a writer, your ideas will be more numerous and your thoughts flow more freely. No matter what you do. Thythm will make your work better and your life more "fluid." To acquire rhythm is no easy task. Tt is as elusive as a fluff of thistle down as intangible as the south wind. You cannot see it, any more than you can your soul your love or your honor, but It is Just as vital and necessary -a part of your happiness as they are. Few things have rhythm, because rhythm must not be confounded with mere "time" only the heart and its pulse, the dripping of water and the falling snow and with hard work and sincere effort the human body. Florence Fleming Noyes Is "the woman with the most beautiful right arm in the world," according to that grim magician in marble Rodin "the woman with perfect poise," according to that American sculptor, Cyrus Dal lin. She it was who appeared as the premiere danseuse in the suffrage pageant at the Metropolitan in May and was the leading spirit in the beau tiful pantomime on the Treasury build ing steps during the inaugural at Washington. She is related to the Seward Webbs and the W. H. Vander bilts of New York City. She out-Isadoras Isadora or out Duncans Duncan, as you will. What the impressionists are to painting, she is to the dance. She is a Cubist of movement even a Futurist, in that she expresses the spirit of things the symbol, rather than the fact the emotion Greek myths create in her rather than merely pantomiming the story of the myth itself. Modern Pled Piper Is She. Out under the trees on the beautiful grounds around "Studio House," she is teaching her gospel of the spirit of things to a group of girls who fol lowed her to her Summer place at Sharon just as fascinatedly as the chil dren trailed after the enchanting melo dies of the Pied Piper. It is her aim to spread this gospel, which Is, Indeed, the ultimate thing in all art, to toe four corners of the - world. She wants to make the world realize beauty to cast off its trappings of artificiality to ex pand In a new realization of the beauty of the human body and to develop that body Into an instrument to express the highest ideals of thinking and living and Jjelng. Just as the Greeks Idealized the body and aimed to perfect It to express all things, so Florence Fleming Noyes would make Americans a race of rhythmic, sentient people from which would spring geniuses of painting and sculpture anj music and all the arts. "When we cultivate the sympathetic nervous system through the right use of rhythmic movement wo will be ca pable of great things in creative art,' declares Miss Noyes, "since all the beauty which we feel and to which we respond registers on the brain. No less an authority than G. Stanley Hall, of Clark TJTniversity, bears me out in this theory and maintains that the cultiva tion and appreciation of the beautiful has a very definite scientific value In the development of the brain and in fiuences its output to an extent little realized in this materialistic age." To come suddenly upon this modern Galatea in diaphanous classic garb, sur rounded by veritable nymphs and dry ads on the grassy slopes back of "Studio House," makes one convinced that one has been transported back through the centuries to the time and clime where Pan piped his immortal lays and Diana, free-limbed and Joy ous-spirnea, snot straight, swift ar rows at fleeing game, or Hebe danced her innocence, or Narcissus, "fair as May, who in a deep, dark pool did drown for love of light-loves fair and gay." "The garb," nays Miss Noyes, "Is not so much to intimate the Greeks as It is to give the body perfect freedom of movement and expression. To at tempt to express rhythmic emotions In modern - fashionable attire - would be SOCIETY GIRLS GO IN FOR LYRO-RYTHMIC EXPRESSION J ..- - , x, absurd. Just the moment one throws aside ordinary clothing and puts on this little costume one gets immedi ately into . the atmosphere we want. Not a muscle is bound or hampered, not an articulation contracted. We are at last natural and free .to, move and act. and be as God and Nature intend ed us to. It is absolutely surprising how quickly a pupil becomes natural and rhythmic under the influence of the costume and the nearness to na ture. "You see it isn't that We 'have so much to learn to acquire rhythm. It is a matter of laying aside all our stiff necked Puritanism and forgetting the artificialities which wrong training and false Ideals have developed in all of us. We must get back to child move ments and animal rhythms to natural gestures and free motion. ' Personality. Is Submerged. "Children and animals are absolutely tacking in self-consciousness. It is that childlike , simplicity for which we are striving, and while there is the greatest opportunity for individuality in lyro-rhythmic expression, there is no room In it for personality. Drama develops personality. This art sub merges It. There is no reason why the human body cannot be made as undu lating as a serpent as capable of as perfect rhythmic rotary movements as the wasp as relaxed and as responsive as a cat." As the fair priestess of rhythm ex plained, her nymphlike pupils were floating rhythmically through the tree shadows here a calm-eyed goddess with heavy plaits of hair binding her brow swaying to the musio of the breeze rustling the leaves there a mobile, bright-eyed Pan playing his pipes as he wandered in and out of the trees, now mournful and sad, again bursting with Joy and life an ecstatic vestal virgin or a mad, irre sponsible bacchante whatever the mood . inspired them to do or to cre ate. Technique must ever be subser vient to the creative Impulse accord- ng to the preceptress of this newest and most inexplicable of arts. "To acquire rhythm one must cul tivate one's second brain." explains the lovely muse as she strikes signifi cantly at that region of the anatomy ordinarily cherished as the repository of - one's favorite "eats" or the center of indigestion as the case may be. Below the breast and Just above the waist are two distinct and separate articulations, and others at either side. The Greeks developed these and -that accounts, for the grace of the figures found in all Greek friezes figures walking or dancing straight ahead ap parently arid the body curved abov the waist line.. I remember a great musician who used to say at certain passages: Tvow am thinkintr with my Knees. nis only sounded like foolishness to foolish people, who know nothing of the body- brain, but this second brain is so neces sary to musicians that it is sometimes called the "musical brain' and no one can be a really great performer who does not possess something of it. Beauty Not Only Goal. Beauty and health are Inseparable from rhythmic movement, but both are far too selfish and unworthy to be tne ultimate goal of any art. The real aim s to be able to express an tnougnt Dy movement of the body. There are three ways of communicating thought word, tone and movement, tne wora U lust a mental symbol spoken print, If you like and its limitations are quite as cold and. narrow. The quality of tone expresses, pnysicai conamon and one can tell by a voice whether a person is sick or ill, happy or gay. It is only in movement or unconscious sresture that the moral state or tne character Is expressed. Through move ment the emotions are expressed. -The Orientals recognized this and were such quick readers of movement that in Persian law courts experts were used to watch the witnesses while they testified. The Persians know that un conscious movements express the in ner and deeper thoughts and feelings more than word or tone. If we visualized as we epeak, our movements would be In exact har mony with out woras ana .conversa tion would be a joy, Dut mental vis ion or the . subjective world Is closed to the ordinary individual. 'All art is the language of feeling. As the sculptor chisels noble 'Images of thoughts Inmarble as the painter blends nis colors - into a muBiorpicuo on canvas, so beautiful images of thought ought to be reflected In our Dhvsical being. The Idea is not impracticaoie, ior we have a manifestation of the prlnci pie In all children whose bodies read- llv restond to ana retiect mental sum uli. It Is only when the 'prison walls begin to close about the gTOWlngr body, as Wordsworth so poetically expresses It in his 'Intimations of Immortality,' that, the body ceases to respond to our thought Images. "The body should be a well trained servant as a means of expression not an end. After It has been taught to resoond to feeling Involuntarily, then we may forget it. In fact. If we had proper, training as children It would not be necessary to work on the physical plane at all. But artificiality, self-consciousness, the cramped and arbitrary and spirit-crushing results of Puritanism, false education and the theory that whatever is beautiful and Joyous and happy must of a necessity be the machinations of evil, and all the other kindred narrow ideals of our heredltv have made of us a stiff, con strained, hidebound race, afraid to let ourselves do the natural things. "If we were able to express thought freely and clearly through every pose THE SUXDAT r v. v , , -- - f xi -. x' v,, ,xx,' XV5C? and movement of- the body, and if these physical symbols of thought were readily understood and easily In terpreted into mental pictures by our associates, we should be - ashamed to allow our minds to harbor Ignoble thoughts. ....... "In the golden age of Greece, this idea was appreciated and it was a principle of conduct. It developed that wonderful race of men and women who furnished us the master sculptor, Prax itiles, and his contemporaries with their incomparagle models for their Venus de Milo, their Faun, their Apol lo Belvedere and the great painters, Zeuxiz and Parrnasius, with studies for those, wonderful mural decorations, whose beauty and symmetry ' have come down to us In the literature of the most artistic race the world has ever known." Men like Rodin and Dallin have been most emphatic in'emphasizlng the ab solute difference of Miss Noyes' art from any of the .neo-classical dances so much in voguaw during the past 10 years. J Isadora Duncannd Maud Allen re viewed the classic dance, but Florence Fleming Noyes brings forward the appeal of pure lyric pantomime a pure symbolism in a return to the Greek spirit of abstract beauty, expressed in the rhythm of the human body. To her the perfection of the response of the human body is both . a religion and an art, imposing upon the individ ual the high obligation both of noble thought and of means to express ' It. Keeping ever in view the ideal, the body and Its perfections become the beautiful instrument which shall sing the soul within it the symbol of a beauty which transcends the mortal image. To be merely an artist Is not the Ideal of the exponent of rhythm. Her aim is to teach rhythmical bodily ex pression for Its combined ethical and artistic value. She : would spiritualize the body, mentalize It with pure thoughts and motions for the sake of human happiness, creating beauty . not alone for its own sake, but more for Its reaction as an inspiration to hu manity.. Some of her pupils plan to teach others to apply the new art to social settlement work and a few to appear publicly. Possibilities Are Great. 'Applied to social settlement work ah! there are the great possibili ties," and with a wonderful sween of her arms to some unattalned ideal Jn tne innmte, miss. Noyes went on. "It isn t what you think but the thoughts MARY GARDEN WORKING OUT SOME ORIGINAL IDEAS FOR HER NEXT ROLE Stage Star Denies Rumor of Illness Campanini Employs New Talent for Chicago Company Charles Froh man Brings Interesting Announcements on Return From Europe. BT EM I MB FRANCES BAUER. M ARY GARDEN does not often go to the trouble of denying rumors, but she writes emphatically to friends that recent stories of her poor health are entirely unfounded, that she Is well and. healthy and. somewhat rested after the terrible strain of last season. Miss Garden canceled all Sum mer engagements that she might rest and then work out some original Ideas for the Wolf-Ferrari opera company. Miss Garden has studied the per formance to be given . by the Chicago opera company, and she differs materially from the ac cepted interpretation. Miss Garden cabled the Chicago opera company that she will be on hand and she will be heard In several new roles. Mme. Tet razzlni. on the other band will 'not be with the company this season and Cam panini is planning to supply a colora tura who will be equal to the support of Allessandro Bond, whose return to opera is regarded as one of the most important events in the musical life of next season. Campanini promises opera in French and Italian, 10 performances in English and not so much German opera as was expected. This means that Clarence Whltehill, who is pre eminently one of the greatest artists of the company will be heard In the roles of French and Italian rn which he has won laurels In France, Italy and great -operatic centers. Campanini has also engaged Allen Hinckley, the American basso formerly of the Metro politan for Chicago. Other Americans to appear . under Campanini will be Jane Osborn Hannah, Carolina White, Margaret Keyes, Helen Warrum and others. Bassl, who has not been - with the oompany for two years will return next' season as will Giorgini, also a tenor. Among the Important engagements made by the Montreal opera company is that of Slezak, the great .Czech tenor, who closed his engagement at the Me tropolitan last season to make a con cert tour. Othei engagements made by Mr. Rabinoff for the Canadian com pany include Mme. Rappold, who has Just been married to Rudolf Berger; and Rosa Olltzka. While a number of stories have been told of the meeting of the soprano and tenor, it Is generally understood In musical circles that they met In Oscar Saenger's studio, where Mr. Berger came- to change his baritone voice into a tenor and Mr. Saenger, according to his usual custom, invited his other pupil, Mme. Rappold, to sing parts of OREGOXIAN, PORTI AND. of Freedom of Thought and l r J? . "X, s. - - - V v x- 4. , you respond to no.t'what is Impressed but what is expressed that registers In outward form. Therefore I have such high hopes of bringing beauty and hap piness to the people who can only be reached through social settlement cen ters. "But the people of the upper classes need this art just as much if not more than the working people. The so-called vulgar person is considered too free in his body movements and the roles - opposite to. those he was learning. Alma Gluck, who is in Switzerland studying with Mme. Sembrlch has awakened no end of interest In London where she sang at the Albert Hall. This will be followed by a song recital in Queen's Hall, when she will have as accompanist no less a figure than Zimballst, who in addition to being one of the greatest of the present-day vio linists is a pianist equal to the task. According, to cable messages, Milton Aborn will produce in English the Strauss "Salome," Saint Saens' "Samson and Delilah," and his "Henry XIII." He has obtained the rights to produce- In English D' Albert's "Tiefland." These, says Mr. Aborn, will be sung by Ameri cans who have made reputations In Eu rope but who - have yet to make them in America. He will bring back to this country several singers -who have be come known as grand opera stars in Europe. Here they were in light opera. Among those in whom there is active Interest may be mentioned Vernon Stiles, long favorite in Vienna. Mr. Aborn also engaged - the -Hungarian conductor Szendrel, who was .with Dip pel in Chicago two years ago. Mr. Aborn Is due in New York this week when all rehearsals and prepara tion for. the seasons work will begin seriously. One . of the most satisfac tory moves that he has made in the engagement of some of the members of the Boston opera company, include Elizabeth Amsden and Miss Scotney, both of whom have made a place for themselves in the critical city. Lois Ewell is a former member of the Aborn company whom Mr. Aborn has been watching through -every detail of her career, and he - believes . she will be among the most successful of the younger American singers. .- Edgar Stlllman Kelley, who in Eu rope as well as in America is regarded as one of the foremost composers of the day, has presented for the first time a new American symphony at Carl Stoeckel's Norfolk Music Festival. This festival Is in itself worthy of more space than can be accorded to it cas ually, because It Is one of the most elaborate music festivals held In this country, and the audience may come there . only by the courtesy of Mr. Stoeckel, who assumes every expense himself and pays the highest for all that he gets. He gives many com posers opportunity to have their works performed and to conduct them. Mr. Kelley conducted his own work, which he has called "New England," and " into which he has - brought the JULY 37, 1913. Movement, Destined to Cultivate Beauty, Health and Clean Thinking. . ts Mi? V to be unlike him, the people, of the higher strata of society go to the other extreme. Culture and extreme nicety have come to mean mincing steps and nervous, jerky gestures. The elite of society seem to think it bad form to move anything other than the extremities. Ultra-reflned, every movement is restricted every muscle kept in rigid tension. When you clench your hand, you clench your spine, if you but knew it. And cor Puritan pioneer's Ideal. The four move ments are Introduced by texts from the log. book of the Mayflower, and the slow movements consist of varia tions of a splendid old choral written In New England a century ago and the scherzo is built upon themes of New England birds treated symphonically. The return of Mr. Kelley to this country after his long sojourn in Ber lin, where he was among the most noted of musicians and composers, has been a great advent for this country, the only pity being that Mr. Kelley and his lovely wife have seen fit to hide themselves "far from the madding crowd" in a small Ohio town where Mr. Kelley devotes himself mostly to writ ing. The return of Charles Frohman !s always a National event in theatrical circles. The eminent and popular lm pressario returned from Europe Tues day, July 8, and brought many Inter esting announcements. He promises many first-class new productions, and the visit of J. M. Barrle. who has re cently been made Sir James Matthew Barrie. During this visit Mr. Frohman will produce a cycle of Barrle come dies. Mr. Frohman intends to open the Empire Theater September 1 with John Drew in a Shakespearean play, in it self a startling event. Laura Hope Crews will appear as Beatrice to Mr. Drew's Benedict In "Much Ado About Nothing," and Mary Boland will be the hero. Maude Adams is again announced for "Peter Pan" during the Christmas week, following which she will appear in a new Barrie play, "The Legend of Leonora." Another Barrie- play for Miss Adams to be given still later is "The Ladies' Shakespeare" and "Rosa lind," both to be given on the same programme. " William Gillette will open a 20-week season in November; BUlie Burke will open a new play in December when "The Land of Promise," by W. Somer set Maugham, will have its first pre sentation on any stage. John Mason will again have that lovely leading lady, Martha Hedman, in a play by Augustus Thomas called "Indian Summer"; Blanche Bates will have a new Barrle play called ""Half Hour" but running an hour In com bination with which Stanley ' Hough ton's three-act play. "The Younger Generation," will be given, with Ernest Lawford especially- engaged ' for the programme. The plays call for 30 im portant players. Mme. Nazlmova is to continue an interrupted run of "Bella Donna" in New 'York, to be followed by & drama 5' ' - 4 sets they not only confine a woman's figure they cramp her very soul. "Que of the very first effects of the acquirement of rhythm is a process of elimination which takes place in one's habits and life and surround ings. You find that you can do with out a great many of the clothes you have been accustomed to wearing a great many of the things you've been in the habit of using. I furnished a house seven years ago. I've just fur nished another one now. These two houses are typical of the change and evolution which has taken place in me. The tirs't one was ornate and the new" one is the epitome of sim plicity. I find everything about me affected in the same way for the most part unconsciously, too. "You can judge a people by the sort of dancing they take up. The gavotte and pavane, the languidly sentimental waltz but reflected the character of the people who danced them and the of Importance which is as yet un finished. Mr. Frohman feels satisfied that Ethel Barrymore will have a great medium in the dramatization by C. Haddon Chambers, of the well known novel "Tante." and among other im portant play3 for which, he has - not yet arranged the casts he names a new four-act play by John Galsworthy called "The Mob," to be produced In New York before the London per formance and one by Henri Bernstein to be given In New York ahead of the Paris production. Mr. Frohman will bring to New York the entire company from the Criterion Theater, London, in H. V. Esmond's play, "Eliza Comes to Stay," with the author and Eva Moore in the leading parts. Just before leaving Europe Mr. Frohman secured from Sudermann the American rights to his latest worn, "The Song of Songs." Mr. Frohman also has brought a long list of musi cal comedies and will begin the season August 25 at the Globe Theater with Leo Fall's "The Doll Girl." in the cast of which will be Richard Carle and Hattie Williams. Following Julia Sanderson in "The Sunshine Girl" at the Knickerbocker Mr. Frohman will produce the delayed "Marriage Market," with Donald Brian. From the Gaiety Theater in London will be brought George Edwardes "The Girl On the Film." and an oper etta from Vienna entitled "The Lit tle King," will be adapted for Amer ica by Harry B. Smith, with new music interpolated by Paul Rubens, whose "Sunshine Girl" has been one of the hits in many years. Mr. Frohman will present "The X-Ray Girl," and he will bring another great success called don the latest operetta by Oscar Strauss and from Germany, he will bring anothes great success called "The Laughing Husband." - . William Furst. the well known con ductor of music at the Empire Thea ter, has not made his vacation a com plete rest, but perhaps now. he may give himself to recreation -after the completion of a musical setting for Margaret Anglln's production of "Elec tra," of Sophocles, which the popular actress win give in tne Greek Thea ter of Berkeley in September. Mr. Furst has employed .in the orchestra tion only woodwinds and brass. Milton Aborn, who expects to get the first opera of the season on the stage by September 15, has returned from a short tour of Investigation through the musical centers of . Europe. The Im presario found a few of the condi tions through which the American singers are compelled to struggle and n is eviaeni xnat ne was deeply Im pressed with the shallowness- of thest conditions. He, too. has discovered fo? himself that much of the vaunted "artistic atmosphere when shown forth In Its true colors . spells graft. "Most of. the teachers and agents over there," said Mr. Aborn. "are out for the American dollar and a mediocre singer can demand almost anything for which he or she is able to pay. In OPS "ft characteristics of the times. Thosa symptoms of profound degeneration the Bunny Hug. the Grizzly Bear and the Turkey Trot did not appear by accident what makes them so terri bly significant is that they are real 'folk dances' and express an inward condition in the people who practice them. They are only possible in a generation which has for the most part grown up without any artlstio or religious leaven." Amon gthe girls stdying with Miss Hoyes are Beulah Hepbtirn, daughter of A. Barton Hepburn, of New York; Margaret Tuttle, daughter of Mrs. Howard Mansfield, a prominent suf frage leader; Mildred Anderson and Mabel Coffin, of New York; Elena Farnos. a Kansas City society woman; Winifred Lawrence, a Cleveland society girl; Lenora De Grange, Effie Baker, Kathryn Dunkhorst and Elise Ryan, of Washington, and Bertha Remick, a composer, of Sharon. competent singers can appear in the foremost opera-houses if they pay $1000 to a parasite called an agent who has some concealed pull with the manage ment. On the other hand, talent has a long and almost hopeless struggle tf It has no mopey." . Mr. Aborn also found thd agents who give young musicians concert appear ances for a stated amount for which' they supply audiences, claque and criti cisms. He found the teachers who promise great careers to the most in capable students, keeping up their hopes and the flow of dollars by pre dictions of great operatic successes, and on the whole he found conditions more pitiable than he would ever have believed possible to exist. He also exposed the sort of contracts which young American singers sign in their effort to reach the opera stage. He had an application from a prima donna whose present contract gives her 200 francs a month about .$10 a week out of which she must supply her own costumes and wigs, and a proviso that if she does not "make good" her contract becomes null and void. Mr. Aborn said that the fine Ameri can voices he heard in Europe were also a revelation to him and that he would endeavor to do all in his power to give these singers a chance to make careers. He announced the engage ment of Gustav Bergman, a brilliant young tenor, who cancelled an engage ment in Hamburg to come to America, and he took over from Mr. Dippel the contract of Morgan Kingston, a young tenor from the mines of Wales, like Dan Beddoe, of this country, and whose voice has aroused the utmost admira tions in all musical circles of Eng land. Mr. Aborn also has engaged James Bardsley, tenor; Louis Kreidler, Alfred Kaufman, bassos, and Hugh Schussler, basso-baritone. In addition to those already named. Much is ex pected from Kathleen Howard, a young American contralto, who has made con siderable stir in Europe. Mr.- Aborn contemplates bringing the Russian ballet, now appearing at Covent Garden, to the Century Opera house. Another arrival on the Imperator was' Henry K. Hadley,' who left New York immediately for San Francisco. He was most enthusiastic on the sub ject of Kathleen Howard, the young contralto, whose voice he describes as wonderful and whose future he prophesies as most promising. Mr. Hadley saw and heard enough musio to Inspire him in his work, which h will resume with renewed enthusiasm. William Faversham announced thla week the engagement of Cecilia Loftus to appear as Juliet and Desdemona id his Shakespearean productions next season. If Mr. Faversham presents "Hamlet," Miss Loftus will also appear as Ophelia. Miss Loftus has so long been identified with the vaudeville sta;e that her appearance in legiti mate drama of this class is extraor dinary. Julie Opp and R. D. MacLeaa will support.