Reviews of the Century.

1927 These excerpts from historic Dance Magazine reviews retain their original spelling and punctuation.

JUNE 1927 THE DANCE: WHAT IT IS, WAS, AND SHOULD BE BY SERGE OUKRAINSKY

In antiquity, there were only two types of dancing; the austere and exalted sacred dances, and the profane exhibition dances which served as a pastime.... The ancient bacchanales and orgies, under the reforms of etiquette, became the period dances....

Besides the period and character dances, three principal classes have been formed: One, the ballet, which has contrived to pursue technique.... Another branch is the eccentric Jazz, which is nothing less than an incorrect and angular ballet with atrophied arms, as in all inferior and primitive dances....

1933 Modern dancers worked especially hard in the early days....

SEPTEMBER 1933 CHARLES WEIDMAN, DORIS HUMPHREY, AND GROUP LEWISOHN STADIUM, AUGUST 9 AND 11, 1933 BY JOSEPH ARNOLD 

Because Miss Humphrey braved nature and appeared on this occasion only a month, according to report, after she became a mother, she was able to dance in only one number at the first concert....

Charles Weidman is one of the most satisfying of modern dancers. He is theatrical and stylistic to a point of keen artificiality, but he is vivid, alive and, first and foremost, a dancer....

Water Study by Miss Humphrey's group of girls, which was interpreted to surf sounds only, suggested the flow of waves and the rising and falling of breakers. It was graceful but otherwise extremely obvious and rather glorified hokum. The Shakers, based upon the practices of the religious sect known by that name ... was not as effective as expected....

1934 Graham was already a force to be reckoned with.

JANUARY 1934 MARTHA GRAHAM GUILD THEATRE NOVEMBER 19, 1933 BY JOSEPH ARNOLD

Whether Martha Graham is fulfilling the functions of a dancer is matter for debate. One might even go the limit of heresy and state that it is even questionable whether Martha Graham is fulfilling the functions of an artist. There is this fault in her work: a lack of unified direction....

For her musical accompaniments Miss Graham uses a wind group, flute, oboe, clarinet and bass clarinet, together with two pianos. With very few exceptions this music has nothing to say, and the interminable wailings and pipings and walrus gruntings that pass for the evocation of a mood are as stupid as they are phoney.

Like modern dance, ballet came in many forms. Who were the true heirs to Petipa's legacy--the Russians or the Soviets? Or someone else? Compare the following:

FEBRUARY 1934 MONTE CARLO BALLET RUSSE CONTINUING ENGAGEMENT AT THE ST. JAMES THEATRE BY JOSEPH ARNOLD

This latest edition of the hallowed Ballet Russe was organized by Colonel Wassily de Basil, a typical Russian book emigre, who was forced to abandon his profession of militarist when the revolution came and took to managing concert artists in Europe.... De Basil's dancers include Leonid Massine, Leon Woizokovsky, Davide Lichine, Tatiana Riabouchinska, Irina Baronova, Alexandra Danilova. Most of the choreography was created by Massine and Georges Balanchine.

The classical ballet may have a place in the modern repertoire for its historical interest as well as for its exposition of obvious bodily graces and the expertness with which the human body can be made to do tricks....

The Monte Carlo Ballet Russe, however, is better than either the classical or Russo-classical ballet. It preserves the old traditions and yet manages to inject into its compositions a modernity of thought, a modern conception of artistry, a humor, a satiric bit, a reasonable sophistication, that is in harmony with 1934 feeling....

1934 FEBRUARY 1934 TATIANA VECHESLOVA AND WACHTANG CHABUKANI CARNEGIE HALL JANUARY 12 AND 20, 1934 BY JOSEPH ARNOLD

Here was a debut that caused a bitter cleavage in the already much-lacerated circles of the dance profession. Tatiana Vecheslova and Wachtang Chabukani are the first dancers to be permitted by the Soviet government to tour America. At their opening concert they exhibited such skill in classical ballet dancing that the audience flamed into enthusiasm, and conversational bravos were heard on all sides during the intermission. It seemed as if Mlle. Vecheslova and Gospodin Chabukani were made for America. But the next day dawned with bad tidings for the Russian pair. There was disapprobation in the press and from certain strata of the dance intelligence....

What is difficult for so many to understand is that the two dancers were a subordinate element in their concert. It was not so much the dancers that we came to see as their type of dancing. Ever since the Communists came into power in Russia they have preached the creed of "Proletarian Art".... Art which did not follow this precept was scorned as a useless bourgeois product....

What we saw was the ancient "bourgeois" ballet, without the least change, and much less in conformity with modern thought than the ballet dancing of the Monte Carlo Ballet Russe, organized by a White Russian....