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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (April 27, 1913)
- v - - " " The Omaha Sunday Bee Magazine Page Copyright, 1913, by the Star Companr. Great Britain nights neserved. How Dancing Develops a Beautiful Figure 4 m Second of an Instruct ive Series of Articles by the Weil- Known Dancer, Ruth St Denis "For the woman untrained to flexibility in youth, curving the handa is necessary." p. hot - or OmSAtuittiCt N-v. mi "Curve the hands backward from the" wrists and twist them round and round." 'Tet the pliancy of the arms by slowly raising them and letting them fall to sides. Drop one knee and turning slowly from side to side let the arms describe half circles," "Bending the fingers backward and forward if they are inclined te be stiff." . yowr No. 2The Arms and the Hands By Ruth St. Denis The Most Famous American Dancer WHEN you begin to develop boauty of arms end hands, begin at the point bait way botweon your shoulder blades. This Is no misprint, no blander of copy roador or of any one 1bo. I mean exactly that To develop tho arms and hands begin to work equl-diatant bo tween tho Inner ends of the shoulder blades. All movement begins In tho cheat The Mainspring of graco Is not in tho arms and bands themselves, but in tholr be ginning point which is the point I havo mentioned. As two branohoa of a troo start at tho samo point and widen into twin branches, bo the arms start from the point equl-dlstant between the shoulder blades, which is, in a sonso, tho motion' centre of tho upper limbs. Think of that point and work from it It Is silly to bo gin with meaningless flopping motions of the hands from the elbows, yet that is where everybody begins. Test the pliancy of your arms by slowly raising them and letting them fall to your sides. Then fancy them flowing so think of something that flows, a stream, say, and then with tho arms hold out at front or at your aides, imitate the rippling of the water. Don't carry it to the point of snakellke resemblance, however. Wf Qoo dancers and women in private lite obviously imitate the movements of a serpent This, unless there is some special rea son In fitness, such as an actual serpent dance, is ridiculous. More than that it is ugly. But flowing water is beautiful. Try to repro duce with your arm the effect of ripples caused by a light wind on the surface of water. These move ments, as I have Bald, can be made at the sides, or beginning at the front extend to the sides. Another and similar movement Is that of a child at play with a ribbon. Watch a child playing with a ribbon and. you will see a manifestation of all the ebullient joy of a klUen with a ball of wool for playmate. Holding this imag inary strip of ribbon In the hand, shake it up and down, and watch it rippling in the air. Shake it with the hands in front of you, with hands at your sides and be hind you, Let the arms flow their wilt I have no suggestion as to their exact angles with the body. I am op.-jsed to mechanical methods In postures. Natural action is al ways graceful. Obstructed or Im peded motion Is Invariably awk ward. That is the reason that a child )s the most graceful object n atnr SJ4 wpman In corsets I havo novor worn I docllno to go to is tho most awkward, a corset novor will. 'Jail in flosh and in spirit. for a young girl with pliant muscles and tho unconsciousness of youth those rlpplo actions, taken whilo walking or dancing, aro onough to develop, tho arms and hands to such roundness and fulness as accord with their bodies. It they aro Blender they do not want tho blcops of a blacksmith. Nor, it they aro of rounded flguro should they possosa plpo stem limbs. The Ideal of bodily beauty Is symmetry The American Idea has transformed It Into an object of bulging excrescences, To give any part of tho body undue promlhenco la to be vulgar. It Is equally true whether you do this by dressing or by over exercise.- . Keep In mind that wo do not wish to bo como a nation of athletes, but of perfect human beings and' that symmetry, which is harmony of each part of tho body with orory other part, Is the beginning and a largo port If not nil, of perfection. Dut wo muat consider that not every ope is trained to the natural oxprosslon, which is graco, in her youth. Even in childhood foolish mothers begin to hinder expression and obstruct freedom with clothes, while we ought to wear as tow clothes as possible. Childhood and youth are made stiff, unwieldy and weighty by tight corsots, tight gloves, tight collars, tight shoes and tight gartors. Tho body Ioscb its flexibility, sb a prisoner lockod into a bIx by nlno-foot cell grows cramped of motion and wooden of posture. Too many mothers are Jailors of tholr children. For tho woman grown up, this habit of mind and body It is not onough to play that tho arms aro wavelets and to consider as a starting point tho mtddlo of tho back be tween tho shoulder blades. Certain olomontary movoments must also bo praotlsod by thorn. For them shaking tho hands loosely from the wrists, up and down, and stdewlso, should bo practised. Far bet ter it with theso and other exorcises the various dancing stopo, or at least walking to rhythmic counts, bo practised. For tho woman untrained to flexibility in youth, curving tho hands Is necessary. Curve them downward from tho wrUtB and baokward. Twist them round and round from the wrists, flrat by an outward, then nn Inward motion; In other woraB, away from tho body, then toward the boay. Do this rhythmically, by counting slowly or to Blow music. Personally I do not caro for music with my pantomime. I could do as well without It. But to some porsons, rhythm, that is. rogular movement, is impossible without music. Therefore have muslo It you wish. Havo it in Blow tempo, six eight time preferred. It you havo no musical instrument, you can whistle or hum an air in that measure, But it you aro not of the lamo folk who require muslo as a crutch tor their move ments, count as you danco or walk. Bonding tho fingers back and forward, if thoy aro inclined to bo stiff, may also be necessary to expressiveness of the f W the "While sitting or lying down, nnd relaxing the other muscles, take the starch, so to speak, out of the fingers by shaking them sidewise and up and down." hands. It the fin gers are at all rigid, do this now and then during day. Whilo sitting or lying down and relaxing tho other muscles, take "the starch," so to Bpeak, out of them In that way. Anothor means of loosening or "un starching" the stiff, inexpressive hand is to hold one hand in the other and shake It Place your thumb In tho palm of your flngors at the back of the hand and shake it vigorously, but always In rhythm. I can beat describe this motion by saying that It Is a "wiggle wagglo." While practicing the movements with the hands and arms assumo easeful pos tures. While resting on your couch relax further by lifting ono arm and dropping it beside you as though it were a heavy weight of which you were ridding yourself Lift tho other arm nnd drop It That move ment in itself unlocks, as it were, the tightened and imprisoned muscles. While you Ho thoro "uncurl" your fln gors The tendency Is to draw tho fingers Into the palms of the hands and tighten tho hand Into a flst Tired nerves Incline us to that pugnacious way of presenting our handB to the world. That Is one of tho things which nature abhors, an obstruc tion. Our aim should be to remove every obstruction to free natural motion. The forest of such habits as these must bo cleared before wo reach the state of grace ful attitudes and movements. You can practice tho raising and drop ping of the hands and shaking them from the wrists, pressing them back and forth, holding one with the other and shaking it while you are lying on your bed composing yourself for sleep at night. You can prac tice them when Bitting before your tea table, while lying back in your easy chair, while lying In a deck chair on a cruise. - But you can practice them also whilo dancing. There is no hotter time to exer cise the arms than whilo practicing the danco steps, for dancing is not a mere ex erolse of the feet It is a pervasive motion of the entire body. When you do not dance with the entire body, as a ripple reaches far out to sea, you are simply Indulging in acrobatics. So extend the arms and raise nnd lower in easy, almost uncon scious unison with the dance. Drop to one knee and turning slowly from side to side and twisting the body easily from tho waist, let tho arms describe slow, graceful half circles. Was the Delude Caused by the Fall of a Vast Watery Ring Like One of Saturn's ? - ..... i jt r... m i . , ana noton an nf mnmmnthn And other animal ONE of the last works ot Isaac N, Vail, tho famous geoogiat, is a very ingeni ous booklot designed to show that the deluge was caused by tho fall of a vast watery ring from tho sky. Mr, Vail was a well-informed scientist who endeavored to make all natural facts conform to the literal accuracy of the Bible. In describing the creation ot the world the Blblo says: "Lot there be air In the midst of water, making a division between the two waters." Mr. Vail argues that this must mean that there was a watery body suspended in the Armament above the earth. This body. It is most reasonable to believe, was a watery ring similar in form to the ring which now surrounds the planet Saturn. The fall ot this ring is the only phenomenon that could explain such an enormous fall of water as the flood ot Genesis, lasting tor forty days. The existence or this ring, dis tributing the sun's heat over the whole earth and turning it into a greenhouse, would explain the tor rid period ot lite evidenced by geol ogy. Thon the Ice contraction ot tho ring aB it cooled would explain tho glacial period, which science shows to have prevailed upon our planet Finally the ring fell, and that was the flood. The Bible also tells us that after tho flood tho Lord said that He would give man the rainbow as a sign that no buOi calamity would occur again, Mr., Vail Interprets this to mean that a rainbow was not possible when a watery belt hung suspended over tho earth, and that after the water disappeared from between sun and earth the rainbow became a possibility. "Away out toward tho bounda ries of tho solar system," says Geologist Vail, "we may behold that beautiful clockwork ot worlds, ot which the planet Saturn Is the cen tre. In addition to hlB eight moons, three stupendous rings revolve about him. two composed ot mete oric and one (the inner) of aqueous matter. There, 19,000 miles from his surface, revolves an ocean, 8,000 mllef broad and 100 miles thick an ocean above Saturn's firmament or atmosphere. Were we situated upon that planet in order to behold those revolving waters we would have to look upward, and could readily understand how two bodies of water could be separated by a 'rakla an expanse by a firmament If that aqueous ring were now over canopying our little earth, no per son would say the firmament could not be a natura and philosophical partition between tho divided waters. Every man would Bee a literal and true Interpretation of that mysterious passage inscribed on the very face of tho heavens. The infidel would Bee himself con fronted and denied by the book ot nature on which ho bo confidently relies. "Well, then, are we to understand that the earth was at one time sur rounded by an aqueous ring, or belt of waters? Wo turn again to Gene sis; 'And God made tho firmament and divided the waters which were under tho firmament from tho waters which were above tho firms; mentj and It was so.' To him who stands by the integrity ot the Mo saio account of creation, there can be no doubt upon this subject The declaration is unqualified that there were waters above and waters be low. Those below were on tho earth, for it waB Bald, Xet the waters under the firmament be gathered together that the 'dry land mhtht appear.' Thn the waters above were overhead. But the language of science, unlm peached and unimpeachable, is that no such body of water could possibly exist there unless It should revolve about tho earth as a ring, or belt "Geology tells us that there was a time when the native heat ot the earth repelled vast quantities of vapor and mlsU from its surface. These could not avoid being thrown into belts by the rotatory motion of tho earth. In fact. It might be said that such formations aro the neces Bary consequences of the evolution of worlds from their primitive state. "The most eminent astronomers now living claim that both Saturn and Jupiter are to-day repelling, by their native heat, their waters into space. Both aro characterized by the presence ot aqueous belts, in double or multiple layers, that must successively condense and fall as oceans upon those planets when the heat that now holds them In space ceases. "And I presume It will not be de nied very long that our oceans have many times been augmented by the successive participation of waters from space beyond our atmosphere. "Since then we nave the plain declaration ot Scripture that there wera waters above and beyond the firmament: since wo see waters so placed above the surface of other planets, and since BUch bodies ot water must revolve anout tho cen tral body, I claim that tho earth In antediluvian times was surround, ed by a huge belt ot waters. That it was visible to the first inhab itants as the last remnant of waters falling to the earth. Theso waters originally formed in and repelled from that great laboratory, the prim itive earth, skirted the boundaries ot a vast and remarkable atmos phere with, which tho chemist, the geologist and enlightened astrono mer are familiar. Well, such an ob ject must have had a name. Mark that the waters on the earth were called 'seas.' The atone remaining Hebrew word which could refer to the waters we render the 'Great Deep.' It was so called because all mankind formerly bellevod that the clouds were fed from above. They beheld them grow dark and heavy, and expand until they rent them selves and emptied their contents upon the earth. "When the aqueous ring began to descend upon earth there must have been In the torrid and temperate zones a down-rush ot water, but at the poles a down-rush ot snow. This explains why we find In Siberia and other Northern regions bodies of mammoths and other animals that were suddenly engulfed In the Ice. "From the retreating glaciers their remains have been falling tor thousands of years," says Mr. Vail. "Whole cargoes of elephantine ivory ' (And other fossils are picked up from vthe. surface or dug up from the frozen soli. There only are they found upon the surface. "During the fall ot the waters here supposed, on that part ot the earth Bloping toward the North Pole, there must have been a great rush ot the same toward the latter. Everything that could float would be swept thither. "The travels of Erman In North ern Siberia have proved that such a wave did sweep from the Altai Mountains to tho Arctic regions. Skirting the Northern Ocean, he says, there are hills 300 feet high, made up in great part ot whole car casses ot mammoths and other mammals 'cemented together by layers of frozen mud and ice.' Drift wood piled equally high 'trees with their trunks thrown upon each other in the wildest disorder, forced up In spite of gravitation, and with their tops broken oft or crushed as if they bad been thrown with great vio lence from the south on a bank and there heaped up " t