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Mist Helen Moller, Lightly Costumed at the Children in the Scene,
pearinfj as Photographed in an Outdoor Performance of "Orphpui.
A Striking Manifestation of the Closer-to-Nature.
! Evolution of Recent Years.
Interesting Facts About the
Newest Health Fad and
the Question
They Raise About
Where the Final
" Clothesline"
Is to Be Drawn
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'HE closer-to-nature Ideal cberlahtd
from different viewpoints In erery
cItJ1Im! community seems to be
making progress in practical ways. A tew
yeara ago uch scenes as are photographed
from life on tola page could fear exlated
only In the wildest Imagination. Their
existence, in tact, probably would have
stirred the police into unwonted actlTjty.
To-day these out-of-doors displays of bars
feet and limbs, with b5dles. veiled by only
the ecanueKt flowing draperies, are in
dulged in and encouraged by women, sjlrls
and young children belonging to the best
aoclal. clrclea. - - Dancing upon the green
wrd with bodies. as. lightly covered as
was the cuatom in ancient Greece is a fea
ture of several taabionable achools ' to
which tamlllea of the best social standing
end their young daughters.
The childhood note la dominant 1 all
through this . particular manifestation of
the closer-to-nature IdeaL Nearly all of
the women who make it their profession
to teach dancing as that art waa practised
by care-free youths and maidens in the
Golden Age of Greece surround them
selves with children. Children hate
clothea anyway, and seem to belong to
such scenes equally with the trees and the
grass. Besides, the natural grace of these
joyous young anlraala doubtless gives val
uable points to their lnstructora Isadora
Duncan, the world's flnt and chief ex
ponent and teacher of the ancient Greek
dances, is rarely aeea In public without
her background of a score or more of
dancing children, her pupils.
Ijady Constance Richardson, the English
noblewoman who threw down her defiance
to arUtocratlo society when she became a
professional dancer of the bare-tooted,
lightly draped type, publishes the fact
that she is bringing up her own Children
as nearly as possible In conformity with
the closer-to-nature ideal. In the se
clusion of her garden the little ones run
about In pleaaant weather very nearly
naked. The keynote of her Idea Is that
the sun and the fresh sir shouM come
Into direct contact with the body, and
that the wearing of clothes unnecessarily
is a reproach to civilisation.
The last few years, too, have shown
progress In the degree of emancipation of
clothes, as the closer-to-nature cult in
creases in membership and activity It
sheds mora and more of Ita conventional
garments and puts on less and leaa of
their classically artistic substitute. The
corset was first to go. Bare arms, should
ers and chest were an easy achievement.
Bhoea gave place to sandals. And when
the sandals went stockings went with
ibem. As soon aa the average spectator
liad reconciled himself or herself to the
sight of the not over-ravlshlng. bare foot
of civilized times, then the flowing
Grecian draperies began to grow shorter
at the bottom, as tbey already had at
the top. At the present writing bare legs
f
Miss Mary Wolston, in Her Barefoot "Orpheus" Dance.
tery definite scientific value in the de
velopment of the brain, and ln5nc,l"
output to an extent little realized In this
materialistic age. . " .,
"Our garb here, is not so much.tolml
tate the Greeks as it is to give the body
Miss Elsie Kuehne and Children in an Out
door "Orpheus" Dance.
tn public are no longer .the special privi
lege of ' Innocent childhood; the mature
Instructress enters the competition with
a test which the faithful camera la incap
able of disguising.
Up to the present time a certain per
sonal reserve haa been noticed as In
dlcated in the accompanying photographs.
All the persons Involved, even the chil
dren, affect to conceal their Identities.
They are not of these times, but of the
times when such gambols were a popular
custom. They are pretending to be maids
and children of two or three thousand
years ago, their draperies stirred, not by
the breetes of Mt. Klsco.'N. Y., but by
xephyrs from the classic Aegean Sea, be
fore Joy In nature had been disturbed by
Plato over problems of the soul.
You see here the Junoasque Miss Helen
Moller running over the grass with a
?;roup of children, her graceful limbs no
ess bare than those of her small com
panions. But It is not really Miss Moller.
It la a character In the Greek play, "Or
pheus,' given in an outdoor theatre at Mt,
Klsco. The dancer Is clothed in a gar
ment called an illusion, and can therefor
feel no embarrassment The situation la
the same la the case of Miss Marie Mann,
whose bare right foot is pointing at 2:30
p. m. on an imaginary dial. This is not
M las Mann It la a character in "Or
pheus." This Brookslde open-air theatre at ML
Klsco is a representative centre for the
practise of closer-to-nature ideals. The
"best people" are seen In the audience,
and the daughters of the best people, won-
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'drously open-minded as to clothes, may
sometimes be seen gamboling there on
nature's green stage.
Another institution where nature is
having a fair chance la the fashionable
girls' school maintained by Mrs. Florence
Fleming Noyea, at Peteraboro, N. H.
Here, too, there are frequent open-air dis
plays of bare limbs In the claaslo dance
with personalities carefully dlsguUed. aa
"Faun,'' "Bacchus." ''Bacchante," and so .
on.
It should not be forgotten that the
world'a greatest physical Instructors are
firm supporters of this shedding of clothes
in the open. The famoua Lieutenant Muol- v
ler of Denmark who gave health lessons
to the Kaiser and to Colonel Roosevelt .
maintains that we are being slowly suffo- .
cated by our clothes. The skin, he says,
must have light and the free circulation -of
air, along with buoyant exercises. .
Dancing, aa well as other forms of
physical exercise, has the physical accom
paniment in a sense of rhythm. This
agreement unites the physical lnstructora
and the teachera of classlo dancing. On
thla point Mra Noyes, of the Peterboro
school, says:
"When we cultivate the sympathetic
nervous system through the right us of
rhythmlo movements we will be capable
of great things la creative art. 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 University, bears me out in this
theory, and maintains that the cultivation
and appreciation of the beautiful haa a
Copyright. 1915. by the 6tar Company
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Mis Marie Mann,
at She Appeared '
, in a Greek Play
Performance at'the
, ' Outdoor Theatre.
' Mount Kisco, N. Y.
- .
Great Britain. Rights 'Reserved.
perfect freedom of movement and expres
sion. To attempt to express rhythmlo
emotions in modern fashionable attire
would be absurd. Just the moment one
throws asfde ordinary clothing and puts
on this little costume one gets immediate
ly' into the atmosphere we want Not a
muscle bound or . hampered, not an articu
lation contracted. It is a matter of laying
aside all our stiff-necked Puritanism and
forgetting the specifications which wrong
training and false ideals have developed ,
in all of us. We must g'l back to child
movements and animal rhythms, to natural
gestures and free motion.''
And they do no question about that
But again crops up that bothersome ques
tion about drawing the line the clothes
line, so to epeak. Mrs. Noyes confesses
that the ideal Is "perfect" freedom of mo
tion Even the innocent bystander some
times has a logical mind, and will ask:
"How can you have 'perfection' by leaving
off only part of your clothes?" etc., etc.
Reverting to the recognized value of
bodily movements thst are rythmical,
there exists a sclentlflo "Theory of
Eurhythmies," originated by Prof. E.
Jaquea-Dralcroze, of France, who has mad
of it the leading principle of an educa
tional system. Of his system he writes:
"The object of the method Is, in the
first instance, .' to create by . the help of
rhythm, a rapid and regular current of
communication between brain and body,
and 'what differentiates my physical exer
cises from those of present day methods
of muscular development is that each of
them Is conceived in the form which can
most .quickly, establish in the brain th
Image of the movement studied..
"It Is a question of eliminating in every
muscular- movement by the help of will,
the untimely intervention of muscies use
less for the movement In question, and
thus ' developing attention, consciousness
and will power. Neurasthenia Is often
nothing less than . Intellectual' confusion
produced by the Inability of the nervous
system to obtain from the muscular system-
regular obedience to the order from
the brain."
Professor .Dalcroze. also links hands
wjth the closer-to-nature classical dancers,
for he remarks: "I like Joy, for it is life
I preach Joy, for it alone gives the power!
of creating useful and lasting work."
.Out-ot-doors bare-foot, dancing appears,
from the camera reports, to be a joyous
proposition. Perhaps there Is no occasion
to worry about the ultimate no-clothes-llne.-
Somebody can usually be trusted
to, step In at the psychological moment
and save the situation as Mayor Curley
of Boston did when he told some perfectly
well-meaning bare-foot society daaoers:
"Oo right home and. put your-stockings,
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