Page:Angna Enters - Among the Daughters.djvu/408

 the dance. Miss Ilona Klemper. Here is no artist content to pander to theatricalism, for in Miss Klemper we see a dancer consecrated, in the Grecian high priestess sense, to the expression of those inner subconscious states that cannot be portrayed literally. It is said Miss Klemper has evolved her own credo which she defines as muscular thinking in empty space. "He means," Vida commented, "she told him that's what it is when I heard her coaching him. It's a cute device though, pretending he doesn't know her personally, makes him seem impartial. Let's look at the other papers."

"No, read it," said Lucy expressionlessly.

"Well, you can read it all if you want to—I'll just pick out a few gems." She read:

"The props have been swept away from the old standards of judgment. The one thing that the new dance can be relied on not to possess is fixed standard of any sort. "Well, isn't that comfortable," said Vida ironically. "That's an alibi if I ever heard one. This new dance can be a chameleon reversing itself at will, and so be up to the minute if something good or popular comes along that it can plagiarize." She read:

"Here was no dance to be enjoyed and understood at the first viewing. It is a work of functional chaste eroticism, yet though it is primitive in spirit it has an abstract quality that is of the modernist movement. It is perfectly safe to say that not a single spectator, not even those who cheered, can say what the work was all about, though it was gripping and emotionally moving. It is so because the dance is not aimed at the usual organs of understanding, there is nothing in the least objective about it. It slips through the sensory perceptions, produces a series of profound emotional reactions, and effects an ultimate release without ever touching on the accustomed areas of intellection. It produces that catharsis—" Vida broke off. "I'm not going to read any more."

"I don't understand all that," Lucy said tonelessly.

"That's because you use the usual organs of understanding. There's nothing to understand—it's a lot of gibberish made up of modern art catchwords."

"But doesn't he say anything about Ranna and me?"

"Let's see. Oh yes, you're mentioned." She read: 396