N.Y.).

Al Jolson, Famous New York Winter Garden Star, Who Popularized "Mammy" Songs (White Studio, N.Y.).

Mr. Wayburn's Private Office.

"Little Old New York," Follies of 1923.

Rita Owen, with the "Follies" (White Studio, N.Y.).

Ada May (Weeks), Star of "Lollipop" (White Studio, N.Y.).

Grand Ball Room in Ned Wayburn Studios.

Marilyn Miller, Musical Comedy Star, in the "Follies," "Sally" and "Sunny" (Alfred Cheney Johnston, N.Y.).

Scene from "Ned Wayburn's Demi-Tasse Revue."

Rita Howard, Vaudeville Dancing Star, and with Ned Wayburn Productions (White Studio, N.Y.).

Corridor on Third Floor of Ned Wayburn Studios.

"By the South Sea Moon," Follies of 1922, with Gilda Gray.

Belle Baker, Vaudeville Star (Lowell, Chicago).

Business Office of the Ned Wayburn Studios.

Pearl Regay, Dancing Star in "Rose-Marie" (White Studio, N.Y.).

Eddie Cantor, Star of "Kid Boots," "Follies," etc. (White Studio, N.Y.).

Fifteen Thousand Square Feet of Floor Space, Two Floors, Comprised in Ned Wayburn's Studios of Stage Dancing, at Columbus Circle and Broadway, New York.

GILDA GRAY AND NED WAYBURN PUPILS IN “IT’S GETTING DARKER ON BROADWAY,” FOLLIES OF 1922

THE ART OF STAGE DANCING

A BIT OF ANCIENT HISTORY

EVERY age has had its ways of dancing; every people has expressed itself in some form of rhythmic motion.

The dance originally was the natural expression of the simple emotions of a primitive people. Triumph, defeat, war, love, hate, desire, propitiation of the gods of nature, all were danced by the hero or the tribe to the rhythm of beaten drums.

Over six thousand years ago Egypt made use of the dance in its religious ritual. At a very early period the Hebrews gave dancing a high place in their ceremony of worship. Moses bade the children of Israel dance after the crossing of the Red Sea. David danced before the Ark of the Covenant. The Bible is replete with instances showing the place of the dance in the lives of the people of that time.

Greece in its palmy days was the greatest dancing nation the world has ever known. Here it was protected by priesthood and state, practiced by rich and poor, high and lowly born. One of the nine muses was devoted to the fostering of this particular art. Great ballets memorialized great events; simple rustic dances celebrated the coming of the flowers and the gathering of the crops. Priestesses performed the sacred numbers; eccentric comedy teams enlivened the streets of Athens. Philosophers taught it to pupils for its salutary effect on body and mind; it was employed to give soldiers poise, agility and health.

The dance was undoubtedly among the causes of Greek vigor of mind and body. Physicians prescribed its rhythmic exercise for many ailments. Plato specifies dancing among the necessities for the ideal republic, and Socrates urged it upon his pupils. The beauty of harmonized movements of healthy bodies, engendered by dancing, had its effect on the art of Greece.

Since the days of classic Greece, scenery, music and costume have created effects then undreamed of, but notwithstanding the lack of incidental factors, the greatness and frequency of municipal ballets, the variety of motives that dancing was made to express, combine to give Greece a rank never surpassed as a dancing nation.

The Greek stage of this age was rich in scope, and for its effects drew upon poetry, music, dancing, grouping and posing.

Then came the Dark Ages of history, and in a degraded world dancing was saved and taken under the protection of the Christian church, where it remained for the greater part of a thousand years. The vehicle that carried the ballet through this period was known as the "spectacle." These sacred spectacles, in grouping, evolution, decoration and music, possessed qualities that entitle them to a respectable place in the annals of opera ballet. The steps were primitive, but they sufficed for the times.

However, the organization of the first real opera ballet conforming to standards of modern excellence did not come till the latter part of the fifteenth century, when Cardinal Riario, a nephew of Pope Sixtus IV, composed and staged a number of important ballet productions.

But the greatest development of the modern type of ballet received its impetus under the reign of Louis XIV of France, who founded the national ballet academy at Paris in 1661, and often played prominent parts himself. Under this influence great performers began to appear, artists whose work, by grace of beauty alone, attested that perfection in ballet technique was approaching.

The growth of the ballet since the time of Louis XIV has been the contribution of individual