538 ‘he Roaring Twentias: Cobaret and Urban Entertinment Ressian’ stage speak. They do not delaim; they do not present somethings they are not supposed to be works of act, they speak They speak atd we understand. 232 KATHARINA RATHAUS Charleston: Every Age Has the Dance It Deserves Fic plied as “Chaleston, Jd Zeit ha den Tame, den sie verdant,” Une 3 (292, 130-12, "The waltz is dead—and all atterapts to revuseitate it are failing and destined to fil, For the times have changed! and with them, like a natural necessity, so must the dances. Today, when a new car rolls out of Ford’ factory every minute, when “Valencia” and the latest hits are played simultaneously in major cities and the smallest provincial nests, when radio ‘makes it possible for us and the deepest forest dwellers to check out simultaneously the applause earned by the closing Charleston in the Savoy Hotel in London, in Berlin's pace-setting Dance Palace, or in Paris—today the movement and rhythm of dance is different than it was in the cozy times of the blessed St-auss. They are creatures of the new mobility of life, of its whipped-up and racing tempo! They are full ofthe new spirit, and the new should not be judged, good or bad, 100 quickly! The notion of the “good old times” is marked by a fear of the new, and skepticism over the new dances usually goes ‘along with an inability to dance thema, And as the “new" is always the slogan of the young, J sodoes the new generation fasten is cxcited grip onthe new dances, [tsenses hat theempry ‘bowls of the old Europe will offer no new nourishment fer the blood, that the burned-out ‘temperament of the European centers of culture can convey to the body no unsuspected, { electrifying rhythm, The mechanization and democratization of life force upon its mem- bers new and other movements, Instead of dancing dances n a strolling gait with the spirit, of a bygone era, the younger generation takes its inspiration from the original motions of ‘primitive peoples, from an unaffected return tothe rhythmic, musical experiences of naive «souls, If such borrowed steps, perhaps movement fragirents of savage peoples, end up ‘melted together with the remnants of Western culcurc, tempered in the ovens of modern, jew iff they find their final form in the molds ofa talented dancer's sense of style, te be vooled finally into social dances at partics and balls by the conventione of our ddemocratic-bourgeois miliew-—who would wonder then that hearts and legs fy, race t9 | them, dance in exultation! For dance speaks to the blood and to the beat of the heart, not 10 reason! The associations of international deace teaches persist in thei yearly effort, vain, “o invent” new dances. All “invented” dances ae stillborn children. They lve 2 few fleeting days and hours. ll the dance teachers in the world are incapable of forcing their artifical products on the dancing crowds, which instinctively defend themselves ‘against the rape of their movemcot by affectation. Oa the entraty the nev original dance; ‘Terpsichote's modern face, made-up, powdered, and painted according to the current dictate of fashions bobbed hair in the latest eu; expe de Chine streamers just r0 che kknce—none ofthis needs advertising. This dance gets it owa recruits, makes its own way, discharges itself (with occasional farcical misunderstendings) amid the thunder ofa jazz band like storm! Itcleanses tradition ofthe dus of decades, inflame blasé dance fanatics‘he Roaring Twenties: Coboret and Urban Enterinment 359 new, shows all those excited by dance the chythm of cei life, their feelings and thoughts Ie answers to the name Charleston 233 IVAN GOL. ‘The Negroes Are Conquering Europe Fie polithed ot "Die Negererobern Europ,” Die leariche Welt no.» Qanssey 1, 1926), 3-4 ‘The Negroes are conquering Paris, They are conquering Berlin. They have already filled the whole coatinent with their howls, with their laughter. And we are not shocked, we are not amazed: onthe contrary, the old world calls on its failing strength to applaud them. ‘Yesterday some of us were still saying, artis dead!—the terrible confession ofa lifeless cenervated, hopeless age. Art dead? Then original art, superior ar, lives again! The last art was: disintegration of the ego; disintegration of the world; despair over the workd in the egos the constant, mad revolution ofthe ego about itself. We experience that inal the ‘brenty-year-old novelists finding fame in Paris jut now—and there are dozens of them. Benn wress the one bloody book in his life from his torment and calls it—still young— ‘pilog, Thatis almost more tragic than (Heinrich von] Kleist’ suicide. And what otherwise is not the product of such pain remains precious and fin-desitel, thin and frivolous ‘And yet, why complain? The Negroes are her. All of Europe is dancing to thee banjo. It cannot hep ittelf. Sore say it isthe chythm of Sodom and Gomorrah. ... Why should it not be from paradise? In this cas, rise and fall are one. “The Revue Négre, which is rousing the tted public in the Théatee des Champs-Elysées tw thrills and madness as otherwise only « boxing match ear do, is symbolic. [Negroes dance with their senses, (While Europeans can only dance with their minds) | “They dance with ther leg, breasts, and bellies Tis was the duace of the Egyptians the | whole of ansiquicy, che Orient. This isthe dance ofthe Negroes One can only envy them, | for thie is life, sun, primeval forests, the singing of birds and the roar of a leopard, earth. “They never dance naked: and yet, how naked i the dance! They have put on clothes only to show that clothes do not exist for them. “Their revue is an unraitigated challenge to moral Europe. There are eight beautiful girls whose figures conjure up a stylized purity, reminiscent of deer and Greck youths. ‘And at their head, the star, Josephine Baker. They have all eed their curly hair smooth ‘witha process just invented in New York. And on these rounded heads they don hats of manifold feshions, from 2830, 900, or by the designer Lewis. This mix exudes a glowing irony. A belly dance is performed ia a brocade dress by Poitet.In front of a church that could have been painted by Chagall, dressed in bourgeois skirts like women going to market, they dance around a white, bespectacled pastor strumming banjo (American Negroes are pious and feithful Christians —you only have to listen to their modern songs to know that). They dance a dance one might expect in a luratie asylum. Ie confronts us all it confronts everything with the strange impression of a snarling parody. And itis parody. They make fun of themselves when they perform the “Dance | of the Savages” with the same mockery, wearing only the usual Join cloth and—a silk | I brassiere.