music and the dance to the
performer, whether on the professional or the amateur stage, is not
given the consideration to which it is entitled. Perhaps nobody in the
audience cares whether or not the dancer is enjoying the dance. But
let me tell you, the dancer is having just as good a time up there on
the stage as you are down in front; and probably you never gave the
matter a thought!

The dancers' enjoyment of the art is an essential factor in the causes
that lead to the popularity of our modern type of stage entertainment.
To have acquired proficiency in their chosen profession the dancers
have labored strenuously and long, and now the reward of years of
effort is theirs. They love their art as well as its emoluments. By
industry and perhaps frugality they have acquired an independent
career for life. They have made much of their opportunities. They have
a right to be happy. And they are.

Probably no man ever lived who knows personally so many dancing folks
as I do, and among all my stage acquaintances and friends I can count
on a very few fingers the number that I would not class as supremely
happy in their profession, and those few who might be considered as
unhappy are made so by circumstances entirely apart from the stage,
or, in a few instances, because of their own folly and indiscretions.
The stage world is a happy world in the main. Its rewards are abundant
in friendships as well as in cash, and the happiness radiated to you
from behind the footlights is the direct result of the happiness that
permeates the very being of the smiling favorite of the gods whose
efforts to please you have met with your approbation. So the pleasure
of dancer and spectator are in a degree mutual, which in great measure
explains the fascination that the dancing show has for the public.

In nearly every amateur stage performance in my long experience there
have been present some few who exhibited natural ability as dancers,
and possessed foundation requirements for professional stage work. In
cases where these favored ones have placed themselves under my
instruction their improvement has been rapid and sure.

There is no such thing as an untrained successful dancer; there never
has been; there never will be. Given that one has the ability
requisite to a knowledge of the dance, the rest comes from active
training, and nothing else. And by "ability" I do not mean experience,
but rather that natural talent to step to music and ob