Show DELSARTE BEGINS I Physical Culture the Reigning Social Sensation PRESENT STATUS OF TRAINING The Eldest Daughter of Frances Apoatlfr of Esthetic Movement Appears in the Drawing Room NEW YORK Dec 28 18J1rSpecial correspondence cor-respondence of Tnc SUNDAY HERALD Physical culture is one of the fads that have come to stay with us for some time This became obvious a good while ago but nothing gave the fact greater emphasis than the arrival the other day of Mme Marie Giraldy Delsarto Everybody has heard that Mme Dolsarlo is the eldest daughter of the famous Del sarte that after her fathers death shd1 presided pre-sided over the old Delsarte house at the corner of the Boulevard Courcelles and I Pare Monceau in Paris until after she became be-came successful in art that she and her sister Madelaine have both exhibited in the salon that Madelaine is one of the instructors instruc-tors in the Julian school where Maria Basukirtseff was a pupil and that Maria Delsarte is a very interesting if not a very highly gifted singer But everybody has not had the opportunity to know that Mme Delsarte is a woman of remarkably fascinating fasci-nating appearance She is not beautiful but she is charming Somebody has said that she looks like Sarah Bernhardt The resemblance is no readily detected For one thintr sho is very dark with a plenty of dark brown hair She is very French in appearance Of course the chief living exponent of Delsartism has a finely modulated modu-lated voice Of course her walk is a poem of motion Of course being French she I complacently does not speak English and you have to chat with her in the best French you have and being American your French is probably very bad almost as baa as if you were English Ii MADAME DELSARTE SINGS HER FATHERS SONGS Mine Delsarte will be occupied for a considerable con-siderable time in telling us what Delsartism t 1 is not Undoubtedly much that is laid at Delsartes door by modern teachers of physical culture and Elecution is very wide of the mark the distinguished instructor aimed to hit Mme Delsarte has already found that her fathers teachings are being very widely caricatured here thrt scores of fantastic ideas have been grafted upon the original stem of the Delsarte theory She has come to correct our notions on these points She has come to tell us that her fathers theories have more to do with the art of dramatic expression than with physical culture but she promises to show also how intimate is the relationship between be-tween the two arts Genevieve Stebbins says that what Jamb has done for exact science Buckle and Mill for history Spencer Spen-cer for culture and Ruskin for painting Delsarie has tried to do for action After having taught Rachel Soutap Pasca Mon sabre and other stage stars Delsarte died in 1871 Steele Mackaye began the Delsorte furore fu-rore in this country a good many years ago Delsartes daughter has begun a new crusade cru-sade upon onr icstbetic impulses Her first I private appearances in New York have excited ex-cited much curiosity Her dresses are not surprising yet they possess a distinctive charm She prefers very low tones She is never bizarre in anything A few lices will explain Mme Delsartes system as it applies to physical culture and in those respects which may be communicated communi-cated without a teacher The system begins be-gins with a series of exercises to attain flexibility in the body Decomposing exercises ex-ercises these are called The preliminary aesthetic gymnas ics are divided into twelve departments as follows Fingers hand forearm entire arm head torso foot lower leg entire leg entire body eyelids eye-lids lower jaw In the first exercise for instance the pupil is instructed to let the fingers fall from knuckles as if dead in that condition snake them Vital force ui I I 7 HAVE A STRAIGHT SPINE SAYS EDWIN CHEOKLET should stop at knuckles This decomposes decom-poses the fingers In the same way the head is treated Drop the head to one side decomposed it will gradually describe a half circle moving from its own weight as jou have seen persons asleep nodding In the second stage of the lessons after the pupil has learned to decompose comes the training in harmonic poise of bearing I bear-ing Then comes the relations of the I principle of trinity to thought and action ac-tion and after that a vital division treating treat-ing of the different physical elements After thIs Mme Delsarte carries her pupils into the moral division in which the pupil learns for instance that the torso has three divisions The mental zonethe seat of conscience honor manhood and womanhood moral zoneseat of the affections affec-tions vital zoneseat of the appetites The science of expression now begins to unfold and take on complications The training of expression in the eye alone is on the most scientific basis Mme Del sarto follows strictly the teachings and terminology of her father in describing the amplification of expression in the eye The terms normocontentric concentroex centric excentronormal and so on arc bewildering to beginners or the onlpoli ers but soon begin to mean something the nose is made eloquent by the mere shadow of a wrinkle Sensibility aggression aggres-sion sensuousness and other phases nra Illustrated by tho nostrils and wrinkles over tho nose The mouth naturally affords a field of profound study The grammar of pantomino leads the way to the voice of which Delsarto made a deep study Mme Delsarie here as elsewhere takes occasion oc-casion to illustrate her fathers theory by Lr TT n personal enorts ior lauier vroie a uum I ber of songs for her that he might in them and through her voice illustrate his theories theo-ries of vocal expression The few who have been admitted to Mme Delsartes salon chats since she stepped off La Gas coigne last week say that to hear her sing is an experience of a notable kind Bat few people are likely to hear Mme Del sarte sing Like her father she is extremely ex-tremely independent in her ways If Mme Delsarte is to touch physical cul ure on the highly esthetic the elocution try and the musical sides JennesaMiller is getting atiton the side of dress Jtnness Miller started out upon the line of dross reform pure and simple Her sister Mabel Jenness took up physical culture Mabel Jenness succeeded better than her sister Women lined the fundamental ideas of physical training better than they din the ideas of dress reform What Mrs Miller said in bet lecture about beautifying tho form and the complexion excited much more enthusiasm than what she said about the divided skirt The result has been that Mrs Miller now lectures very largely upon physical culture with dress reform thrown in She may have the consolation of knowing know-ing that she has leavened the dress reform loaf The divided skirt is steadily increasing increas-ing in favor and its chief advocate here has received the sincerest flattery of imitation imita-tion Mrs Miller and her growing circle of disciples iLsist that the divided skirt is indispensable not only to dress reform but to physical culture Mme Delsarte does not agree with her Neither do some other authorities But the theory is firmly entrenched en-trenched Mrs Miller says that physical culture is making great strides in this country but that we have only begun to see what it is going to do for us Meanwhile Mrs Miller is insisting that women shall have a pliant waist William Blaikio the author of How to Get Strong is a New York lawye who has done as much as anybody in this country coun-try to make good health and a strong body fashionable I was talking with Mr Blaikie the other day and found him just as enthusiastic for outdoor exercise as he was three or four years ago when his book first came out We need plenty of practical practi-cal teaching on this subject of physical training said Mr Blaikie We Americans Ameri-cans are not as thoughtful about our physical phys-ical development as wo should be I believe be-lieve in the simple remedies of wholesome natural exercise I get people walk who have been riding too much and enjoy soakIng soak-ing a reform in that direction if in no other Edwin Checkley is another teacher and writer who has been doing a good deal toward to-ward stirring up the country on the subject sub-ject of physical training Chockley who is the author of a book called A Natural Method of Physical Training is the upos I tle of the straight spine and slow breathing breath-ing theory He beat the long distance bicycle bi-cycle record without any special training and is an iconoclastic opponent of nil the train ng theories Saad sit wilt and 7f7 J HAVE A PLIAXT WAIST SATS JENNESS MILLER breathe rightly he says and you Gont need any training Checkley is I probably the most radical oC all the advocates of what might I be called physical reform He wants everybody to have a straight spine not the kind of curved spine you will find in nature or in Grays Anatomy Anat-omy but the kind of straight spine you will find In very young children Physical training would be a good thing if we could get to bo as strong as Checkley I have seen Checkley bend his leg so that the lower leg was at right angle with the upright up-right position of the body and then permit a man weighing 230 pounds to stand on his ankle Checkley wants the people to throw away their gymnastic apparatus and develop themselves from the inside Within the past few years schools of physical culture have sprung up in all parts of the country The normal schools in Boston in Brooklyn and in other cities are graduating large numbers of teachers of physical training Shall we soon be rivaling rival-ing the Greeks of the Olympian days VICTOR SIMS |