The Skirt Dance was essentially a compromise between the academical method of the ballet and the grotesque step-dancing which appealed to the popular taste of the time. It stood nearer perhaps to the more serious form of dancing, for in its elements, at least, it was modelled upon the method of the ballet. The exchange, the pirouette, the balance, all the first steps necessary to the ballet-dancer, are the same in both. But while retaining the academical steps as a foundation, it permitted the performer greater license in the use of them. Remembering the passionate dancing of Fanny Elssler, it would perhaps not be correct to say that it introduced more spirit into the dance; but its tendency was towards greater vividness and the play of temperament. The domination of the ballet had in some measure confined dancing to one particular method and, especially in the period of its decline, had exalted technical proficiency at the expense of the display of personality. The Skirt Dance broadened the scope of dancing. In itself never a performance of very great artistic merit, it had all the value of a revolt. It broke down the dominion of a tradition which had become too narrow. It opened up new vistas. It contained the seeds of future movements. In particular it recalled the forgotten dances of antiquity. Though essentially modern, and notably so in its lapses into vulgarity, it nevertheless suggested new possibilities in the grace of flowing drapery, the value of line, the simplicity and naturalness that were characteristic of Greek dance. But the Skirt Dance was chiefly justified by its success, which can only be described as sensational. The utter absence of enthusiasm for the academic dance made it manifest that the time was ripe for the discovery of a new form of dancing. The wit to invent the novel mode that was to revolutionise theatrical dancing in England came from Mr John D’Auban, for many years ballet-master and director of the dances at Drury Lane. It was of him that “Punch” wrote the doggerel eulogy: [Illustration: KATE VAUGHAN _Photograph: W. & D. Downey_] “Mr Johnny D’Auban, He’s so quick and nimble He’d dance on a thimble-- He’s more like an elf than a man.” In a short sketch with the unpromising title, _Ain’t she very shy?_ in which he appeared with his sister, he first introduced the Skirt Dance to the public.