‘No wonder that a reaction should set in against an art which seeks its justification in such theories; the reaction against the stereotyped ballet is a direct act of logic--it is the voice of common sense: it would be impossible that a form of art should live which is in contradiction to the principle of art. When I say “live,” I do not mean the right of existence; I take the word in its most real sense: to live, that is, to possess the elements of development. In the form into which it has developed the “classical” ballet lacks these elements--it cannot evolve; as Mr. Svetloff judiciously remarked, if every ballerina could execute seventy-five instead of “thirty-two fouettés,” it would be a greater difficulty to overcome, it would not be art developed. Thus I repeat, when I say that such a form of art as the old ballet cannot live I am not denying its right to exist, but I am indicating the absence of elements of development, the atrophy of the principle of vitality. ‘There is one point of view possible as to the “classical ballet”; it is the one form in which we see the established forms of old dances. Who will deny the charm of the minuet, of the gavotte, of the pavane? But, on the other hand, who ever will dare to say that this is the final word of plastic art? Miniature painting is a lovely art, is it not? Yet equally wrong are those who would assert that the miniature has expressed all that painting is capable of, and those who would say that miniature is “all right, but it needs enlarging.” And when we consider the ballet from the only possible point of view, from the point of view of the crystallised dance, how offensive will appear to us “gymnastics that transform themselves into fantastics.” On the other hand, we shall not be astonished when we hear the regrets of some adherents of the old “dance” in the presence of the “Scythian invasion” on that same stage where the plastic formulas of the Latin race have blossomed; only imagine it--where the gavotte and sarabanda used to reign there now bursts out the tempest of the “Tartar hordes”!’ II