academies, which mimic such attitudes as men are supposed naturally to adopt when they perform certain actions or experience certain emotions, he will have nothing to do. Nijinsky’s gestures mimic nothing. They are not the result of a double translation of idea into words, and words into dumb show. They are the mood itself. His limbs possess a faculty of speech. Wit is expressed in his Arlequin dance as lucidly as in an epigram. His genius consists in a singular pliancy of the body to the spirit.’[C] [C] S. Hudekoff: ‘History of Dancing’ (in Russian). If Karsavina had not joined the choreographic revolutionists her dramatic talent would have had little or no opportunity to express itself, for the exponents of the old classic ballets are strictly opposed to display of natural gestures and acting. While she now exhibits a talent equal to Pavlova’s, in the old ballet she would be only half of what she is. Although her excellent dramatic sense is displayed in _Le Spectre de la Rose_, _Scheherezade_ and in several of Stravinsky’s ballets, still we have not had a chance yet to become enthusiastic over any of her abstract dances. This view we notice also expressed by many French and English critics. ‘Of her performances at Covent Garden, all were marked by such rare technique and instructed grace that it is difficult to put any one before another; but certainly she never surpassed her achievement in _Le Spectre de la Rose_. Her dancing caught the very spirit of a maiden’s revery, and nothing could have been more finely imagined than those transitions from languor into quick rushes of darting movement, which illustrate the abrupt and irrational episodes of a troubled dream. She was the very embodiment of faint desire. We felt, as it were, a breath of perfume, and were troubled in spite of ourselves. Moreover, the long partnership between the two performers seemed to have resulted in a very special and intimate harmony. For the most part they simply floated about the stage as though borne upon a common current of emotion. There was a marriage, not only between their bodily movements, but between their spirits, such as I have never noted in the union of any other dancers.’ Like the ballet _Prince Igor_, music by Borodine, scenario by Fokine, _Le Carneval_, music from Schumann, Liadoff, Glazounoff, Tcherepnine and various other sources, are nothing but dances from an opera, dances taken here and there. Neither is there any unity of theme or style in these trimmed-up panoramas. The Polovetsi dances of Borodine’s opera _Prince Igor_ are magnificent examples of savage Tartar art. The music is the very image of the hot and restless Mongolian temperament, the very breath of battle lust, the exaltation of victory. Fokine has taken a scene from the second act of the opera and patched a story together with some characters of the opera. The dance in the opera itself is wonderful. But in the ballet form, as arranged by Fokine, it is a mediocrity. IV