Highland Dance

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Montage réalisé à partit des photogrammes publiés dans la revue Harper's Young People, nº 15, 22 mai 1894, p. 500-501.

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Highland Dance 

EDI 1894-12

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1 Edison  
2 W.K.L. DicksonWilliam Heise
3 ≤ 22/05/1894 50 ft
 

The pictures, sixty-five of them, show a Scotch lad and lassie dancing a reel. In the Nº. 1 there is the beginning of it. Both figures are on their feet. They are not dancing yet. The introductory bars of the music, the bagpipes, have just started. Look at Nº. 3. The man has his left foot a trifle raised from the floor, but the woman has not. Her arms begin to rise in the Nos. 4, 5, 6, and 7, and the man is about turning. In the Nº. 10 he has struck his dancing gait. Necessarily he can't hop around on the same foot all the time, and so he is putting that foot on the floor, so as to get another spring. That foot comes to the floor in the No. 13.
The dancer is ready now to take his partner and to spin her round, and she shows that she is preparing for that. In No. 18, you will see what was at first but a slight bending of her knee becomes more marked than in No. 16. In Nos. 17 and 18 she is jigging it. No. 19 shows the turning round of the figures at its commencement. The scarf of the man in No. 18, as the movement is getting to be more rapid, is beginning to stream out. Do not forget to watch the shadows, because they vary all the time with the position of the figures.
In the No. 20 the positive change of place is marked. It is the man in No. 25 who has now his back to you. The lassie is hidden, all but her hand and wrist, where she has them on his shoulder.
From Nos. 27 to 40 the lady is coming more and more to the front. The man is now entirely to the right, and the woman to the left. They have changed places after 42. They are to resume their first positions. In the whirl, see the movement of the scarf of both the dancers. They dance faster and faster, until in No. 61 they are about as when they started. The spin is rapid, because the woman's skirt indicates that.
What the prints do not show are the shuffle of the feet of the dancers, and how they mark the time; the graceful sway of the figures, or how they rise and fall, following the musical rhythm; or how the feathers in the man's bonnet bob up and down; or the changing expressions on the faces of the lad and lassie.
Place the pictures in the Edison box, however; start the machinery, and the actual movement is all there. Man and woman caper away, heel and toe, and there is no flagging. It is just as vivid as if it were a performance on the stage and you saw it from the boxes.
You must not be afraid of the explanation, and how the kinetographic pictures are made, and of the working of the machine.


Harper's Young People 15, 22 May 1894, 500.

4 États-Unis, West Orange, Black Maria
 

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17/03/1895 MexiqueMéxico John R. Roslyn  Danza escocesa  
04/06/1895 Grande-BretagneÎle de Man, Derby Castle H.S. Williams Saloon 
16/04/1896 Grande-Bretagne, Londres
John N. Maskelyne  
 
A number of Highland dancers are scarcely quick enough in their movements.
The Era, London, 18 April 1896, 16.

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