BURT ANEETHE E>

TONIA DE ARAGON

& JOSE CASINO fv
SPANISH DANCERS
The Spanish Dancers have come and

gone, and while we are all looking for-
ward to their return on Dec, 2nd, -
should like to take this: opportunity of
airing some opinions,especially my ow.
Of course I do not for a moment expect
to be agreed with by everybody, but
there are times, I believe, in every~
one*s life when one achieves an almost
diabolical pleasure from bucking public
opinion.

Tonia de Aragon, especially in her
peasant numbers, afforded me the great~
est pleasure, her technique perhaps was
not of such a high standard as Cansin-
o's, but that is something that can al-
ways be gained by timeand perseverance.
Her dancing gave one the feeling that
her greatest pleasure in life was to
dance, and that her second greatest was
to convey that pleasure toher audience.
While Jose Cansino gave one the impres-
sion that all was carefully thought out
and regulated. He possessed a wonder~
ful sense of rhythm, but it left me
rather cold and with a feeling that it
must all be a tremendous task, Per=
haps he lacked the spontainiety which
carried Tonia through, in spite of her
deficiencies.

The dances themselves were chiefly
traditional. One of them, "Cordoba",
danced by Tonia de Aragon,to quote from
the program,"reveals the deeply religi-
ous mood of many of the Spanish tradi-
tional dances", In this she wore a pure
white costume. It was danced in a more
sombre mood than any of the others,tho'
I did not feel thatthe dancer showed to
the same advantage as in suchnumbers as
"Rapsodia Calenciana","the dance of the
flower vendor", orthe duet with Cansino
"“Nortenas" the dance ofa young shepherd
from the mountains and a village girl.

Before I go any further I must remark
on the extraordinary way in which they
both handled the castanets, One can
realize that it must take years ofstudy
to produce such perfect technique. They

practically provided another musical in

strument, reflecting the varying moods
and tempos. For example, this was ap=
parent in "Jota Aragonesa” a typical

peasant dance from the Province of Ara-
gon, the carefree entrance of the girl,
then the flight at the approach of the
boy, his searching and the shrug of the
shoulders when she does not appear,and
finally the apologetically shynote when
she comes running from the wings. All
these changes of ideas are conveyed not
only through the interpretation of the
body, but also the castanets, until one
can almost imagine that the dancers are
actually making their characters talk
through this medium.

All the costumes were excellently de-

signed and the coloring artistic. In
such cases as "La Corrida", a fantasy
depicting an amateur bullfighter, the

orange lining of the cloak used to en-
rage the bull gave the needed dramatic
touch. This characteristic was appar-
ent in each number,

In conclusion I might say thatthe
audience, strangely enough for Vancou-
ver,appeared to be completely unanimous
in its genuine pleasure in these two
delightful artists, although it wasnot-
iced (muchto my annoyance) that a group
of people in the row immediately in
front made no attempt to applaud all
through the program, which meant that
others including myself were forced to
work overtime to make up for this lack
of appreciation. But give Vancouver
time to accustom herself to this class
of entertainment and the Art, of the
Dance will be more fully appreciated,