Dances of the Ages (1913)
26 May 1913 • Documentary, Short • 0h 11m
With the two principals in a ballet of forty dancers that is a feast to the eye. Back of this novelty there is woven a simple tale of an old fashioned dancing master, in his little garret room, who still clings to the old fashioned dances of grace and movement. Over his bowl of milk and crackers his head sinks to the table and in dreamland he becomes the dancing master of renown once again. At a great banquet table he meets his old cronies who have come together to discuss the progress of their art and thus, before these gray-haired men, we are shown the Dances of the Ages. On the table before them appear dainty, tiny figures who flit before their gaze; a corps of wonderful miniature dancers. They dip back in the annals of time to the pre-historic dance of primitive man, who creeps from his cave and delights his mate with his barbaric movements to the sound of her tom-tom. Now we have the slow, crawling incense and weird, snakelike movements of the Dance of the Priest of Ra, before an Egyptian temple, 1200 B.C. This fades away and time creeps down to 400 B.C. to the Grecian Bacchanalia, where garland maidens give forth their joy in the abandonment of youth and gladness. Then the ancient Orient of 200 A.D. comes before us with all the voluptuousness of that period of veiled maidens and Oriental splendor. Then the stately Minuet of 1760 is shown, quickly followed with the wild frolic of the Carnival period of France; then the Cakewalk in America and back again to France, where we see the Apache Dance, and now the dreamy waltz of all nations and finally we step upon the ladder of today and see the modern Rag. This delightful picture closes showing the old broken down dancing master trying to keep pace with the times and squirming himself into the inartistic movements and hops of modem Ragtime dances.
Director
Writer
Starring
Language:
None, English
Awards:
Country:
United States
Metacritic Score:
DVD Release Date:
Box Office Total: