c. 1920-1921 — Season of the Dance, Champs Elysées Theatre, Paris France

There is perhaps a life after this one here. I do not know what we shall have. But this I do know: — our riches here on earth are our wills and our imaginations. . . .

When I was twenty I loved the German philosophers. I read Kant, Schopenhauer, Haeckel and others. I want an Intellectual! When I was twenty-two I offered my school to Germany. The Kaiserin responded that it was ‘Immoral!’ and the Kaiser said it was ‘Revolutionary!’ Then I proposed my school to America but they said there that it stood for ‘the vine . . . and Dionysus.’ Dionysus is Life, is the Earth, and America is the land where they drink lemonade. And how can one dance on lemonade? I then proposed my school to Greece, but the Greeks were too busy fighting the Turks. To-day I propose my school to France, but France in the person of the amiable Minister of Fine Arts gives me a smile. But I cannot nourish the children of my school on a smile. They must live on fruits and the milk and honey of Hymettus . . . As for me I await. “Help me get my school. If not I will go to Russia with the Bolshevists. I know nothing about their politics. I am not a politician. But I will say to the leaders “Give me your children and I will teach them to dance like Gods or . . . assassinate me.” They will give me my school or they will assassinate me. For if I have not my school I would like better to be killed. It would be much better. . . . ”

I have danced the Marseillaise today because I love France. I have journeyed much in the countries of the civilized world I can say from the bottom of my heart — France is the only country that understands Liberty, Life, Art, and Beauty: France is the only one.

I have great hopes for Russia: at this moment she is passing through the pains of childhood but I believe she is the future for Artists and the Spirit. 

You know why you are here to-day. It is not for me, nor for yourselves, but for the little children who will dance in the future . . .

I have not invented my dance. It existed before me but it lay dormant. I merely discovered and awakened it. . . . 

When I speak of my “school” people do not understand that I do not want paying pupils: I do not sell my soul for silver. I do not want the rich children. They have money and “no need of Art.” The children I long for are the orphans of the war who have lost everything things and have no more their fathers or their mothers. As for me I have little need of money. Look at my costumes. They are not complicated: they cost very little. Look at my decors, these simple blue curtains I have had since I first started dancing. As for jewels — I have no need of them. A flower is more beautiful in the hands of a woman than all the diamonds and pearls in the world. Do you not find it so? . . .

They do not understand why I wish to keep the children in a school: why I do not want them to come to me each day from their homes and return to them each evening. It is because that when they return to these homes they will not be properly nourished, either mentally or physically. I want my pupils to know Shakespeare and Dante and Æschylus and Moliére. I want them to read and know the masterminds of the world . . .

To dance is to live. And that is what I want — a school of Life. For the riches of man are his soul and his imagination. Give to me: ask your President to give to me one hundred war-orphans and in five years I will give you — this I promise — beauty and riches beyond imagining.

There is perhaps a life after this one here. I do not know what we shall have. But this I do know: — our riches here on earth are our wills and our imaginations. . . .

Source: “The Dancer Speaks” by Allan Ross MacDougall, The Touchstone, Vol VIII, No. 5, February 1921 (Mary Fanton Roberts) pp. 337-339.