Ballerina Applauds Etiquette

Small, black hair, a crisp English accent, expressive features, vivacious, so unpretentious you can hardly believe she is connected with the egotistical world of the stage, she is the first who put in a good word for American audiences. She explains: “In London, they applaud, certainly.” Setting down her teacup, she pats her palms together to show what she means. “But they applaud at the end, it may be for 10 minutes but it comes at the end. And if anyone at all applauds in between, he’s sure to be shushed.”– Renowned British ballerina, Dame Margot Fonteyn

Toes to the Grindstone...

She Applauds Theater Etiquette

“It does not” . . . with a sharp, clipped, emphatic “not”. . . “upset us to be applauded and I want people to know it,” says Margot Fonteyn. Star of the famous Sadler’s Wells Ballet company, she is the first person among many who put in a good word of this kind for American audiences. She explains: “In London, they applaud, certainly.” Setting down her teacup, she pats her palms together to show what she means. “But they applaud at the end, it may be for 10 minutes but it comes at the end. And if anyone at all applauds in between, he’s sure to be shushed.” “Here in America,” she continues happily, “the audiences applaud the scenery when the curtain first goes up, they applaud the dancer when she first appears, they applaud any difficult step. They applaud at the end, too, but in between is just as delightful to us.” When she returns to her tea, it’s time to make a note: Small, black hair, a crisp English accent, expressive features, vivacious, so unpretentious you can hardly believe she is connected with the egotistical world of the stage. 

But make a further note: English though she is, you can't do her justice in English, you have to resort to other courtly, romantic languages: She is prima ballerina assoluta, she is petite, she is sans pareil. Miss Fonteyn does little or nothing except dance. She must sleep, to be sure, and she eats, but only a little. She has a one-track life. “Recreation none,” says the English “Who's Who.” She took one trip to Coney Island, but for the sake of the record, not for amusement; she is a dancer who keeps her toes to the grindstone. Though she could no doubt do her roles in “Swan Lake,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Les Sylphides” and other classics in her sleep, she still must rehearse. When you see her do a difficult step in the course of an evening, it is at least the third or fourth time she has done it that day, at a rehearsal and, always when there is time, in the last intermission before the step is danced. “We rehearse,” she says, “not in the hope that anything will go perfectly, but just so that only a minimum of things go wrong.” Furthermore, she's always ready at curtain time. – (UPI) New York, 1953

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia