Healthy motion

Women'sStudiesInternationalForum,Vol.19, No. 5, pp. 551-565,1996 Copyright© 1996ElsevierScienceLtd Printedin the USA.Allrightsreserved 0277-5395/96$15.00+ .00

Pergamon

PH 80277-5395(96)00046-5

HEALTHY MOTION Images of "Natural" and "Cultured" Movement in Early Twentieth-Century Britain RICHENDAPOWER Open University,WaltonHall, Milton Keynes,Buckinghamshire,UK

Synopsis - - "Physical culture" became an issue for the individualand "the nation" in Britain during the 1920s and 1930s. Programmesof movementpromised physicaland mentalintegration,increasinghealth and efficiency.The State had taken responsibilityfor educating for self-disciplineby placing physical training (PT) on the school curriculum.Private associationsdevoted to dance for health and "aesthetic" reasons attracted numerous women. Two of their leaders, Margaret Morris and Prunella Stack, became members of the Government's "National Fitness Campaign" (1937). Within the concern for "fitness" were fears of another war. At another level, notions of the loss of "nature" through "civilisation"were used through representationsof healthy motionby ''the native" or ''the ancient Greek." The fundamental responsibilityfor women was the health of the nation from the cradle, with dance seen as the path to health. Using a post colonial framework we may analyse these as specifically British ideas about the body and movement. Copyright © 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd

I M A G E S O F " N A T U R A L " AND "CULTURED" MOVEMENT Carved in white stone on "The People's Palace ''l (1936) in East London are low relief forms by the s c u l p t o r Eric G i l l r e p r e s e n t i n g D r a m a , Music, Fellowship, Dance, and Sport. "Dance" and "Music" are w o m e n clad in close clinging simple wavy h e m m e d dresses, showing bare arms, legs, and feet. "Sport" and "Fellowship" use pairs of m e n in long shorts with bare muscular legs. "Sport" is boxing: "Fellowship" is indicated by a handshake, one man holding a staff. These representations of bodies in movement are particular to the space and time of their making. Their c u r r e n c y can be traced in some British texts of the 1920s and 1930s that deal with m o v e m e n t and health. The thread I My mother, Alethea Watterson (n6e Stevenson), who trained in Theatrical Dance with Margaret Morris during the 1930s, has been a major source of books, materials,and retrospective descriptions. I am indebted to her. For other major archival contributions, I thank Maureen Duck and Joan Lay, both of whom were brought up in the "nature cure" movement. For encouragementand reading suggestions, I thank Heidi Mirza. 551

am using to draw them together for this article is a c o m m o n m o b i l i s a t i o n of images of the "Other," whether an homogenised "native" or a "classical" body (usually a n c i e n t Greek), in pleas to effect change in White British bodies of the early t w e n t i e t h century. T h e desired changes differ according to gender: dancing woman, athletic man. Additionally, sometimes the justifications for these desires seem to vary according to the class of the bodies discussed by the writer. The historical materials used were gathered mainly during research (Power, 1984, 1989) on issues arising in the professionalisation process of British "Nature Cure," or "naturopathy," in the p e r i o d 1 9 3 0 - 1 9 5 0 . ( " N a t u r e C u r e " has been a broad collection of ideas that challenge conventional medicine's philosophy of "cure" by suppression, by using "natural" methods to promote health: movement, wholefood and raw dietary, fresh air, and so on.) The critical study of representations prevalent in the discourses of these texts is of use in unpacking the constitution of a variety of White British ideas of "healthy" motion between the two World Wars. As Rania Aziz (1992) states:

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A focus on representation as a social act allows us to understand the ways in which the historical, the biological, and the material are given a reality and meaning through language. It offers us a more complex conception of power as exercised in all manner of social interactions. (p. 304) Achieving a "complex conception of power" helps to deconstruct monolithic notions of its process and teases out the action of power at its "capillaries." The images I shall discuss may be understood in the context of Britain's imperialism and industrialisation, during which colonial discourses were produced from a Eurocentric point of view, which "have an abiding presence in the USA and Britain" (Mani, 1992, p. 309). The ways in which these images were used in the 1920s and 1930s may seem crudely obvious in their racist, sexist, and ablist assumptions now, but tracking them helps render the contemporary "ordinary" strange, increasing the power of contemporary critical analysis of dominant representations still mobilised to constrain and divide today. It may be that these representations shift beyond "language" via embodiments of particular ways o f moving and experiencing. The demand to produce printed text rather than performance reduces the communicability of this possibility, but I include various two dimensional images to assist the readers' imaginations. Starting from some photographs and associated textual material from the 1920s and 1930s, I move on to using retrospective accounts and interview material. However, firstly, the context of these cultural productions is briefly outlined. B R I T I S H C O N C E R N S B E T W E E N THE F I R S T AND SECOND W O R L D WARS Physical culture and training became matters of increasing public interest both at the individual level and at organised national level during the 1920s and 1930s. For the individual, many books were published offering programmes of exercise and movement that promised to integrate the person mentally and physically, giving greater health and efficiency of all personal functions. See Figure 1, from Psycho-Physical Culture, for an example (Sanford, 1938). The pose illustrated in Figure 1 is named "gladiatorial," presumably based on a "classi-

Fig. 1. "Gladitodalexercise for correlating mind and body" (Sanford, 1938).

cal" (Greek or Roman) one, that is, a specifically European notion of "classical." Its adversarial nature may well have been significant as a mental empowering for women. Styles recommended in other books of this genre, where movement was specifically recommended for its mental, physical, and sometimes spiritual, health-giving properties seem to derive from two sources: one, with its base in "primitive," "native" movements observed and recorded by European anthropologists, the other from an ancient Western civilisation, as "discovered" on Greek artefacts by archaeologists. Note the apparently conflicting ideologies behind this choice of sources: The first of an essentially "natural," "savage" (i.e., "uncivilised") movement, the second of a past "golden age" of physical perfection, a time when the body was portrayed in sculpture of the gods and feats of athletic, Olympian ability were recorded. What these apparently contradictory images seem to do is to reflect the desires of those using them for the restoration of some lack. For

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example, since the late nineteenth century there were fears about the deterioration of the health of the male population in Britain. A government "Interdepartmental C o m m i t t e e on Physical Deterioration" had argued the case for methodical physical training early in the century. These concerns were ever more pressing a decade after the 1914-1918 war: "35% of the men who pass the recruiting officers are being rejected on medical examination and the proportion turned down at sight by the recruiting officers is very much higher" (from General Sir Matthew Fells' speech at the British Medical Association Council dinner, 1926; Lane, 1927, p. 5). Physical training and movement education (the general promotion of which Anderson, 1982, referred to as "the ' m o v e m e n t ' movement") were constructed with reference to a perceived population need. At the same time nutritional science was being developed as an academic discipline in Britain. Much of the knowledge being developed, and argued for, was stimulated by experimental and observational studies in various British colonies (e.g., Howard, 1940; McCarrison, 1936). This colonial context, based on the close survey and observation of "native" bodies, is highly significant to much of the discussion about healthy diet, light, and movement in Britain. There was a eugenic context that placed much emphasis on breeding and rearing the healthy "race" (e.g., Stopes, 1935). Maternal and infant mortality were becoming increasingly pressing issues against the background of massive population increase in Britain in the late nineteenth century. Class distinctions came to the fore in some of the debates about reproduction with middle-class fears about a faster rate of proliferation of the working classes. A minority campaigned for food reform, dress reform, o p e n air schools, calls for a "return to the land" and various methods of "physical culture" (e.g., Bemarr MacFadden's (1899) magazine Physical Culture; the formation of the Nature Cure Association partly via the pages of Edgar Saxon's journal The Healthy Life (the Nature Cure Association was formed in the early 1920s; the journal went on for much longer); Sir Arbuthnot Lane's Secrets of Good Health, 1927). More mainstream efforts were geared to ensuring accessible healthy food for all through, for example, the campaigns for free milk for children, school meals, early welfare benefits, and so on (Lewis, 1980).

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Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the responsibility for discipline in the form of physical training became increasingly that of the State, at least for those lower middle- and working-class children under school-leaving age. Physical Education was taught, and "posture became the keynote of the gymnastic curriculum" according to Anderson (1982), who quoted from a Report by the Medical Department of the Board of Education (1932): The ultimate criterion of the success of any scheme or system of physical training is the carriage, mobility and equilibrium of the h u m a n body. I f there is one test o f the strength, tone and balance of the body it is posture, for this depends on the coordination of the muscles' action on the skeleton. Good posture indicates health and soundness; bad posture the reverse. (p. 81) If the sight of "good posture" meant "health and soundness" we may conclude that bodies that could not stand up, or exhibit "balance," were assumed to be "unhealthy" and/or "unsound," between which words there was, and still is, much slippage. Such ablist ideas should disturb the reader six decades later, but, like ideas in colonial discourses, seem to have had an "abiding presence" in discourse about health, movement, and the body. Figlio (1978) claimed that "identification of health with self discipline was a common form of mediated social control in the nineteenth century" (p. 606), which he linked to the issue of "the demand for a stable, disciplined work force, internalised as personal responsibility for health and illness." (The latter notion continues to have a significant presence in the literature of health promotion despite decades of socialist criticism.) Trevelyan (1946) described the sort of self-discipline instilled early into the upper and middle classes in public schools from the mid-nineteenth century onwards: It was the era of "muscular Christianity," strenuousness and cold baths, organised games, particularly cricket and football, were spreading fast in schools, universities and ordinary life. Walking and the new diversion of mountain climbing were characteristic of an energetic and athletic generation; even ladies were now allowed to walk. (p. 549)

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The "ladies" referred to were also from the upper and middle classes. Men and women workers were assumed to be physically active. Concurrent with the development of PT for the young in State schools came the private establishment of various associations for the public (e.g., "Women's League of Health and Beauty" and "Margaret Morris M o v e m e n t " [MMM]). Also relevant to physical culture were the outdoor pursuits of such movements as Guiding and Scouting. These phenomena seem to constitute evidence of attempts to reverse or ameliorate the effects of industrialisation and city living on the majority of the population in Britain by the early twentieth century. But the ideological content of the "return to nature" should not be forgotten either (see, e.g., C l a y r e ' s , 1977, Nature and lndustrialisation). Here I deal solely with the use of images of "natives" and the "Greeks of old," with reference to how they were used, and particularly for the promotion of health for women, and via women "the race." An emphasis is maintained on the image as a reflection of desire by the user, in these cases due to various senses of loss or need for change. In keeping a focus on the White European "knowledge" constructor, I want to acknowledge the importance of the works of Said (1978), Young (1990), Mani (1992), and Aziz (1992). As Young (1990) put it, "the colonial subject forms a metonymic mirror image of Europe as sovereign subject" (p. 212). LOSS A'VrRIBUTED T O " C I V I L I S A T I O N " "The White man's burden" Constipation was the main topic of The Culture of the Abdomen (Hornibrook, 1924). It was in its seventh edition by 1929 and carried a recommendation by Arnold Bennett, a popular British writer, who claimed to have proved its methods with his own body. In Figure 2, a page from this book, Hornibrook is shown sitting in a group p h o t o g r a p h captioned " m y Fijian pupils." Whilst he took care to specify the nationality of the men whose pictures he used, he tended to be less specific in his text, treating "native movement" worldwide as "essentially" "natural" and not culturally specific. At a further remove from this, in a foreword by another Homibrook, FRCS, to the seventh edition, the a u t h o r ' s e x e r c i s e s were d e s c r i b e d as

Fig. 2. "A group of Fijian pupils of mine whose splendid physique scarcely needs emphasising. The ease of posture in both seated and standing attitudes is well shown" (Hornibrook, 1929).

"founded on the movements of the prehistoric dance" (Hornibrook, 1929, p. vii). There is an ethnocentric and racist notion on the part of the White European that the colonised subject is essentially "Other" and fixed in prehistory. "The loaded colon is actually the white man's burden" Hornibrook (1929, p. 11) claimed. The cure of constipation was via a system of exercises and movements based on "native" rocking and rolling pelvic m o v e m e n t s . He wrote, "Modem conditions preclude the possibility of a life of physical culture, but there are few situations where its total neglect is either obligatory or excusable" (Hornibrook, 1929, p. 1). We can read such a work in terms of its second order construction from a first order by European "experts" (e.g., anthropologists, missionaries, doctors) of "knowledge" about the colonised. The picture given is of Europeans, discontented with the state of their health and life, projecting their fantasies about a previously "unspoiled," "uncivilised" state onto the colonised. Such texts lack any sense of the changes already wrought by the impact of the coloniser on the colonised subjects' experiences. Nor is there any awareness of the possible construction by those observed, in this case, dancing, of putting on a special show for the colonisers (e.g., see Gilroy, 1995, regarding minstrelsy, etc.). I am not concerned here to raise issues of authenticity. My focus is on the European sense of loss expressed in the mobilisation of these constructed images. Homibrook (1929) elaborated on the problem of the West in describing "middle life": "bur-

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dened with enfeebled bodies, adipose deposits, pendulous bellies, constipated bowels and impaired mental activity" (p. 1). His rhetoric then contrasts the appearance of the "natives": "In the annals of the early voyagers we find repeated allusions to the symmetrical proportions and graceful movements of the natives with whom they came in contact" [quotes f r o m C o l u m b u s , 1492] . . . . Amongst such peoples the same holds good at the present time where they have escaped the demoralising effects of civilising influences. (pp. 1-2) His aim was to extract techniques of "bodily cultivation by the uncivilised races," and to focus the reader's attention he stressed, "the predominant feature, the keynote of the argum e n t . . , is summed up in the word posture. For is not exercise a series of postures; yea, more, are not thought and speech the preliminary formation of all postures?" (Hornibrook, 1929, p. 3). Homibrook's work was echoed by others. In an article on constipation Edgar Saxon (1936) wrote:

Cultivate an easy self-respecting carriage of the whole body. Military positions are not wanted. As that acute and supreme observer of bodily carriage, Mr Matthias Alexander, 2 insists, we should carry our bodies from the top of the head . . . . It means that instead of shovelling ourselves along the pavement by pushing first one leg in front and then the o t h e r . . , we should actually WALK, really SIT, and unmistakably RISE to our feet. Alas, a hundred malefic influences have so leeched the feeling for fight movement from our s o u l s . . , the sense of easy and dignified movement lingers only among Arabs, highcaste Hindus, unspoiled Polynesians, Zulus and other so-called inferior races of mankind. (pp. 52-53) Of the multiple assumptions made by Saxon (the White Anglo), I shall just pick out one that speaks of his relationship to his readers. Who was his audience? The addressees are considered to feel superior to those they assume to be less civilised. But perhaps Saxon is aware of the beginnings of a questioning of the belief,

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hence the use of "so-called inferior races of mankind." The Britain in which he wrote was steeped in racism, the colonisers' attitudes were taken for granted, and these ethnocentric patronising texts were part of a privileged discourse. Again, Saxon's sense of loss is apparent. "The feeling for fight movement" is held to be "leeched .... from our souls" by "a hundred malefic influences." Bewailing and detailing the latter and calling for reform was the mission of Health and Life. A primary reason Hornibrook (1929) had given for this loss of "right movement" (of body, and as a consequence, of bowel, not mentioning the "soul") was as follows: "The faulty bowel habit of the individual is attributable to the ignorance of those responsible for his upbringing, and constitutes the initial error" (p. 9). Mother or "nurse" was held responsible through repressive, too early toilet training. Additionally, "Until quite recently the young female w a s . . , taught to conceal the very fact that she had a secretory apparatus of any kind" (p. 9). Discreetly advertised, facing the frontispiece of Homibrook's (1929) book is Exercises for Women by Ettie A. Hornibrook, with a description: '~l'he primary aim of this book is to direct careful thought to the lower half of the body of woman [italics added], for the purpose of improving her health and appearance, and increasing her happiness."

"Civilised" woman's "lower half" The careful concern with the correct evacuation of the pelvis was extended for "civilised" women from defecation to childbirth. Squatting was promoted as the correct method to promote proper pelvic development (see Figure 3). Kathleen Vaughn (1993) had written about dental and pelvic development in Britain and India, publishing in the prestigious British Medical Journal. Presumably, she was another European making comparative observations of the women she encountered in the course of her work. We shall never answer the question why we lose 3,500 mothers a year in England by limiting our enquiry to childbirth itself. We need a much bigger review embracing the world, and I can confidently state that in all places and amongst all nations the open-air dweller from childhood is the woman who

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means adopted to "restore the figure" was the application of a tight abdominal binder. It certainly gives the patient a feeling of comfort by the support afforded, but, so far as helping to restore the muscles to their normal state, the binder might as well have been tied round the bedstead. (pp. 40-41) He attempted to explain why European knowledge about the body was in such a poor state: Amongst Europeans, bodily culture has been a side issue, having for its aim the attainment of excellence in some form of sport which is either pursued as a means of livelihood, or as a purely personal ambition. With many so-called native races, physical culture is as much a part of their existence as mental culture is with us. (Hornibrook, 1929, p. 14) •

Fig. 3. "Natural squatting position of a child at play - - a position that promotes a normal pelvis" from The Healthy Life (1933, February). Note. Reprinted with kind permission of The C. W. Daniel Co. Ltd.

produces the finest children with the least risk to herself . . . . Civilisation with its indoor life, its ceaseless scramble for material wealth is the enemy of both child and mother, and eventually leads to its own downfall by destroying the race at its source - - the cradle• (Vaughn, 1933, pp. 180-181) Fears about the destruction of the health of the English were clearly the author's main concern. We may view the fear in several ways: the immediate one of the British gynaecologist's encounter with difficult childbirth, infant, and maternal mortality; the uncertainties of the p o s t w a r period in terms of p r o d u c t i o n o f healthy "manpower" (for military protection of national interests); and the broader context of the declining importance of Britain as an economic power in the world as well as the gradual relinquishing of "Empire." Hornibrook (1929) dismissed the conventional medical approach in Britain: After p r e g n a n c y . . , we see a state of muscle flabbiness, especially in the stretched abdominal muscles. Until recently the only

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"Physical" is considered to be an entirely separate category from "mental." The use of the constructed dualism mind/body is also linked to the European writer's assumption of intellectual superiority. The earlier quotation about posture seemed to refer to Hornibrook's belief that mental activity necessarily precedes posture. (This sort of material is indicative of the uncomfortable heritage in Western culture since Descartes declared "I think, therefore I am!")

"Evidence" In an appendix to his book, Hornibrook (1929) lists " e v i d e n c e . . . to show the nature and extent of native dancing among uncivilised peoples" (p. 82). The "evidence" is taken from the following publications: The Expedition to the Torres Straits by Dr. A. C. Haddon; Typee by Mr. Herman Melville; The Melanesians of British New Guinea by Dr. C. G. Seligman; Savage Man in Central Africa by Mons. A. L. Cureau; Among the Ibos of Nigeria by Mr. George Basden; and In the Shadow of the Bush by Mr. P. A. Talbot. These were mainly early European anthropologists. We may consider these sorts of publications as examples of the texts that Said (1991) discusses in his essay Orientalism (first published in 1978), where representations by Europeans purport to be knowledge about the "Other": The representations of Orientalism in European culture amount to what we can call a

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discursive consistency, one that has not only history but material (and institutional) presence to show for i t s e l f . . . . My whole point about this system is not that it is a misrepresentation about some Oriental e s s e n c e . . , but that it operates.., for a purpose, according to a tendency, in a specific historical, intellectual, and even economic setting. (p. 273) He expands on the features of the Orientalist's role for his (Said's term) own society, one of which is the provision of representations "that respond to certain cultural, professional, national, political, and economic requirements of the epoch" (Said, 1991, p. 273). Using Said's (1991) framework, we can read The Culture of the Abdomen and the anthropological texts upon which it was based as projections of their writers' desires. For example: All other pastimes pale before the attractions o f the dance, w h i c h to the E k o i (natives of Nigeria) is one of the main occupations of life, and, as with the Greeks of old, provides an outlet for the dramatic instinct and religious fervour of the race. It provides one of the means of expressing as perfectly as possible that otherwise inarticulate sense of the mystery of existence, the p o w e r o f supernatural influences which enfold them, the ecstasy of joy in life - - of youth and strength and love - - of the deeper and more poignant feelings so far beyond expression by mere words . . . . Every atom of the body dances, but the point which distinguishes an accomplished dancer from others is the never-ceasing wave-like ripple which runs down the muscles of the back and along the arms to the finger-tips . . . . Whatever may be the difference of opinion as to the merit of Ekoi dances from an aesthetic standpoint, there can be none as to their interest from an anthropological one. (Talbot, cited in Hornibrook, 1929, p. 86) The emotional statements about "joy in life" have resonances in Saxon's (1936) writing, and constituted a theme in his magazines (e.g., see Figures 4 and 5) as well as Mrs. Bagot Stack's (1973) ideas recorded in her diary as she planned

the Women's League of Health and Beauty. The distancing from the immediacy of the experience of the watcher (voyeur?) occurs part-

T h e Release of Health for the Joy of Living

Fig. 4. Cover of Health and Life (1934, September). Note. Reprinted with kind permission of The C. W. Daniel Co. Ltd.

ly in the careful placement of the description as not to be judged by "aesthetic" standards, but to be considered of anthropological "interest." It was acceptable to watch as a stranger, from the wings, in a rational, academic, and European way. Also the movement seen is contextualised in comparison with what is valued in Europe: "the Greeks of old." Hornibrook (1929) had claimed: "Our conception of physical beauty is the result of Greek influence" (p. 24). This construction, with its possibly associated ideas of "an outlet for the dramatic instinct and religious fervour of the race" is explored below in its use by British dancers. In summary some of the "losses" attributed to " c i v i l i s a t i o n " have included: " n a t u r a l " movement; bowel movement; "natural" birth; the expression of the "soul" in posture; the culture of the body; the health of the nation; the possibility of expression, both religious and dramatic. It is tempting to condense these

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Fig. 6. "In AncientGreece,fifth century maidensdancingto the sound of a flute" from The Dancing l"trnes (1933, March). Note. Reprinted with kind permission of The Dancing Times Ltd.

allowing the fullest personal freedom, so I included also certain m o v e m e n t s o f ballet origin, such as entrechats and a r a b e s q u e s [sic]. (p. 21) She developed m o d e m dance on a "natural" basis, said to be "the twist o f the trunk, with counter-balancing arm and leg m o v e m e n t s . . . [that] is seen in most everyday movements and is emphasised and fixed in the Greek positions" (Simpson & Whitfield, 1936, p. viii). Their aes-

Fig. 5. "La Joie de Vivre," from "Good Health" by E Alexander Baron, Health andLife (1935, August). Note. Reprinted with kind permission of The C. W. Daniel Co. Ltd. European themes o f loss through "civilisation" further to the loss of healthy "outlet." DANCING WOMEN AND THE "GREEKS OF OLD" Several British schools o f dance o f the early 1930s offered "Greek dancing" as part o f their r e p e r t o i r e (e.g., see F i g u r e 6; S t a c k , 1973; Godden, 1989). M a r g a r e t M o r r i s ( F i g u r e 7) h a d e a r l i e r founded her system o f movement on six poses taken from Greek vases, acknowledging Isadora Duncan's 3 brother Raymond for teaching them to her in 1909. M o r r i s (1969) d e s c r i b e d her eclectic use o f styles: 4

I could not agree with Duncan [Raymond] that these positions contained all that was necessary for the training of creative dancers. I wanted m y technique to equip the d a n c e r as c o m p l e t e l y as p o s s i b l e , w h i l e

Fig. 7. "Margaret Morris at her Chelsea Club, 1921" from Morris (1969). Note. Reprinted with kind permission of Peter Owen Ltd.

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thetic appeal and physiological purpose were what was emphasised about the poses: They are used, not because of their historical value, but because they are a perfect example of beauty in position and movement, combined with the most essential physical factors for the training of athlete or dancer and for the correction and development of good posture in people of every age. (Simpson & Whitfield, 1936, p. viii) The slippage from "the natural" to the reclamation of the "ancient Greek" as "perfect" for b e a u t y , p h y s i q u e , and p o s t u r e d e m a n d s unpacking as a social and cultural mrlange of significant iconic power in Europe. Sherlock (1993) has drawn attention to the socially constructed nature of "high culture," through her study of a theatre dance company: "theatre dance, rather than being regarded as asocial and aesthetic, as high-culture, has its own particular orientation towards key social attitudes which can be identified as related to British history" (p. 36). Useful here are the linked notions of "asocial," "aesthetic," and "high culture" when reading texts such as Talbot's above. (This resonates with the use of fixed notions of the "scientific" as used in texts about "traditional" or "alternative" health care; e.g., Power, 1991.) Sherlock (1993) refers to Hebdige's (1979) identification of "two basic definitions of culture" emerging from different traditions of thought. One relates to Arnold's (1932) "view of the cultured person where culture is defined as a standard of aesthetic excellence based on the classical Greek ideals of proportion, harmony and unity" (Sherlock, 1993, p. 37). The other relates to the social analysis of Marx and Engels using "a definition of culture deriving from anthropological s t u d y . . . [of a] 'complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom' (Mitchell)" (Sherlock, 1993, p. 37). We can see the use of "the Greeks of old" as culturally and historically specific, "high culture" as a British construction. In the Simpson and Whitfield (1936) quotation above, I first read the disclaimer "not because of their historical value" as an attempt to b r e a k with centuries of political use of Olympic ideals such as their resurrection in the Renaissance as the "lost" pinnacle of European civilisation, and the recreation of the Olympic

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games at the end of the nineteenth century. This sort of attempt to avoid specific contextualisation was not unique to MMM, and could be indicative of British tendencies both to treat their "aesthetic" as an immutable yardstick and also to use cultural materials eclectically without concern about their specific origins and meanings (like Hornibrook). However, after reading several issues of The Dancing ~mes with a series of articles on "The Art and T e c h n i q u e o f the R e v i v e d G r e e k Dance" by Ruby Ginner (1933a, 1933b, 1933c, 1933d; who had been taught by Morris in 1910; see Morris, 1969, p. 22), I c o n s i d e r that Simpson and Whitfield were also distancing their position from the "Association of Teachers of the Revived Greek Dance." Although I have mentioned the idea of "the aesthetic" from "the Greeks of old" as a sort of British "standard" above, it was against the idea of the fixed standard of formal ballet movements and dress that dancers such as Isadora Duncan, Margaret Morris, and others developed "modem" dance. Features of reaction to the existing "rule" were bare feet, flowing clothes, in opposition to dancing "on points" in ballet shoes, in tutus. There were other aspects that underlined the "natural" in addition to the development f r o m " e v e r y d a y " oppositional m o v e m e n t s m e n t i o n e d above. These were dancing out of doors, using little make-up, avoiding the "excessive turn out" (i.e., at the hip joints) of the ballerina. Burrowes claimed "the modernist d a n c e r . . , finds the ballerina technically somewhat inadequate owing to the formal position of the spine, which does not allow of any movement permeating the whole body" (Burrowes, 1933, p. 452).

Margaret Morris Movement Morris wrote: "I have been tom between my two great interests, Art and Healing: yet I still believe they should be united." She explained how " T h e r e m e d i a l side o f my w o r k j u s t seemed to be forced on me: people brought me children with lack of coordination, flat feet etc" (Morris, 1969, p. 54). The increase in general health of her young dancers was also noted. While running her school and organising performances, she trained part-time in physiotherapy, qualifying in 1930. She had frequently given demonstration classes of her method in medical settings, and her writing (Morris, n.d.,

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1937) and that of her teachers (Simpson & Whitfield, 1936) reflected this blend of health and "aesthetic" interests: physical and mental training combining the medical and the aesthetic values of movement, It is a practical training, giving the body the m a x i m u m of efficiency, with a quick and coordinated response to the mind. It is built on a natural basis• (Simpson & Whitfield, 1936, p. viii) However, clear gender differences were to be maintained despite the move to integrate the body and mind: the basic exercises - - apply equally to boys and girls, to men and women, the anatomy and physiology of the lungs, heart and digestive organs, the circulation and nervous systems, being the same in both sexes. But for later training, involving more specialised muscle work, the difference between the masculine and feminine way of moving should be emphasised. For the bony structure and the muscles of the male and female body are, or should be, markedly different in their development [italics added]. (Morris, 1937, p. vii) •

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Her rationale was that: Men need much stronger physical work, developing muscular strength and endurance, and the training should be a preparation for athletics, boxing and games. Training on the w o m e n ' s side should be by dancing toward flexibility and ease of movement. Women should not have big muscles, for besides the obvious aesthetic masons, there is the most fundamental reason that overdevelopment of muscles makes child bearing more difficult [italics added]. (Morris, 1937, p. vii) Here are resonances with the Gill sculptures mentioned above• It seemed that the freedom of expression promoted was to be kept within strictly gendered areas of activity. Alethea Watterson (n6e Stevenson) thought there were about 40-50 women and perhaps five men at most attending the Morris school during her training ( 1 9 3 4 - 1 9 3 7 ) in Theatrical Dance. Mainly, she said, the men did the "basic train-

ing" to enhance their performance in athletics or games such as tennis. Women trained predominantly for dance, some for teaching remedial applications. Looking back, she thought the latter could have guaranteed her a longer professional career. Sherlock (1993) has commented on "ideological notions of bodies, movements and good dancing" (p. 39) in the context of ageing• The syllabus followed in the 1930s maintained notions of gender- and ability-specific training. The following headings are some from term two: Lesson V: Lesson VI:

Postural Defects Types of Classes Children in general 1 Infants and babies Lessson VII: 2 Girls 7-12 3 Girls 12-16 4 Working girls Lesson IX: 5 Women up to forty Lesson X: 6 Women over forty Lesson IX: Basic physical training for: Boys Lesson XI: Basic physical training for: Men (Simpson & Whitfield, 1936, p. 29) Note the several age categorisations thought relevant for girls and women (and "working girls") in contrast to the simple division of "boys" and "men." In the third term lessons were given on "Demonstrations," "LCC classes" (London County Council, which was at that time the democratically elected governing body of London, also responsible for education). I have extracted a few passages from the text to give a flavour of its content, concerns and tone• The behaviour and appearance of the MMM teacher were constrained: If necessary a little rouge s h o u l d . . , be used, but the effect should be entirely natural, merely to enhance the appearance and on no a c c o u n t to give a " m a d e - u p " flashy effect. Hardly any make-up should be put on when visiting Hospitals, schools and institutions. The Teacher should remember that it is her duty always to look as attractive and well turned out as possible . . . . P r e f e r a b l y the feet should be bare . . . (Simpson & Whitfield, 1936, p. 4) On girls aged 7-12: "This is an age of great physical and mental activity. Children of this

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age are sometimes difficult to control and are as yet disinclined to take the development of good posture and technique seriously" (Simpson & Whitfield, 1936, p. 53). On girls aged 12-16: During these years, at varying stages rapid growth and development takes place, during which girls tend to be self-conscious and reserved, awkward and stiff in their movements. Encourage them to take technique and composition seriously and to apply their knowledge of posture and m o v e m e n t to their lives outside the class. (Simpson & Whitfield, 1936, p. 53) On "round shoulders": "explain the results of bad posture to them. Also give movements that develop grace and continuity" (Simpson & Whitfield, 1936, p. 54). On composition: "A fear of self-expression acquired at this age is hard to eradicate, and remember that a class is not a success unless it is enjoyed by everyone in it" (Simpson & Whitfield, 1936, p. 54). On "Working Girls": As the pupils in this type of class will probably have been standing or keeping to one position all day, they will be tired and yet needing an outlet. From the same reason and from lack of previous training their posture is often very poor. Movement: Aim for a good fundamental postural training and give plenty of breathing exercises . . . . This is to counteract the constricted chest, round shoulders, and general poverty of the circulation and respiratory systems, which conditions are often found in girls who have been in f a c t o r y or w o r k r o o m s since l e a v i n g school. Interest them in their posture and appearance, explaining the effects of exercise in a simple way. Give plenty of lying exercises to rest them, and also simple running, hopping and springing movements as an outlet for their repressed energy. (Simpson & Whitfield, 1936, pp. 54-55) The tone seems condescending, but wellintentioned. It reads as if there is a clear class division between the full-time students and the "Working Girls." I guess most of the former were privately financed for their training even if they had to earn a living as teachers or professional dancers later.

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By 1937, Margaret Morris Movement was endorsed officially as relevant to the "health of the nation" when Morris became a member of the Government's "National Fitness Council."

The Women's League of Health and Beauty Mrs. Molly Bagot Stack had first trained in "remedial health exercises" before the first world war, with a Mrs. Josef Corm, in London, who was reputed to hold that the methods of "scientific... health building" she taught were "the answer to all the 'ills the flesh is heir to.'" Prunella Stack, her daughter, tells the story: "When she [Corm] gave a lecture-demonstration on her methods she would produce from the bosom of her immaculate evening dress a knife, which she would brandish at the audience, saying: 'Do not allow a surgeon to subject you to this!'" (Stack, 1973, p. 21). Mrs. Bagot Stack wrote of how she herself b e c a m e c o n v i n c e d that "the trained b o d y becomes independent of outside help. It is its own best doctor, masseur, pharmacopoeia . . . . Thus my health sense was developed, and I was conscious of an inner feeling of freedom and power that must be experienced to be understood" (Stack, 1973, p. 22). She set up her own school in 1925. Prunella described her mother's paper headed "Build-theBody-Beautiful at the B a g o t Stack Health School. A training in health, grace and expression" (Stack, 1973, p. 34). Health was to be "built" through Mrs. Bagot Stack's remedial exercises: "grace and expression" via Greek, National Dancing, and Mime, taught by Marjorie Duncombe who had trained with Ginner. Mrs. Bagot Stack was inspired by the Sokol movement in Czechoslovakia, which Prunella describes as "a movement which had united the youth of the nation through the medium of physical training" (Stack, 1973, p. 43). Stack "longed to achieve something similar with the women in Britain; those 'architects of the future'" (Stack, 1973, p. 43). From her mother's diary: If Energy is the source of life, and if we women want - - as we all do - - Life, we must have energy. How? - - a League - - a League of Women who will renew their energy in themselves and for themselves day by day. A League of Women pledged (so as to keep lazy things at it) to Breathe, to Leap, and above all, to THINK. (Stack, 1973, p. 43)

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The League was formed in 1930 and membership grew rapidly with cheap prices and ever larger public displays. The first was in Hyde Park. The membership was over a thousand within the first year and continued to grow rapidly (Figure 8). In some quarters this was viewed with suspicion as too much like the physical culture m o v e m e n t developing in G e r m a n y through what was considered coercion. Writing in Health and Life on "The English Folk Dance" (subtitled "A form of physical culture that brings into play the healthy human instincts for concerted movement, high spirits and open spaces"), Alan Cluer (1934) began with a dig at the "health exercises" type dancing that had been seen in several London parks in June 1934. This was a reference to the League and other groups. He claimed: English folk-dances are essentially English - - born of ancient tradition and high spirits. The tunes call up all that is best in the traditional life of the English countryside, and the very names of the dances are refreshing.

To me they seem far superior to the negroid jazz movements that dominate the social dance of today. (Cluer, 1934, pp. 103-105) In this small piece of text there is a sense of the careful positioning of the pallid English author. In his challenge to the League, in his claims for "tradition," "essential" "Englishness," and so on, he carves out a well-defined space for a possible if "imagined" status quo and tells us something about the range of dance movement available in Britain in 1934. This short piece is illustrative of several strands of tension between the "'movement' movements." Sadly, Mrs. Bagot Stack died in January 1935. Prunella, aged 20, continued with the League. She was "asked to serve on the National Fitness Council, which was formed by the Prime Minister in the Spring of 1937, with the object of improving the health of the Nation" (Stack, 1973, p. 69). "NATIONAL FITNESS" Prunella Stack retrospectively reported a question posed to her in the late 1930s: "Fit for

Fig. 8. The Women'sLeagueof Health and Beauty from Stack (1973). Note. Reprintedwith kind permissionof Prunella Stack.

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what?" (Stack, 1973, p. 81). 4 And what was it about the embodiment of Morris and Stack that was seen as inspiration worth mobilising for the nation? Lord Cholmondley wrote an introduction to Basic Physical Training, published the same year that the National Fitness Council was formed: My great hope is that this British method will be made use of on a large scale, so that Miss Morris will have the satisfaction of knowing that millions instead of thousands are benefitting in health and strength by her life's work in evolving a method of physical culture suitable for all types. For it is at long last admitted that physical education (which combines mental with physical training) is a thing we cannot do without if we want to hold our own with other nations in physical fitness. (Morris, 1937, p. xii) I shall pick out some strands from this declaration to assist in a summary of the main themes o f this article. T h e r e is a sense o f Britain being in danger of losing a comtx~tition; of it being time to combine mental and physical training; of requiting this "for all types" (working and leisured? men, women and children?). These ideas about "healthy motion" may be analysed in terms of notions about body/mind of the individual and metaphorically about the nation. 5 The call to mental and physical integration and action is focused on individual responsibility rather than providing any substantial analysis of the social conditions of "civilisation" that brought about constipation, round shoulders, circulatory problems, or difficult births. This links to the British legacy of "laisser faire" in the development of capitalism. Notions of general industrial welfare were barely surfacing and the literature by the concemed on work hazards tended to use notions of "susceptibility," often of women (e.g., see Harrison & MockeR, 1990). The "norm" idealised was an invulnerable White British muscular male (Figures 9 and 10). These texts provide rich material for the analysis of constructions of White British masculinities and femininities, both imbued with liberal notions of humanism in their emphasis on freedom of expression or "outlet" (economic, political, athletic, creative, physiological). A systematic approach to analysis could take the oppositional categories manipulated (male/female,

Fig. 9. "Energyin repose"from The HealthyLife (1931, January). Note. Reprintedwith kind permissionof The C. W. Daniel Co. Ltd. civilised/savage, modem/ancient, etc) and problematise them as dualistic constructions (e.g., Harding, 1992). These can be seen as embedded and linked in hierarchies of'qmowledge" such as that complex of "Westem'7'science" (and its colleague medicine)l"civilisation"r'the aesthetic" ('qligh culture")/"truth" versus "the rest." Questioning a text as to its intended audience is also useful: for example, Hornibrook wrote for a White male British bathroom lavatory owner, a city dweller, who was concerned with gaining and maintaining healthy young optimal function, not a manual worker, with at best an outside lavatory and a concern with basic social conditions and survival. Trying to understand why images of "natives" and "the Greeks of old" were assumed to work as motivators in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s requires an appreciation of their linked ideological history. Jacky Kay's (1995) brilliant radio programme, Invisible Histories, used Diane Roberts' explanation of the ideological way in which Black women had been "Othered': Women in the nineteenth century particularly, were compared to statues. That is to say, they were "elevated," they were supposed to be "cold" meaning chaste, and they were "pure" the way that we speak of marble being pure. Black women's bodies, on the other hand, especially in the ideology of slavery, were supposed to be everything

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Fig. 10. "Energy and poise" from The Healthy Life (1930, July). Note. Reprinted with kind permission of The C. W. Daniel Co. Ltd.

opposite: that is to say they were "low," not "elevated," and they were "dark" rather than " W h i t e , " they w e r e " i m p u r e " rather than "pure." The w h o l e cultural a s s o c i a t i o n o f blackness with pollution was very strong. So black women were already polluted by their colour and therefore were promiscuous. They made that logical leap from colour to sexuality. (quoted in Kay, 1995) It is possible to see Duncan and Morris chall e n g i n g such n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y n o t i o n s o f White women, by bringing ancient Greek images (from marbles and vases) to life again in their expressive body movements (Figure 11). Was it acceptable to evoke spirit and flesh from a "high culture" icon rather than a "native" rocking and rolling m o v e m e n t with its linkage to "low" sexuality? Although "native" (black) physical culture was admired by Homibrook and Saxon, distance was maintained by the use of a complex of "Othering" dualisms and an homogenised essentialism.

Fig. 1I. "Margaret Morris in one of her dance studies to music." Note. Reprinted with kind permission of the Hulton Deutsch Collection. Young (1990) has stressed that "colonialism was not simply a marginal activity on the edges o f English civilisation, but fundamental in its own cultural self-representation" (p. 174). The whole Western edifice o f dance, movement, health, and medicine constructed under colonialism and patriarchy requires analysis so that it is possible to unpack dualistic constructions o f the "native" and the "civilised" and their frequently related slippage into the "natural" and the "cultured." •

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ENDNOTES 1. The People's Palace was built in 1936 as a replacement of the former Queen's Hall of the People's Palace, a late nineteenth century building that had burnt down in 1931. The original building "provided facilities for recreation, culture, amusement, sport, training and education for the people of the East End." It is now part of London University: Queen Mary and Westfield College.

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2. Matthias Alexander developed a methold of postural improvement that is taught nowadays as The Alexander Technique. 3. Isadora Duncan is often considered as a pioneer of modem ballet, in the sense of barefoot, expressive "natural" movement. Interestingly, a fictionalised "biography" was entitled The Spirit and the Flesh (Weiss, 1973). 4. Stack reported this as part of an account of discussion she had with Kurt Hahn, who she claimed "had recognised the evil of the Nazi regime and tried to resist it. This had forced him to leave Salem, the school in Germany founded by Prince Maz of Baden, where he had been headmaster . . . . He was deeply interested in the aims of the National Fitness Council... [and insisted] "The question you must a s k . . , is - - fit for what? It isn't enough just to develop muscle and brawn. How is this fitness going to be used, and for what purposeT' (Stack, 1973, p. 81). 5. Indeed, as I completed this article (June 11, 1995), Alastair Cooke's Letter from America (BBC Radio 4, 9:15 a.m.) referred to Spengier's bestselling book of the 1920s, The Decline of the West, which discussed the "nation" as an organism like the human body.

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