Under normal circumstances, dancing would certainly appear an art requiring in its exponents a full complement of limbs. To the ordinary individual the loss of, at least a lower limb, would mean the immediate abandonment of any attempt to acquire proficiency as a dancer, even in the ball room sense of the word, while the idea of aspiring to the heights of exhibition and professional dancing would naturally be dismissed as absurd. Yet there are on record quite a number of cases for men, and even women, who, despite the handicap of loss of limbs, have become as astonishingly expert as to earn their living as dancers and performers on the professional stage.
Perhaps the most famous example of this class of performer was Donato, the one-legged dancer, who flourished from about 1850 onwards, appearing both in England and on the Continent with great success. Many of the older generation of playgoers will remember seeing this artist on the stage of the old Aquarium, London, where he made several appearances. At a somewhat later date there appeared, mainly at Continental fairs, a one-legged girl dancer, who claimed to be unique in her line, as no doubt, at that time, she was. She appeared at, among other places, the annual fair at Neuilly, near Paris - a still famous fair, by the way, and was seen there by a Paris journalist, to whom we are indebted for a description of her performance. She was described as young and pretty, appearing on the traditional short "tutu", or frilled, wide-spread skirt of the classical dancer, and "pirouetting with wonderful ease and effortlessness, entirely unsupported save by her single slim leg and foot." Her performance was entirely of the classical, toe-dancing variety, and she had apparently been extremely well trained. There is no record of her having made any appearance in England.
Coming to more modern times, there have been, and are at present, quite a number of one-legged performers before the public. A very popular turn on the American variety stage at the present time is that given by Jack Joyce, a young dancer who lost a leg while fighting with the British forces during the war. Joyce dances in most nimble fashion, both with and without a crutch, and one of his items is a fox-trot danced with a lady partner! In England, a turn that has long been popular is that of Conway and Leland - "The Merry Monopedes" - two male performers who, despite the fact that each has lost a leg, manage to do a great many things that would prove extremely difficult for normal two-legged individuals. It is rather as acrobats and jumpers than as dancers that they excel, but as clever one-legged performers they can quite conveniently be included in this brief survey. A somewhat similar performance is given by the Bistrews, two one-legged French ex-soldiers, who appeared quite recently at the Coliseum and Alhambra Theatres; and another one-legged team, appearing on the halls throughout the country, call themselves the Donatos, no doubt after the famous one-legged dancer mentioned above.
It is a notable fact that, though many one-legged male performers have appeared on the English stage at one time or another, one-legged lady performers have never - at any rate, as far as the present writer's information is concerned - appeared before the English public at any time. No doubt English sentiment would be against such a display; and the sight of a pretty girl, maimed in this way, and exposing her infirmity in public, would certainly be displeasing to probably the majority of habitues of British theatres. But in America and on the Continent the public is apparently not so sensitive. At any rate, lady performers, handicapped in this way, have appeared both in America and on the Continent. Just before the war, one of the most highly-paid and most remarkable contortion acts in American vaudeville was that given by a very beautiful and magnificently formed women whose right leg was completely absent from the trunk. The present writer can vouch for the fact, as he himself saw the lady; and the curious thing was that nobody in the vast and appreciative audience appeared to find anything displeasing in the fact. Rather the contrary. The artist appeared in the usual regulation silk tights worn by all acrobats, a costume that, of course, made only too obvious the complete absence of the missing leg, but she appeared quite unconcerned at this frank exhibition of her deficiency, and certainly seemed to suffer little handicap from her loss.
Her balance on her single leg was perfect - the result, no doubt, of long practice - and she moved about the stage whenever necessary, quite easily and, in fact, gracefully, employing either a rapid toe-and-heel shuffle or a long, easy hop, and she presented a very clever and very difficult routine of contortionist tricks with absolute neatness and precision. One of her tricks was a backward bend from the waist, in which, supported only by her single leg, she bent downwards and backwards until she was able, not only to grip her ankle with both hands, but to lift her head and smile at the audience from beneath her bent body! She used no crutches throughout the whole of the act, and at the close she took all her calls, which were many, by simply hopping on and off the stage in response to the continued applause.
A curious dance that was given a few years ago in a Chicago hotel at the close of the season by one of the big American circuses must have been a very interesting affair, according to the report that appeared in a prominent Chicago newspaper the next morning. For not only were the whole of the ordinary circus performers and staff present, but also all the "freaks" from the side-shows. And one of the most charming of the dancers, so went the report, was the "Armless Lady" with the show, a pretty girl of eighteen or nineteen, with whom the newspaper's representative was privileged to dance. Though he found it a strange experience to dance with a lady who had only shoulders visible and no arms with which to clasp him, he fully enjoyed the dance and pronounced the girl one of the most finished and enthusiastic dancers in the room. The writer then went on to tell how he later gave the girl refreshments, and described how daintily and with what fascination she used her toes to convey her food and drink to her mouth; I fancy that this must be a unique case of an armless girl appearing at a public dance, though, of course, the circumstances explain the somewhat extraordinary occurrences.
In Germany, the "freak" act has always been encouraged; the theatre-going public of that country apparently having a strong liking for anything strange and abnormal in the way of entertainment. Some years before the war a favourite act, both in Berlin and on the provincial music halls, was that given by two "sisters"-dancers, singers and instrumentalists - each of whom had only one leg. The girls - who, of course, were not sisters, though billed as such - were very clever musicians, playing a variety of instruments, and the dance they specialised in was really a very clever affair. One girl has lost her right leg and the other her left; and, wearing a specially made costume that fitted both as one garment, and interlacing each an arm about the other's waist, thus they gave the impression of a somewhat stout girl with two legs. And thus they danced - after a fashion! This particular part of the act elicited not only great applause, but also roars of laughter, the audience finding the antics of the two crippled girls intensely funny!
This particular type humour, by the way would appear to be somewhat characteristic of the German mind, as some years ago there used to be a very popular playlet or sketch touring the halls, in which a great deal of hilarity was evoked by the fact of the lover in the sketch discovering, discovering, after a lot of by-play, that his lady-love had an artificial leg. The uproarious mirth increased when, in the course of a struggle between the lovers, the leg was pulled off, leaving the girl - the part played by a one-legged comedienne for whom the sketch had been specially written - to hop round the stage in pursuit of her graceless lover! Another well known act in Germany in pre-war days was an acrobatic act given by a man and a girl each with one leg, and a famous swimming act immediately before the war was that given by a girl billed as a "Living Mermaid", whose performances were given in a huge glass tank. The secret of the girl's wonderful impersonation of a mermaid, tail and all, was simply that she had only one leg, over which she wore a close-fitting and very realistic tail.
At the present time, among the many "freak" dancing acts to be seen at private and exclusive night cabaret in Berlin, one of the most sensational is that provided by a beautiful one-legged girl who, in the scantiest of clothing, presents a remarkable series of dances before extremely appreciative audiences. Her dances are mainly of the posing variety, many of them with the leg and foot bare, and she is assisted throughout by a male partner, upon whom she depends a good deal foe support. It is a curious thing that, in the case of this girl, the fact that she is one-legged seems rather a queer kind of asset than otherwise, taken, no doubt, in conjunction with her great beauty. She is seen everywhere - at Society functions, well- known cafes and cabarets, etc. - always clad in most fashionable and daring gowns, her leg usually stockingless, a slim, high heeled sandal slipper that is little more than a sole and a few straps, on her foot and supported by a pair of slender crutches that are as ornate and dainty as it is possible for such things to be. And always she has her court of admirers who, apparently, are in no way repelled by the fact that this beautiful girl is so pathetically crippled by the absence of a lower limb. As for the girl herself, she certainly seems to have discovered that the loss of her leg, far from proving a handicap, has indeed helped her to gain a bizarre kind of fame of which she seems to be quite pardonably proud.