The May Fete--a dance tradition

I'm not sure if Miss Dieman is in this particular photo, but she was in the group of college women that did these dances.

The (rather blurry--sorry!) photo is from a copy of the Coe College yearbook documenting the 1923-24 school year. Miss Dieman was a junior, and she was part of the Campus Fete, also known as the May Fete.

Each year, a May Queen was chosen from the student body, and a celebration--with costumed dances on the lawn of the campus--was held in her honor.  This wasn't just at Coe. May Fetes seemed to be a tradition all around the country. Just with a quick Google search, I found May Fete photos from U of Illinois, Carleton College, Pomona, and my alma mater The College of Wooster.

The dances in these celebrations arose from a turn-of-the century trend toward encouraging women to exercise. No more fainting Victorian maidens!  But acceptable exercise was limited: one 1900 editorial from a badminton magazine said this:

“. . . unlimited indulgence in violent, outdoor sports--cricket, bicycling, beagling, otter-hunting, paper-chasing, and--most odious of all games for women--hockey, cannot but have an unwomanly effect on a young girl’s mind no less than her appearance . . . Let young girls ride, skate, dance, and play lawn tennis and other games in moderation, but let them leave field sports to those for whom they were intended--men.”

Luckily, dance made the list of "appropriate" activities. 

The newly (and partially)-liberated young women were trained in several popular movement styles. One had been pioneered by Francois Delsarte, and was named for him. It taught combinations of movements to express emotions. "The object of art is to crystallize emotion into thought and give it form," said Delsarte.

Delsarte movement instruction was quite elaborate. Students learned a vocabulary of gestures.  Here are a few from a book called Delsarte System of Expression:

Description of action:  head level between shoulders, inclined neither to right nor left, up nor down.

Signification:  Calm repose or indifference

Description of action:  Head leans toward object, but must not be raised, depressed, or rotated.  

Signification:  Trust, tenderness, sympathy, affection, esteem from the soul.
 

Description of action:  head thrown back, midway between the shoulders

Signification: exaltation, explosion from self as a center, a lifting to the universal.

When I look at these May Fete photos, I wonder if the dancers were influenced by Delsarte.

Today we may not be very impressed by these dancers' costumes, but imagine: the women in these photos were usually trussed up in corsets, stockings, and skirts every day. It must have been incredibly freeing to dance barefoot on the lawn.

I've noticed that most of the women in the pictures have bobbed hair.  No more heavy buns and elaborate hairstyles.

May Fete dancers probably also took some cues from other dance and movement pioneers of the era, like Eugene Jacques Dalcroze.  Dalcroze gave his name to a school of movement that sought to teach rhythm and musical expression through movement. Miss Dieman spent two summers studying the Dalcroze methods in New York City after she graduated from Coe.

The lightly-clad figures in these photos also make me think of Isadora Duncan, who pioneered her own form of dance based on natural movements. One of the May Fetes that Miss Dieman participated in had a Greek theme, like many of Duncan's dances.

I am sure that these experiences with dance on the soft green lawns of a college campus influenced Miss Dieman to continue on with dance, and to bring dance to the lives of others.