Evening Star Newspaper, July 25, 1937, Page 72

GRACE CHRISTIE DANCES WITH A BENDA MASK THIS WEEK COURAGE WON HER HIS article might be written as an essay on courage. Or it might be given to you as the story of a fine art, and it must have some of the qualities of both. But it really has to do with a lesson for women today on the beauty of correct posture and the way to achieve it. You might call it a Beauty article. Grace Christie was a delicate child. She had a double curvature of the spine and other physical ailments. During a year in which she lay in bed, she escaped from the bitter reality of a tortured body in dreams of beauty and of dancing. Gradually out of that think- ing she crystallized a theme for her life and a determination to achieve its goal. “I made up my mind,"” she explains wist- fully, “that if I could not be beautiful, I could, perhaps, do something beautiful. I was deter- mined to make beauty speak through me in spite of a thin, ungraceful body and plain features.” With this as a beginning, she commenced to make gestures and to think thoughts of graceful motion. It was a long step from that sick-bed to the leading theatres on three con- tinents, to dancing before Queen Mary and the late King George, doing her dances for Alfonso when he was King of Spain, the Duke of Windsor when he was Prince of For a year she lay in bed with a tortured body and dreamed of dancing. Now Grace Christie is famous. Here are her rules for poise and beauty by MARTHA LEAVITT Magazine Section Color Photograph by Nickolas Muray Wales, the King of Siam and the Premier of Australia. It was she who invented the bubble dance and then gave the world an entirely new school of dancing interpreting the famous Benda Masks. . St. John Ervine, one of the important” English critics, wrote, “Miss Christie is an exquisite performer whether she is dancing in Benda Masks or without them.” Having won her place as a dancer, Miss Christie chose to become a teacher, especially a teacher for older people and little children who need to know how to handle their bodies. During the past eleven years Grace Christie has taught her science of movement not only to young people with stage ambitions but to middle-aged women and grandmothers who have begun to fear old age. Her oldest pupil is 72 and her youngest 8. Stretching, relaxing and strengthening — these are fundamentals for correct posture and a good figure. Grace Christie personifies her teachings. When she walks across her studio floor her nimble feet, with toes turned slightly out, follow an imaginary straight line. She warns against walking Indian fashion — “their hips wobble,” because that way the feet are in too straight a line. “In walking, the hips are important,” the (Continved on page 11) oo, el 5o GRACE A