THE DANCE

Mad dogs and Englishmen, Old Rudyard himself, and assorted fans of the esoteric dance, all absent Tuesday night from the new Boston Dance Theatre at 31 Hemmenway Street, would have reveled in "Music and Dances of India," brought to occidental footlights by Lakshimi Wana Singh. Those debutantes, patrons of the beaux arts, and bullied husbands of ripening patronesses who answered muster at the opening offering of the newly-formed Boston Dance Society felt slightly confused, like this reviewer, but on the whole pleased by this curtain raiser of the New Boston Dance Society.

Saving the ace until the last, a charming India dancer named Lakshimi did an ably syncopated rendition of the myth of the creation of the world by Kali, the dread goddess who must create and destroy what she creates. Another effectively sinuous number of what was perhaps a spotty program was the story of Savitri, a charming legend of a faithful wife who cheats the Lord of Death of her husband in a neat pantomine.

Distinctly less effective were the lecturing efforts of the Maestro, Singh. His anxiety to establish a theme of cultural relatively led to such interlocutory shockers as "you folks shouldn't be surprised at Indians' wearing pajamas in the daytime when you wear them in the nighttime," and that "through understanding comes mutual admiration," or maybe vice verse. Mr. Singh reversed himself on this proposition by getting tangled up in the converse a few times, but he is obviously for the United Nations and meant well. He did bring out, however, that there are over 6,000 hand gestures in his native dance, and that two India dancing girls can converse with these without using anything else besides a sari. He also edified the local population by demonstrating how to wrap a turban and how to hit a drum.