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16 Mins.; Full Stage. After all is said regarding the modern dances and their exponents there is only one conclusion to be arrived at and this is that dainty Mae Murray is without a doubt at the top rung of that branch of entertainers. It seems a strange fact that the three most famed of all the women who have risen through the modern dance all worked in the chorus of the same show about six or several years ago. It was “The Merry-Go-Round,” at the Circle. Joan Sawyer and Florence Walton were show girls, while little Mae Murray was just one of the merry-merry. This week at the Palace with Jack Jarott as a partner Miss Murray is showing all that there is that is new in the modern dance. They have shown good taste in eliminating the usual banjorines from the colored orchestra made up of eight musicians culled from Europe’s orchestra. There are two violins, bass, ‘cello, drums and two pieces of brass. One number which the musicians offered between the second and third dances was heartily applauded. Miss Murray and Jarott are doing four dances. All are different from anything that has been shown and the stepping in two of the numbers was as nifty as anything that has been shown by anyone anywhere. Opening with a waltz, prettily done and well rehearsed, the team next do what they term “The Pidgeon Trot” (evidently named in honor of Eddie Pidgeon). This is as clever a routine of steps as ever shown in ballroom dancing. It is followed by “The Sunshine Frolic,” a combination of Greek classical dancing, the Bacchante a modern waltz. A fast Fox Trot was the closing. It has a number of steps that will never be popular for the regulation ballroom steppers and there is but little chance that any of the other exhibition folk hereabouts will try to “copy” the routine, for it looks exceedingly difficult from the front. Miss Murray was charmingly gowned, and the costume she donned for the final number is a most striking affair. It is a mandarin coat of gold cloth under which she wore black bloomers that came to her ankle tops. Jarott has grown slightly stouter since last at the Palace, but he has also improved as a dancer. It may be that in Miss Murray he has a partner more suited physically to Jack’s proportions and therefore he appears to better advantage. The act was easily the hit of the first half of the show at the Palace Monday night. At its conclusion Miss Murray was almost smothered in a shower of floral offerings.
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Variety, Volume XXXVI, no.10, November 7, 1914