"Art Is My Life," Says Sally Rand

Sally Rand is an artist who has brought an exciting art to the people. The diminutive blonde, shapely and clever, is currently appearing at the Howard Athenaeum, and this Friday she will appear (for one performance only) at the Freshman Smoker.

Miss Rand, as she likes to be known, is interested in the "subjective, emotional appeal which everyone will understand," she explained in her dressing room yesterday afternoon.

"Some people who dance, or purport to dance, don't do so on a personal level. They are content to appeal merely to primitive instincts."

"My dancing," Miss Rand stated, "is not created for that purpose. It is rather a feeling, a moment of beauty that I have experienced, that I wish to communicate to an audience through my dancing. I am a ballet dancer."

Miss Rand adjusted several small vials on her dressing table. "Take my fan dance for example. One night when I was very young I saw a group of herons, flying in the moonlight. It gave me a feeling of ecstacy, of beauty, of emotion. It is this feeling that I should like to pass on to the people."

Miss Rand is quick to point out that many girls have copied her dance, even to the point of using Debusay and Chopin for the background music. "But it isn't the same. After all," she says, "it's the motivation that counts."

Still, with all the glamour and the fame of the stage, Miss Rand is not completely happy. "There is a desire in the artist," she says, "to create and to have her work seen." Because of commercial demands, Miss Rand has been forced to abandon such things as Griffith's "White Peacock," one of the four Roman musical sketches which she has always wanted to dance to.

There are other facets of her life which one might think were unpleasant. The idea of doing show after show with just a little break might be thought boring, but Miss Rand says, "To me dancing is just like playing tennis and reading a book at the same time. An intellectual and physical experience which never tires me."

Miss Rand has been dancing publicly since she was 13 years old. She has a young son, Sean; her mother, a former newspaper woman, and her father, a retired Army officer are both living.