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Mata Hari review – seductive study of an irresistible woman

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Anna Tsygankova is utterly graceful as the exotic dancer in Ted Brandsen’s fine ballet for Dutch National Ballet

Oh, to have been in Paris in the belle époque. As dance reinvented itself – from the Folies Bergère to the Ballets Russes, Loie Fuller to Isadora Duncan – it’s where a young woman also might choose to reinvent herself. Like 26-year-old Dutch divorcee Margaretha Zelle, who became the exotic dancer Mata Hari.

Dutch National Ballet’s artistic director Ted Brandsen explores the misunderstood Mata Hari in a very fine ballet that is a window on a moment of dance history as well as the plight of a woman trying to survive outside society’s norms.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2yLX1Xk
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