Skip to main content

Mata Hari review – seductive study of an irresistible woman

Available online
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.

Continue reading...

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

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Tracey Emin decorates Regent's Park and a celebration of Islamic creativity – the week in art

Emin and others survey the state of sculpture, Glenn Brown takes his decadent imagination to Newcastle and artists offer northern exposure – all in your weekly dispatch Frieze Sculpture Park Tracey Emin, Barry Flanagan and John Baldessari are among the artists decorating Regent’s Park with a free survey of the state of sculpture. • Regent’s Park, London , 4 July until 7 October. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2IDCpPV

When Brooklyn was queer: telling the story of the borough's LGBTQ past

In a new book, Hugh Ryan explores the untold history of queer life in Brooklyn from the 1850s forward, revealing some unlikely truths For five years Hugh Ryan has been hunting queer ghosts through the streets of Brooklyn, amid the racks of New York’s public libraries, among its court records and yellow newspaper clippings to build a picture of their lost world. The result is When Brooklyn Was Queer, a funny, tender and disturbing history of LGBTQ life that starts in an era, the 1850s, when those letters meant nothing and ends before the Stonewall riots started the modern era of gay politics. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2H9Zexs