Little Dancer (6) Artist Inspiring Artist

I love the whole thing about art: the work itself, the creativity and creative process to it, and the story that inspired it.  Sometimes the inspiration is another art work.  So it is with Little Dancer, a new musical ballet, performing at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC through end of November.

So who is La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans?

Marie Geneviève van Goethem and Tiler Peck, as the Little Dancer

Marie was a young Belgian student at the Paris Opera Ballet dance school, and apparently she was talented and stubborn.  The nature of her relationship with Edgar Degas is up for debate, but it was common for young women to seek the protection of wealthy patrons of the art.  Clearly, too, Marie inspired Degas through many sketches, paintings and sculptures.

Some of the critics of the piece, when Degas introduced it, were positively beastly (rf. Little Dancer of Fourteen Years).  But Director and Choreographer Susan Stroman, like scores of others, fashioned an inspiring character of Marie:

When Stroman, [Book Writer and Lyricist Lynn] Ahrens, and [Composer Stephen] Flaherty began to shape their new musical, they were immediately confronted by the fact that their real life subject’s story ended abruptly. Van Goethem, disappeared shortly after Degas’s sculpture was finished. She was dismissed from the Paris Opera Ballet in 1882 for being late to a rehearsal, and poof—c’est fini. Offsetting Marie’s untraceable later life, the new musical depicts a Van Goethem that is part fact, part fiction. To tell Marie’s story—“to bring her back to life,” as Stroman explained to me—the musical has invented an older Marie who narrates the story of her life as a young girl. Stroman “wanted to believe that she was different and had character,” that her life on the street had made her a fighter—an attitude that resonates in the way Degas’ Little Dancer holds her body in confidant repose.

Reference: The True Story of the Little Ballerina Who Influenced Degas' Little Dancer.

Even though Degas compensated Marie for posing, I doubt that she ever came close to becoming wealthy.  Indeed she, her mother and sister lived an impoverished life, especially her father died:

Marie was the daughter of a laundress and a tailor, who came to Paris in the early 1860s from Belgium. She was born in 1865 in the diverse 9th arrondissement of Paris. Marie's oldest sister, Antoinette, was born in Brussels in 1861. A second older sister, also named Marie, died eighteen days after her birth in 1864. Marie's younger sister, Louise Joséphine, born in Paris in 1870, adopted the name of Charlotte and died there in 1945. Her father died at some point between 1870 and 1880, leaving Madame van Goethem to fend for her three daughters on a laundress's income.

In 1865, the year Marie was born, the family moved to a stone apartment building on 'Rue Notre-Dame de Lorette' called 'Place Bréda' near Degas's studio on 'Rue Saint-Georges'. The Bréda district was one of the city's poorest and most squalid areas for prostitution. In 1880, after frequently changing their place of residence (an indicator of an inability to pay the rent on time) the family settled on 'Rue de Douai' on the lower slopes of Montmartre, a few blocks from Degas's studio, then located on 'Rue Fontaine'.

In 1878, Marie and Charlotte were accepted into the dance school of the Paris Opéra, where Antoinette was employed as an extra. In 1880 Marie passed the examination admitting her to the corps de ballet of the Paris Opera Ballet and made her debut on the stage in La Korrigane.

Marie was 15 years old on her admission to the Paris Opera Ballet, and was thus clearly an artist in her own right.  It is a little troubling that there is no record of her whereabouts, after she was dismissed in 1882, but I hope she lived a reasonably pleasant life.  Perhaps she could not have imagined how art has immortalized her in the 132 years since.

Little Dancer (5) Art Inspiring Artist

I love the whole thing about art: the work itself, the creativity and creative process to it, and the story that inspired it.  Sometimes the inspiration is another art work.  So it is with Little Dancer, a new musical ballet, performing at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC through end of November.

NYC Ballet Dancer Tiler Peck and the creative team of Little Dancer recreate the famous Edgar Degas sculpture.  They pull it off so wonderfully as to wonder, for a moment, if Peck were indeed that little dancer, whom Degas had befriended.  She herself is a very beautiful 25 year old, and from production clips we see, clearly a talent with both dancing and acting skills. 

Little Dancer (4) Art Inspiring Art

I love the whole thing about art: the work itself, the creativity and creative process to it, and the story that inspired it.  Sometimes the inspiration is another art work.  So it is with Little Dancer, a new musical ballet, performing at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC through end of November.

La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans

This is the Edgar Degas sculpture that inspired Susan Stroman and Lynn Ahrens.  The two artists had been looking for a project they could collaborate on, and this 14-year old dancer was their creative convergence.

The Art Institute of Chicago has a collection of Degas, and on a visit there two years ago, I realized how taken I was by his paintings of ballet dancers.  They were just of performances, but as we see with the Little Dancer, they were also of behind the scenes stuff.  I took the photo above with my old iPhone, but while the clarity of shot was lacking, it was evocative nonetheless of a wonderful afternoon of art.

Little Dancer (3) Creative Process

I love the whole thing about art: the work itself, the creativity and creative process to it, and the story that inspired it.  Sometimes the inspiration is another art work.  So it is with Little Dancer, a new musical ballet, performing at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC through end of November.

Listen to Book Writer and Lyricist Lynn Ahrens and Composer Stephen Flaherty, and we see how each represents a separate thread.  We know that they collaborated in the creation of Little Dancer, and no one can blame any of us for wondering which came first: the words or the music, as if creativity were a neatly laid out sequence.



Ahrens and Flaherty are artists in their own right, and the reality of their creativity process was much more woven, that is, non-linear, than our sequential musings may suggest.  It seems to be human nature to simplify things and to believe that the world around us is simpler than it actually is.  But these two talked, and talked a lot, and wove words and music in seemingly organic fashion.

Their talk reminded me of my own collaboration with a colleague.  Fouad and I were slated to speak on Arab leadership style at a conference, and we wanted to do something very different than just one of us going to the podium first, then the other following suit.  We talked about a lot of things, not just the presentation itself but also our work and background.  So it made sense to us to present our stuff in conversation style on stage:  He was at the podium, and I was seated, sometimes standing, by a coffee table left center of him.  We recalled for our audience some of what we talked about, and they all loved it.  We were up first on that day, and when we started there was only a scattering of people in attendance.  But as we went on, it grew to about 200 people.  Late in the day, they were still buzzing about our talk, complimenting us, and asking us about it. 

Little Dancer (2) Direction and Choreography

I love the whole thing about art: the work itself, the creativity and creative process to it, and the story that inspired it.  Sometimes the inspiration is another art work.  So it is with Little Dancer, a new musical ballet, performing at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC through end of November.

Enter, Director and Choreographer Susan Stroman, speaking a bit to the inspiration behind her show and such principals as NYC Ballet dancer Tiler Peck as the Young Marie:

Stroman is the master of ceremonies at the first day of rehearsals, when the gathering of everyone involved in the production make for a truly festive, inspiring event in and of itself:

Peck acknowledges how different art genres converge in Little Dancer: painting, classic ballet, and musical theater.  This convergence is the essence of Dr. Ron Art.

Little Dancer (1) Art Work Itself

I love the whole thing about art: the work itself, the creativity and creative process to it, and the story that inspired it.  Sometimes the inspiration is another art work.  So it is with Little Dancer, a new musical ballet, performing at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC through end of November. 

(image credit)

The trailer for the production:

Then In the Ballet piece from the production:

I wish I could be in Washington DC to see this musical ballet, as it looks to be a wonderful story and to afford stirring music and inspiring dance.