les danseurs

On Wednesday, during my day in Montmartre, we visited the cemeterie de Montmartre. It houses some pretty cool people: Jim Morrison, Edgar Degas, Hemingway, and two people that I found extremely important/intriguing: Marie Taglioni, the first woman to ever dance en pointe, and Vaslav Nijinsky, one of the most important ballet choreographers of the turn of the century. His Le Sacre du Printemps is probably the most influential ballet ever created. It led to the avant garde works of later times and even foresaw aspects of modern dance.

Anyways, I spent forever looking for their graves, since I only had a general idea of where they were and no map. Suddenly, though, I happened upon a statue of a jester-like person, and there was Nijinsky, in all his quirky glory. It was SO incredible, to know that this dance genius had been laid to rest right in front of me.

Nijinsky was cool, but Taglioni was even cooler. Hers was a lot harder to find, but when I noticed the decaying pointe shoes laid over a modest grave, I knew it had to be her. History was right in front of me! Even though she first stepped en pointe nearly 200 years ago, dancers are still paying homage to her, bring pointe shoes and flowers to remember her by. One pair of pointe shoes had even been stripped of their satin, to signify how Taglioni had danced without the reinforced burlap and canvas that was laid bare. She merely stuffed her flat shoes with a bit of cloth, and stood on her toes. It's quite amazing, when you think about it.

I'm trying to catch up on posts, but I need to go meet my class for a walk at the Ile-St. Louis, so I'll try to finish later. Bon weekend!