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Mata Hari's Dance in the Context of Femininity and Exoticism

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Mata Hari's Dance in the Context of Femininity and Exoticism 58 GÊNERO E RELIGIÃO NAS ARTES Mata Hari’s Dance in the Hari! Dancing barefoot is a thing of the past, the modern-day female artist is more revealing ...” Context of Femininity (anon. 1906: 9). As such contemporary reviews and Exoticism show, Mata Hari’s dances – many of which she performed in states of undress – were all the rage during the decade of her artistic career. When Mata Alexandra Kolb* Hari, née Margaretha Geertruida Zelle,1 entered the theatrical profession in 1905, she was already a ABSTRACT scarred woman – separated and estranged from her The Dutch dancer Mata Hari (alias husband, a Dutch officer, grieving the mysterious Margaretha Geertruida Zelle) has achieved an death of her young son and eking out a hand-to- th iconic status within 20 -century dance history, mouth existence because her husband failed to pay partly due to her execution as a German spy her alimony. Her stage career and abandonment of in 1917. Although she lacked significant her former bourgeois lifestyle was thus born out of dance training, she successfully performed her necessity rather than any real artistic inclination or works, primarily in eclectic oriental styles, indeed professional training. before European audiences. My discussion While Mata Hari’s excessive private lifestyle considers Mata Hari’s contributions against and scandalous execution as a German spy in the backdrop of the pre-WWI European dance France in 1917 have been very well-documented, scene. It specifically explores the ideological hardly any research has been invested in and aesthetic framework within which she contextualising her dance within the framework of was embedded as a female artist in the con- early 20th-century developments. This paper hence text of related concurrent dance trends. Draw- fills an obvious gap in existing literature. It will ing on feminist theories, orientalism and post- consider Mata Hari’s contributions to dance against colonialism (Edward Said), the paper the backdrop of the pre-WW1 dance scene; and examines how Mata Hari’s on- and off-stage more specifically explore the ideological and aes- personae conformed to certain stereotyped thetic framework within which she was embedded images of women whilst al so subverting so- as a female artist, in relation to important dance cial conventions. trends of the time such as Ruth St. Denis’s work, Keywords: Mata Hari, orientalism, nudist orientalism and nudist dance. dance, feminism. For someone without any prior dance training, Mata Hari enjoyed a remarkable career which Mata Hari’s Dance in the Context of spanned various genres: private salons, music halls, Femininity and Exoticism opera houses and musical comedy. She began by presenting her own choreographies in ethnic styles, In 1906, a critic from the Neue Wiener Journal loosely based on Indian and Javanese dances, in wrote: “Isadora Duncan is dead, long live Mata private Parisian salons in 1905. She declared these creations to be authentic Asian dances, though she * Alexandra Kolb is the Chair of the Dance Studies possessed only a limited knowledge of Javanese programme at Otago University in New Zealand, having and Sumatran dances as a result of several years received her doctorate from Cambridge. She trained (from 1897 to 1902) spent in the Dutch East professionally in dance in Düsseldorf and at John Indies, as a housewife and mother alongside her Neumeier’s Academy of the Hamburg Ballet. Her husband who worked in the colonies. She probably research interests include European dance and literature in twentieth century modernism; dance, politics, and globalisation. She has contributed to several international 1 Mata Hari – Malay; literally: eye of the day – was an journals, and her book on Performing Femininity assumed name designed to make her dancing appear (Oxford) will be published shortly. more authentic. 59 had no first-hand knowledge of Indian dance at all, perceived in literature as a serious artist on a par but apart from a few sharp-minded critics no one with figures such as the Americans Ruth St. Denis, seemed to notice or care. who performed works with similar Indian themes, She went on to perform her choreographies of or Maud Allan, or even La Belle Otero who, like primarily (semi-)nude dances in music halls and Mata Hari, worked as a courtesan. Puzzling dis- theatres, sometimes alongside variety acts such as crepancies and contradictions emerge from contem- juggling and trick dogs, for example at the porary accounts of her dancing. The French author Trocadero Theatre and the fairly prestigious Olym- Colette, who herself performed in oriental-themed pia Theatre in 1905. She also toured abroad, for music hall pieces and was thus effectively a com- instance in Spain and Vienna, and later even petitor of Mata Hari’s, and the art lover and patron- danced ballet interludes (this time fully clothed) in ess Misia Sert judged her dancing unequivocally serious arts theatres, notably in the ballet of negatively. Sert’s report of her encounter with Mata Massenet’s Le Roi de Lahore in Monte Carlo in Hari, who hoped to land a contract with 1906. At the second apex of her career in 1911-12, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, is devastating: “She after several years of keeping a low artistic profile, took a few ‘sculptural’ positions and marked two or she was invited to perform her well-known The three dance steps. I was fairly shocked, as she had Princess and the Magic Flower in Gluck’s Armida, no talent whatsoever” (1954: 212). Both Colette and also played Venus in Bacchus and Garbinus at and Sert deemed her performances vulgar, superfi- the world’s foremost opera house, La Scala in Mi- cial and merely exhibitionist, the former asserting lan. She later danced in revues at the Folies- that her dancing did not better in any way “the Bergère, in musical comedy styles and in 1913 at common platitudes of ‘Hindoo acts’ from the music the Trianon Palace theatre in Sicily: a theatre-cafe hall” (Colette, 1991: 1072). On the other hand, Sam offering cabaret with musical entertainment, which Waagenaar’s well-researched book on her life and could be since as a comedown as she shared the career collates a number of voices who declared stage with performers of questionable artistic merit. Mata Hari a fully-fledged artist (1964: 66). Specifi- In 1914 she moved to Berlin and Holland where cally, Waagenaar quotes the famous Italian operatic her career soon came to a halt due to the outbreak conductor Tullio Serafin from La Scala, whom we of World War 1, prior to her arrest by the French may ascribe some authority in the matter, as praising on suspicion of espionage for the German govern- her as “very cultured, and with an innate artistic ment in early 1917. disposition”. Moreover, according to Waagenaar, he This paper will focus on her own artistic crea- termed her a “serious artist” (ibid: 98). tions. Mata Hari’s dances shared many characteris- From the perspective of the lay audience, who tic similarities with the works of other leading early were primarily acquainted with the (declining) art modern dancers: solo dancing (occasionally framed of ballet, there were relatively few points of com- by dancers or musicians in the background); danc- parison due to the novelty of modern dance in the ing barefoot; actual or evoked natural settings (in first decade of the 20th century. Owing to a lack of Mata Hari’s case, she often insisted that her scen- filmed records and accurate descriptions, her actual ery include palm trees and moonlight, and she degree of competence is difficult to assess in retro- sometimes danced outdoors, at least for private spect. Many descriptions of Mata Hari’s dancing performances); the shedding of the corset; the use are irritatingly vague, most likely because she of ‘reformist’ clothing such as veils which enabled evinced a mystic aura rather than any vocabulary of a wide range of movement; and her penchant for recognisable steps. One of the most vivid descrip- the fashion of orientalism, one of the two crucial tions is given by the anonymous critic of the Neue dance trends expressing ‘otherness’ along with Wiener Journal from 15th December 1906. In an antique models. article entitled Brahma Dances in Vienna, the critic Despite the commonalities she shared with other reviews her performance at the Viennese Secession early modern dancers, Mata Hari has rarely been Hall thus: 60 GÊNERO E RELIGIÃO NAS ARTES The auditorium was steeped in mystical darkness. postures and clothing of the industrial age, other Covered blue, green, white lights. A Brahma-altar, forms of nudist dance (such as those of the chorus surrounded by a blossoming fruit tree, has been erected line) were seen to emulate the mechanisation of at the front side of the room. Steaming incense burners modern life (see for instance Siegfried Kracauer’s augment the almost solemn atmosphere of the small discussion of the Tiller girls’ precision dance in auditorium. Then the Hofburg actor Gregori enters the Mass Ornament, 1977: 55). room ... he improvises a little introductory speech. [He Mata Hari’s nudity was extremely risqué and says] Mata Hari’s dances are like a prayer ...the Indian would have been even more so had she not softened people dance when they venerate their Gods. Mata Hari herself enters with measured tread. A the impact by spiritualizing the dance, embedding it Junoesque apparition. Big, fiery eyes lend her noble-cut into a religious Indian context. In its blending of face a peculiar expression. Her dark complexion [...] sensual and spiritual elements, Mata Hari’s dancing suits her marvellously. An exotic beauty of first order. A resembled that of the much more widely acknowl- white, gathered veil envelopes her, a red rose adorns her edged American dance artist Ruth St.
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