Jane Avril by Raoul Ponchon
I was all to ready to trace
My steps from that horrible place.
I was on my way to go
When a word, spoken quiet and low
And a little frail face
Gamine, yet touched with grace:
Jane Avril's gentle name
Was whispered, as in she came.
She danced alone: did not share
Her steps with anyone there.
(And it's not because she's shy,
Said a certain passer by).
Dancing alone made her free
To be what she wanted to be,
To do what she wished to do
She's right - I can see that too.
Like a misty little cloud,
She swirled amidst the crowd
Never in anyone's way
Simply slipping away.
It was not a dance you'd recall
From a Presidential ball
It was along way apart -
A completely different art.
No academy would teach this
Shicking hint of bliss
The source is deep in herself
And has been there all her life
She danced as everyone danced
Ay the Moulin Rouge - in a trance
But she added to the scene
Something elegant, serene.
There was charm and harmony
In what her dance showed me
I've never seen the like
For genius, delight
Drawing from her own rules
Is what allows her to choose
Whether to sparkle with laughter
Or follow the route which is darker
As the music leads her feet
She can follow, clean and neat,
But she never feels obliged
To follow the classical tide:
She can create her steps
To the theme of "Queen Hortense"
As well as religious themes
Deep as "Profundis" seems
The thing she represents
Are drawn from her deepest sense.
She dances like others drink
Or sleep or breathe or think.
And - there is no more to say:
You will know where the truth must lay
That her main purpose in life
Is to dance out its bliss and its strife
When the poor thing wends her way
Off to bed at the end of the day
Each says to the other and stares
How will she amuse herself there!
My steps from that horrible place.
I was on my way to go
When a word, spoken quiet and low
And a little frail face
Gamine, yet touched with grace:
Jane Avril's gentle name
Was whispered, as in she came.
She danced alone: did not share
Her steps with anyone there.
(And it's not because she's shy,
Said a certain passer by).
Dancing alone made her free
To be what she wanted to be,
To do what she wished to do
She's right - I can see that too.
Like a misty little cloud,
She swirled amidst the crowd
Never in anyone's way
Simply slipping away.
It was not a dance you'd recall
From a Presidential ball
It was along way apart -
A completely different art.
No academy would teach this
Shicking hint of bliss
The source is deep in herself
And has been there all her life
She danced as everyone danced
Ay the Moulin Rouge - in a trance
But she added to the scene
Something elegant, serene.
There was charm and harmony
In what her dance showed me
I've never seen the like
For genius, delight
Drawing from her own rules
Is what allows her to choose
Whether to sparkle with laughter
Or follow the route which is darker
As the music leads her feet
She can follow, clean and neat,
But she never feels obliged
To follow the classical tide:
She can create her steps
To the theme of "Queen Hortense"
As well as religious themes
Deep as "Profundis" seems
The thing she represents
Are drawn from her deepest sense.
She dances like others drink
Or sleep or breathe or think.
And - there is no more to say:
You will know where the truth must lay
That her main purpose in life
Is to dance out its bliss and its strife
When the poor thing wends her way
Off to bed at the end of the day
Each says to the other and stares
How will she amuse herself there!
The words of Maurice Joyant (Friend of Toulouse - Lautrec)
(describing her dancing) "like an orchid in a frenzy."
The words of Gerstle Mack
"She never allowed herself to lapse into vulgarity....Her friends were generally writers or artists, cultivated men in whose company she felt at ease."
The words of Arthur Symons (Symbolist critic and poet)
"From these to the adorable, the fascinating beyond all imaginable fascination, La Mélinite, whose name in the world was Jane Avril." (Mélinite - a french explosive first used about 1886)
"Jane Avril, adorable, magically fascinating."
"She possessed the beauty of a fallen angel; she was exotic and exciteable..."
"A dancing butterfly in flight in the hot sunshine."
(After seeing her dance at Le Jardin de Paris in 1893) "She danced in a quadrille: young and girlish, the more provocative because she played as a prude, with an assumed modesty, decolletee nearly to her waist, in the Oriental fashion. She had long black (she was really blonde) curls around her face, and had about her a depraved virginity."
(After seeing her dance at Le Moulin Rouge) "She danced before the mirror, the orange-rosy lamps. The tall slim girl: the vague distinction of her grace; her candid blue eyes; her straight profile. She wore a tufted straw bonnet, a black jacket and a dark blue serge skirt - white bodice opening far down a boyish bosom. Always arm in arm with another jolly girl who also seized my arm for the invariable reason of giving them drinks. The reflections - herself with her unconscious air, as if no one were looking - studying herself before the mirror...(she) had a perverse genius, besides which she was altogether adorable and exciteable, morbid and sombre, biting and stinging; a creature of cruel moods, of cruel passions; she had the reputation of being a lesbian; and, apart from this and from her fascination, never in my experience of such women have I known anyone who had such an absolute passion for her own beauty. She danced before the mirror under the gallery of the orchestra because she was folle de son corps...
She was so incredibly thin and supple in body that she could turn over backward - as Salome when she danced before Herod and Herodias - until she brushed the floor with her shoulders."
Olivier Metra's Waltz of Roses
Sheds in a rhythmic shower
The very petals of the flower;
And all its roses,
The rouge of petals in a shower.
Down the long hall the dance returning
Rounds the full circle, rounds
The perfect rose of lights and sounds,
The rose returning
Into the circle of its rounds.
Alone, apart, one dancer watches
Her mirrored, morbid grace;
Before the mirror, face to face,
Alone she watches
Her morbid, vague ambiguous grace.
Before the mirror's dance of shadows
She dances in a dream,
And she and they together seem
A dance of shadows;
Alike the shadows of a dream.
The orange - rosy lamps are trembling
Between the robes that turn;
In ruddy flowers of flame that burn
The lights are trembling:
The shadows and the dancers turn.
And, enigmatically smiling,
In the mysterious night,
She dances for her own delight,
A shadow smiling
Back to a shadow in the night.
"Jane Avril, adorable, magically fascinating."
"She possessed the beauty of a fallen angel; she was exotic and exciteable..."
"A dancing butterfly in flight in the hot sunshine."
(After seeing her dance at Le Jardin de Paris in 1893) "She danced in a quadrille: young and girlish, the more provocative because she played as a prude, with an assumed modesty, decolletee nearly to her waist, in the Oriental fashion. She had long black (she was really blonde) curls around her face, and had about her a depraved virginity."
(After seeing her dance at Le Moulin Rouge) "She danced before the mirror, the orange-rosy lamps. The tall slim girl: the vague distinction of her grace; her candid blue eyes; her straight profile. She wore a tufted straw bonnet, a black jacket and a dark blue serge skirt - white bodice opening far down a boyish bosom. Always arm in arm with another jolly girl who also seized my arm for the invariable reason of giving them drinks. The reflections - herself with her unconscious air, as if no one were looking - studying herself before the mirror...(she) had a perverse genius, besides which she was altogether adorable and exciteable, morbid and sombre, biting and stinging; a creature of cruel moods, of cruel passions; she had the reputation of being a lesbian; and, apart from this and from her fascination, never in my experience of such women have I known anyone who had such an absolute passion for her own beauty. She danced before the mirror under the gallery of the orchestra because she was folle de son corps...
She was so incredibly thin and supple in body that she could turn over backward - as Salome when she danced before Herod and Herodias - until she brushed the floor with her shoulders."
Olivier Metra's Waltz of Roses
Sheds in a rhythmic shower
The very petals of the flower;
And all its roses,
The rouge of petals in a shower.
Down the long hall the dance returning
Rounds the full circle, rounds
The perfect rose of lights and sounds,
The rose returning
Into the circle of its rounds.
Alone, apart, one dancer watches
Her mirrored, morbid grace;
Before the mirror, face to face,
Alone she watches
Her morbid, vague ambiguous grace.
Before the mirror's dance of shadows
She dances in a dream,
And she and they together seem
A dance of shadows;
Alike the shadows of a dream.
The orange - rosy lamps are trembling
Between the robes that turn;
In ruddy flowers of flame that burn
The lights are trembling:
The shadows and the dancers turn.
And, enigmatically smiling,
In the mysterious night,
She dances for her own delight,
A shadow smiling
Back to a shadow in the night.
Arthur Symons - From Toulouse-Lautrec to Rodin with some personal impressions. (1930)
"She is painted with his feverish colours; she stands sideways; an immense hat flaps red wings of wild birds striped with black, vanishing into space, over her bright yellow hair; her red mouth, fine nose and perverse eyes glitter before me; her hands are extended on either side with two sweeping gestures; and-so like the depravity of Lautrec - a living cobra writhes around her body. His evil mouth whose toungue hisses is painted in yellow and red and thin black colours; it seems to dart at her chin; and this adorable and fearful monster's body is painted with yellow that verges into pale blue, mixed with a peculiar kind of green; and, the more he coils around her, the more violent are his colours. And - a certain sign of Lautrec's perversity - he has inserted on the left , near the bottom of the poster, the most inhuman and delicious and exotic and tiniest of snakes who absolutely flies in the air, lifted by a delicate wind."
Quadrille at the Moulin Rouge - Arthur Symons from Toulouse-Lautrec to Rodin with some personal impressions. (1930)
"Lautrec paints the adorable Jane Avril, dressed fashionably - with her curved nose, straight chin, thin red lips, black eyes - eyes nervous and erotic, perverse and passsionate. She wears a dainty hat with fine feathers, the white brim shading her forehead and her thick golden hair; and that elegant robe she is so fond of, in which he drapes her as if she were his model; the right hand just lifts the upper part of her skirt - to avoid the dust - as any Parisian lady might."
La Promenade - Arthur Symons from Toulouse- Lautrec to Rodin with some personal impressions. (1930)
"How well I remember that Promenade in the Moulin Rouge; monstrous, fascinating, perilous, insidious. Olivier Métra conducts his blaring orchestra to the sound of his dance-music, Jane Avril dances with an extravagant ecstasy, twisting for once her tiny feet à rebours - so as to give one the effect of a modern and no less magical Salome."
Referring to this image of Jane Avril, the critic Frantz Jourdain praised:
"The svelte spectator with her sharp eye, her provocative lips, her tall slender, adorable vicious body."
The words of critic and art collector Frantz Jourdain
"La Goulue was not particularly distinguished. It was not the same with Jane Avril - la Mélinite - whose strange and aristocratic pale mask, intelligent look, sometimes tinged with sadness, and spiritual legs enchanted Lautrec. To confuse La Mome Fromage and her colleagues with Jane Avril would be - and I mean no offence to anyone - to mix up serviettes and napkins....The queens of the quadrille jigged; Jane Avril danced."
The words of Gabriel Astruc
"Strange sylphide, always solitaire, a sort of wader who stays in equilibrium on one leg and balances the other like an isolated part of her body..."
The words of Georges Montorgueil - (Writer)
"Avril was modernity itself, with her clever and oh-so thin smile...(her) supple and serpentine (body)."
The words of William Rothenstein (British Artist)
"The single attractive figure' at Le Moulin Rouge."
"A wild, Botticelli-like creature, perverse but intelligent, whose madness for dancing induced her to join this strange company."
"A wild, Botticelli-like creature, perverse but intelligent, whose madness for dancing induced her to join this strange company."
The words of Arsène Alexandre (Art Critic)
"A very graceful, filiform person, with her delicate goat-face, her wondrous urge to dance, the truly original, instinctively artistic agility and elegance of all her movements and techniques."
La Mélinite was "thin, pale, deliciously agile, kind of a will-o-the-wisp of the cancan."
"Painter and model, together, have created a true art of our time, one through movement, one through representation."
La Mélinite was "thin, pale, deliciously agile, kind of a will-o-the-wisp of the cancan."
"Painter and model, together, have created a true art of our time, one through movement, one through representation."
The words of Aurélien Lugné-Poe (Theatre Director) on her performance in Peer Gynt
"Anitra was the Chat-noir dance star Jane Avril known as 'Mélinite', incomparable, never replaced. No other showing of Peer Gynt would have that one."
The words of Paul Leclercq (Friend of Lautrec)
"There was an uproar in the middle of the crowd. A corridor was formed and Jane Avril danced: she turned, graceful and light, a little pale, a little thin, but classy...she wove back and forth, weightless, just like a climbing plant; Lautrec shouted his applause to her."
"In the midst of the crowd, there was a stir, and a line of people started to form: Jane Avril was dancing, twirling, gracefully, lightly, a little madly; pale, skinny, thoroughbred, she twirled and reversed, weightless, fed on flowers; Lautrec was shouting out his admiration."
"In the midst of the crowd, there was a stir, and a line of people started to form: Jane Avril was dancing, twirling, gracefully, lightly, a little madly; pale, skinny, thoroughbred, she twirled and reversed, weightless, fed on flowers; Lautrec was shouting out his admiration."
The words of Paul-Jean Toulet (Writer and Poet)
(After seeing her dance one evening at the Jardin de Paris) "A little later...she did a waltz all by herself. Wearing a plain somber dress...she appears in her rapid turns as something indefinably elegant and harmonious. From her hair to the tips of her toes, all vibrates as a whole. Watching her, we see one of those whirlpools that tunnels into the crystalline surface of a river without disturbing it. But then, suddenly, she departs from her own rhythm, breaks it, and creates a new one; she seems never tired, always re-inventing herself."
The words of Craig Robert Whitfield (Admirer)
I never knew you
I was out of time
To have seen you dance
Would have been divine
Your spirit soared
Your steps so free and light
The world was yours
Your star shone bright
You travelled as you felt
To live, to see, to dance
You even came to England
Leaving your beloved France
A muse to artists
Before you they would bow
Open up all they were
And you would show them how
You knew so much
As bright as could be
They taught you well
I wish only it had been me
You knew of pain
In body and heart
You knew what it took
To make a new start
You have left us now
But i'll not forget
Your champion is here
Your light to reflect
I was out of time
To have seen you dance
Would have been divine
Your spirit soared
Your steps so free and light
The world was yours
Your star shone bright
You travelled as you felt
To live, to see, to dance
You even came to England
Leaving your beloved France
A muse to artists
Before you they would bow
Open up all they were
And you would show them how
You knew so much
As bright as could be
They taught you well
I wish only it had been me
You knew of pain
In body and heart
You knew what it took
To make a new start
You have left us now
But i'll not forget
Your champion is here
Your light to reflect
The words of Yvette Guilbert - Legendary French Singer
"Jane Avril was famous for the very special eloquence of her ankle, for her pointed and witty toes that crept from the foam of lacy skirts. There was no vulgarity in her. You felt that she abandoned herself to the dance with rhythmic joy, and Zidler loved her for her very "correct" quality of her rule in the Quadrille."
The words of Maurice Joyant - French Artist
"She was Lautrec's most intelligent and complaisant model...with her very fine but pale facial features, angular, almost simian in figure and movement."
The words of Thadée Natanson - Lautrec Biographer
"A dancer, more individual than any other, danced the quadrille at the Moulin and the Jardin. The bones of her legs appeared as bare as the arched skeleton feet at their ends. These feet, which she hurled out to all quarters about her, seemed as though they were held by only a string to (her) rubber body. The severity of her brow seemed in perpetual denial of her obligatory dancer's smile. For lack of knowledge, she drew all the art of her pirouettes from instinct. She would often still be dancing once the orchestra had stopped. As if she responded only to the rhythm of music that came from inside her suppleness."
The words of Teodor de Wyzewa
ON MEETING JANE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE GARDENS OF THE BULLIER - "(She was) an extravagant creature who, alone in the middle of the path, danced, or rather turned, turned, alone, extravagant, winding around herself, then unwinding to the wind, a red scarf."
"She was proud. she didn't know how to cry, nor beg, nor apologise. She was always laughing, but beneath her laugh there was a deep stream of melancholy; and perhaps she was only that joyful so as to mask the sound of its flow."
"Every evening after dinner she asked me to take her to (the) Bullier, and I refused always, under the pretext of a headache or some piece of work; and if you could have seen with what sweet softness she accommodated my refusals! But I realised that, in my room, she'd get up suddenly, hitch up her skirts and turn, turn, while singing a waltz or a gallop to herself."
"She was proud. she didn't know how to cry, nor beg, nor apologise. She was always laughing, but beneath her laugh there was a deep stream of melancholy; and perhaps she was only that joyful so as to mask the sound of its flow."
"Every evening after dinner she asked me to take her to (the) Bullier, and I refused always, under the pretext of a headache or some piece of work; and if you could have seen with what sweet softness she accommodated my refusals! But I realised that, in my room, she'd get up suddenly, hitch up her skirts and turn, turn, while singing a waltz or a gallop to herself."
The words of Jose Shercliff - Biographer
"Jane Avril was a very special person. If she had sinned, hers was the sin of loving, and if she had erred it had been with dancing feet that brought delight wherever she passed. Her own exceptional gifts of intelligence and integrity, of kindliness and charm, had the good fortune of being directed by some of the richest minds of her time into channels that led her to great fame and much happiness. Her sorrows she accepted with the courage with which she accepted life itself. She never knew the bitterness of regret."
Craig's Blog - JANE AVRIL OF THE MOULIN ROUGE - Craig's Blog
