Rodin's Dancers

Charting Auguste Rodins relationships with the dancers who shaped his signature style and his mythic persona. Juliet Bellow traces Rodins interactions with dance makers and performers during his late career (1890-1912) through a series of interrelated case studies. His exchanges with Loe Fuller, Vaslav Nijinsky, and members of the Cambodian Royal Ballet troupe were central to Rodins development of a modern sculptural aesthetic and the construction of his artistic celebrity. But this was not a simple case of one-way influence. These performers actively courted an affiliation with Rodin, wielding sculptures cultural authority to move dance from the realm of commercial entertainment to that of high art. Bringing together art history and performance studies, Rodins Dancers demonstrates that in their search for innovation, dancers and sculptors experimented with one anothers means of expression, sites of display, and techniques of publicity. The book provides more than a new interpretation of Rodins art: it considers how and why the name Rodin came to stand for a powerful constellation of ideas about art, authorship, and creative genius within the vibrant spectacle culture of Belle poque Paris.