La Goulue
La Goulue ( French .: "The Ravenous"), actually Louise Weber (* 12. July 1866 in Clichy , † thirtieth January 1929 in Paris ) was a French Cancan -Tänzerin and tamer .
Along with Grille d'Egout, Nini Patte-en-l'Air and their well-known partners such as Valentin le Désossé , Fil de Fer or Pomme d'Amour, La Goulue was the queen of the cancan and the chahut .
Beginnings as a dancer
Louise Weber was originally a laundress and began her career as a dancer in Paris' nightlife in 1880 at the age of fourteen . She performed at the Nouveau Cirque and danced the quadrille at the Ambassadeur, the Alcazar d'Hiver and the Elysée-Ménilmontant. In the years 1882 to 1895 she appeared regularly in the Elysée-Ménilmontant. With her sister Victorine, who called herself "Gazelle", she often performed in duets.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec first met her in 1891 in the Moulin de la Galette. He said of La Goulue:
- She has a sincerity that cannot be found in any other; sometimes happy, sometimes shy, sometimes bold or cat-like graceful, supple as a glove.
She got to know the fair environment through her sister's husband . Her work with predators began at this time. At Bal Bullier she made the acquaintance of her future dance partner Valentin le Désossé (Valentin the Boneless, real name Etienne Renaudin, 1843–1907). Known from this period around 1895 is the poster by the artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec , which shows Valentin in the foreground almost as a silhouette, while one can see the dancing Goulue under her swirling skirts. She was also the model for the painter Goupil. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's poster Moulin Rouge, La Goulue from 1891 is a reminder of the legendary appearances by La Goulue, who was the Moulin Rouge's crowd favorite for five years . She thrilled the audience with her special dance ideas. The great Diseuse Yvette Guilbert writes about her in her memoir:
- The Goulue in black silk stockings took her black atlas foot in her hand and let the sixty-meter points of her Jupons circle back and forth; she showed her panties, which had a funny heart embroidered on it, which curiously stretched over her little bottom when she made her disrespectful reverences; the rosette of the garter belt shimmered pink, and a luscious lace foam sank down to her fine ankles and made her splendid, flexible, witty and provocative legs appear and disappear. With a swing of the foot, the dancer took off her cavalier's hat and sat down in the straddle, her torso erect, her narrow waist in a sky-blue silk blouse.
World fame
On January 12, 1889, Fernando La Goulue engaged for the current revue En Selle . In the Moulin de la Galette, she played the role of a gossip (Commère) in a revue by Victor Douailhac and Henri Weill. With her involvement in the Moulin Rouge, which opened in the year of the Paris World Exhibition on October 6, 1889, she achieved world fame as the "Pure du quadrille" (Queen of the Quadrille). She performed intermittently at the Moulin Rouge until 1895.
On April 12, 1893, her dance for the opening of Joseph Oller's new Music Hall Olympia on Boulevard des Capucines was a great success. La Goulue performed in salons and at the opera ball and danced her world-famous quadrille with her dance partner Valentin and Môme Fromage, her friend and lover. In 1895 she left the Moulin Rouge and bought a fairground booth on the Foire du Trône. La Goulue showed oriental dances here , which she called La Goulue en almée .
At her request, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec painted the wooden panels that were attached to the left and right of the entrance to her fairground booth. The curtain placed to the left of the entrance showed a scene from days gone by in a ballroom in Montmartre. La Goulue stood in the middle, her torso slightly bent forward, just about to gather her skirts up. On the right side she is shown with an “oriental dance” with which she appeared in her fairground booth.
Animal tamer
In 1898 she moved to Neuilly and on May 10, 1900 married the artist José Nicole Droxler. With her husband she now worked as a predator tamer and moved from fair to fair. It last appeared on November 30, 1917 in a revue by Rip and Henri Varna at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, in a production by Léon Balterra.
La Goulue then lived in a showman's trailer in the Paris suburb of Saint-Ouen . She died on January 30, 1929 in a hospital in Paris.
literature
- Michel Souvais: Moi, La Goulue de Toulouse-Lautrec Memoires de La Goulue , Editions Publibook, Paris 2008. ISBN 978-2-7483-4256-7
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | La Goulue |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Weber, Louise (real name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French can-can dancer and tamer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 12, 1866 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Clichy |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 30, 1929 |
| Place of death | Paris |