Werner Bischof :: Dancer Anjali Hora Preparing for a Performance, Bombay, India, 1951 – via

Studio Matzene :: Dancer Anna Pavlova with Mikhail Mordkin, 1915 / source: studio-matzene

Bodenwieser Ballet performance of Blue Danube Waltz, with Moira Claux, Elaine Vallance, Nina Bascolo and Biruta Apens, 1953
Source: National Library of Australia – via

back-then

Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus wearing her outfit for the ‘Hot Voodoo’ dance, directed by Josef von Sternberg, 1932 / src: IMDb and Film Forum

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Children’s dance rehearsal

Martin Munkácsi :: [Rehearsal for children’s dance performance], ca. 1934. Glass plate negative. | src ICP

Here, Helen (Marlene Dietrich) as

Blonde Venus

in the truly freaky and berserk “Hot Voodoo” dance. It plays like a pagan, taboo and primitive beauty and the beast-style ritual, with Dietrich as an albino goddess or priestess shedding her gorilla fur disguise. All these decades later “Hot Voodoo” is still deliriously weird, and perhaps the first incidence of deliberate, knowing camp in popular culture. (It’s easy to imagine von Sternberg and Dietrich looking at each other across the camera and thinking, “Can you believe we’re getting away with this?”), 1932 / src: reflections-on-blonde-venus

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From the United Artists/Charlie Chaplin silent classic The Gold Rush, 1925. To view Charlie’s New Year’s Eve party featuring his acclaimed “dance of the dinner rolls” scene, click here. / via wehadfacesthen via

sparklejamesysparkle

Source: sparklejamesysparkle

I’ve always been curious about the above photo when it appears online or in books: it’s clearly an entirely different outfit to the black sequinned one Dietrich wears onscreen in “Hot Voodoo.” Is this shot a “wardrobe test” of a potential costume that got rejected? In his book, Bach provides a clue: production of Blonde Venus was a long rancorous ordeal with Sternberg (and Dietrich) feuding with studio heads. (At one point Paramount threatened to sack Sternberg and replace him with another director). There were so many script re-shuffles that “major sequences (including the “Hot Voodoo” number) were completely recostumed and reshot.” So, the famous version of “Hot Voodoo” we’re all familiar with is actually the second reshot version. This pic above was presumably what Dietrich wore in the original scrapped number that was resigned to the cutting room floor. / source: graham-russell

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Source: pinterest.com