mata hari

For those of you who are unfamiliar with her Mata Hari, here is a little bit of information about her. Mata Hari was the stage name of Margaretha Geertruida "Grietje" Zelle MacLeod, born on 7 August 1876 in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. She was a Dutch exotic dancer, courtesan, and accused spy who, although possibly innocent, was executed by firing squad in Vincennes, France for espionage for Germany during WWI on 15 October 1917.

 

She married a Dutch Colonial Army officer in Amsterdam in 1895 and they moved to Java in the Dutch East Indies. For months, she studied the Indonesian traditions intensively, joining a local dance company. In 1897, she revealed her artistic name: Mata Hari, Indonesian for "sun" (literally, "eye of the day"), via correspondence to her relatives in Holland. In 1903, she divorced and moved to Paris, where she performed as a circus horse rider, using the name Lady MacLeod. Struggling to earn a living, she also posed as an artist's model.

By 1905, she began to win fame as an exotic dancer. It was then that she adopted the stage name Mata Hari. She was a contemporary of dancers Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis, leaders in the early modern dance movement, which around the turn of the 20th century looked to Asia and Egypt for artistic inspiration.
Promiscuous, flirtatious, and openly flaunting her body, she captivated her audiences and was an overnight success from the debut of her act at the Musée Guimet. She became the long-time mistress of the millionaire industrialist Emile Etienne Guimet, who had founded the Musée.

- 1907 -

She posed as a Java princess of priestly Hindu birth, pretending to have been immersed in the art of sacred Indian dance since childhood. She was photographed numerous times during this period, nude or nearly so.
She brought this carefree provocative style to the stage in her act, which garnered wide acclaim. The most celebrated segment of her act was her progressive shedding of clothing until she wore just a jeweled bra and some ornaments upon her arms and head.

Although the claims made by her about her origins were fictitious, the act was spectacularly successful because it elevated exotic dance to a more respectable status, and so broke new ground in a style of entertainment for which Paris was later to become world famous. Her style and her free-willed attitude made her a very popular woman, as did her eagerness to perform in exotic and revealing clothing. She posed for provocative photos and mingled in wealthy circles.

all photos via mata-hari.com