Pas de chat – dance like a fat cat!
Do you know why the classical ballet glossary contains a lot of names of jumps with the word «cat» («chat» in French): pas de chat, entrе-chat? That is because We used to be a famous ballet teacher in France the 19th century, and the great Edgar Degas painted Us in his magnificent «The Ballet Class»:
Edgar Degas, The Ballet Class. Learn pas de chat
Unfortunately, the ballet also has its art critics. When they saw that a Fat Cat teaches young ladies how to move in the most subtle of ways, they became furious, «C’est quoi ça? C’est degueulasse!» – they shouted, «You should never say to a young lady that she could be beautiful and graceful being not slim!» You know this type of propaganda, and you know the sad result of it – young ladies’ anorexia. But in the 19th century nobody cared about natural beauty, and Degas was forced to paint the Fat Cat over and draw an old man instead of him, you can see the result of it in Musee d’ Orsay:
Edgar Degas, The Ballet Class, Musee d’ Orsay version
But ballet language still keeps memory about the fat cat’s dance in the name of a special jump – “pas de chat»
Learn how to make it:
Thus speaks Zarathustra the Cat
BUY THIS ARTWORK as a CANVAS PRINT or as a POSTER
