Marie Anne de Cupis de Camargo

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Marie Anne de Cupis de Camargo (15 April 1710, Brussels – 1770) sometimes known simply as La Camargo, was a French/Belgian dancer.

Her father, Ferdinand Joseph de Cupis, earned a scanty living as violinist and dancing-master, and from childhood she was trained for the stage. At ten years of age, she was given lessons by Françoise Prévost (1680-1741), then the first dancer at the Paris Opera, and at once obtained an engagement as premiere danseuse, first at Brussels and then at Rouen.

She made her Paris debut on 5 May 1726 at the Paris Opera ballet. The production was Les Caracteres de la Danse, in which she was the first woman to execute the entrechat quatre, and she at once became the rage. She introduced innovations, changing from heeled shoes to slippers and shortening ♥ her ballet skirt. Every new fashion bore her name; her manner of doing her hair was copied by all at court; her shoemaker — she had a tiny foot — made his fortune.

She had many titled admirers whom she nearly ruined by her extravagances, among others Louis de Bourbon, comte de Clermont. At his wish she retired from the stage from 1736 to 1741, resuming her dancing career from 1741 to 1751. After finally retiring, she received a government pension.

In her time she appeared in 78 ballets or operas, always to the delight of the public. She was the first ballet-dancer to shorten the skirt to what afterwards became the regulation length. Nicolas Lancret painted a famous portrait of her that exists in several versions including works now held at the Wallace Collection, London, and at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (shown right).

A ballet, Camargo, based on the incident when she and her sister Madeleine were abducted by the Comte de Melun in May 1728 was created by Marius Petipa and the composer Léon Minkus for the Russian Imperial Ballet, premiering December 19, 1872 with the famous ballerina, Adèle Grantzow, as Marie Camargo. The work was later revived in 1901 for the Russian Imperial Ballet by Lev Ivanov for Pierina Legnani. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, however, the ballet was never performed again.

[edit] References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.