Dancing Couple

Heckel's and Kirchner's artistic interest in dance was due not only to its status in the popular culture of the day; it also was personally motivated: Erich Heckel married Milda Frieda Georgi, who was well-known under her pseudonym of Sidi Riha in Berlin dance circles and Kirchner's companion Erna Schilling and her younger sister Gerda were also dancers. Free dancers such as Nina Hard and Gret Palucca also inspired paintings by Kirchner in the late 1920's whose motifs had as themes dance, music halls and the exotic; among the Brücke painters, he was most interested in these topics. Kirchner's insomnia and his ever-present desire to see what was going on often led him out on the streets and squares, in the cafés, music halls and in the circus at night. The two people depicted here are dancing an acrobatic versions of the stage dance the cancan quite fashionable at the time. The dancer presents his partner with a pose both erotic and acrobatic – upside down with her legs split, provocatively put on show. As Kirchner had re-enacted the things he had seen in his tours through Berlin's nightlife in his studio we can imagine that it was the painter himself and Gerda, his companion's sister, who served as model.