Sisters of Salome

The origins of the art of exotic dancing lie in English drama and Viennese opera: Oscar Wilde’s 1893 play Salome, and Richard Strauss’s 1905 opera based on it, brought onto the stage a female character who captured and dominated the audience with the raw power of her naked body. Her Dance of the Seven Veils shocked and fascinated, and Salome became a pop icon on both sides of the Atlantic. Toni Bentley explores how four influential women embraced the persona of the femme fatale and transformed the misogynist image of a dangerously sexual woman into a form of personal liberation.

“Here is a book that will scare the pants off John Ashcroft. A highbrow survey of what generally passes as a lowbrow art. . . . The detail is as delicious, and as revealing, as a Dance of the Seven Veils.”—New York Times, “Bentley studies the figure of the fin-de-siècle femme fatale, in particular four women–Colette, Maud Allan, Mata Hari, and Ida Rubinstein–who chose the way of Salome. They danced exotically to wield their power, reinvent themselves, and, paradoxically, hide their sad pasts by becoming as nude as possible.”—Village Voice, “This fascinating slice of popular culture will appeal to both social and dance historians.”—Booklist

Toni Bentley danced with George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet for ten years. Her books include Winter Season: A Dancer’s Journal, Holding On to the Air, Costumes by Karinska, and The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir.