ABSTRACT
The Romantic period’s stage designers, writers, and choreographers understood the importance of escape from the dismal, urban streets. Ballerinas represented more than their immediate characters on stage. They were the intermediaries between the audience and the potentially hostile, increasingly industrialized urban world. By playing a part in fantastic stories, they tried to stave off the inevitable mechanization of their society. It was almost as if industrialism were a disease caught by everyone. By the time Degas painted their exhausted bodies, they too were caught in a worker’s web, facing long hours in the studio and on stage, with little job security or financial stability.
