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# The Rehearsal of the Ballet Onstage (1874) by Edgar Degas
- URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-rehearsal-of-the-ballet-onstage-1874-by-edgar-degas/
- Published: 2026-06-15T20:22:26.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-01T22:23:45.000Z
- Description: Deidre Cavazzi
- Author: MW Editors
- Tags: Poetry, Arts

> The young girls are like linen hanging out to dry,

> breeze-buffeted and slightly see-through. They pose,

> wait with awkwardly clasped hands, rehearse their steps.

> 

> Upstage, just off-center, a ginger-haired ballerina pulls

> her hair away from the nape of her neck, perhaps

> caught mid-yawn or breathless from practice. The light

> lifts her towards the viewer: the soft skin of her upper arms,

> her mouth ecstatic and open. Pearls shimmer

> at her ears and her corseted dress plunges low.

> 

> Just offstage, two men in tuxedos watch rehearsal.

> One man reclines in his chair, hands in pockets, legs

> stretched out. He is a man who always gets what he wants,

> takes what he wants. He watches the ginger-haired ballerina

> bathed in light. His hunting is casual.

> Her movements choreographed for him.

> 

> The other man wears a shiny top hat. He has spun

> the chair around and straddled it, leaning aggressively

> forward from the shadows. His gaze holds another

> red-tressed ballerina, this one downstage in the limelight;

> her hands are also clasped to her neck, perhaps retying a necklace,

> and she is angled towards him, sunk into a deep curtsy: shoulders

> hunched forward, bosom cleaved. A glint of gold from the gifted

> bracelet on her right wrist, long-lashed eyes like a songbird’s wing.

> He has already claimed her, already imagined the capture:

> arrogant, looming, hungry.

> 

> This rehearsal is also a performance.

### Deidre Cavazzi holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Dominican University of California and a Master of Fine Arts in Dance from the University of California, Irvine. She has been an artist-in-residence with The Arctic Circle in Svalbard and the Fish Factory Creative Centre in Iceland, as well as a guest artist at the University of Galway in Ireland. 

## The painting can be found [here](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436155?ref=merionwest.com).