A recurrent subject throughout Emil Nolde’s oeuvre, the theme of dance represented an uninhibited, unrestrained expression of life for the artist. Whether during his seminal travels to the South Seas or his time spent in the dance halls and cabarets of Berlin and Paris, the modern forms of dance he observed captivated him. As he later noted, ‘it was more the solo dance, the art dance that I particularly liked observing. The first dance experience may have been the Australian-born Saharet, whirling around wildly, her bunch of black hair coming open and transforming her into a fantastical being from a primeval world...In Paris I saw Loie Fuller in her dazzling serpentine dances, in green and silver…’ (the artist, quoted in Nolde in Berlin: Dance Theatre Cabaret, exh. cat., Stiftung Seebüll Ada und Emil Nolde, 2007, p.107).