Mariquita

Emilienne d’Alençon and Mariquita, lithograph by Toulouse-LautrecMariquita, often referred to as Madame Mariquita, (1838/40–1922) was an Algerian-born dancer who became a ballerina, and later a successful choreographer and ballet mistress at various theatres in Paris from the 1870s until 1920. Though best known for her work at the Opéra-Comique, where she was a trailblazer in modernizing French ballet during the 1900s and 1910s, Mariquita also staged popular ballets and divertissements for boulevard theatres and music halls throughout her life. Highly prolific, she created almost 300 ballets over a span of 50 years. While her life and work are not well documented in modern ballet history, contemporaries regarded her as one of the best choreographers of her time, lauding her as “French Fokine,” and “most artistic of all dance-mistresses.” She is said to have been found by a female dancer as a small child beside a fountain near Aumale in Algeria. She learned to dance even before she could read.

After the death of her adoptive mother, Mariquita was brought to Paris by an impresario. She débuted in Paris in 1845 in a Vaudeville production at the Théâtre des Funambules at the age of seven or eight, under the stage name “Fanny.” She also began choreographing at the Folies Bergère, collaborating with conductor-composer Olivier Métra on such works as Les Fausses almées, Les Papillons noirs, Les Joujoux, and Les Faunes.

In high demand throughout the 1890s and 1910s, Mariquita was nationally and internationally acclaimed as a choreographer.

Legacy In the years following her death, Mariquita has largely been forgotten from dance history. In her own lifetime, Mariquita was highly regarded as a dancer, teacher and choreographer. As a dancer, she was respected as one of the best character dancers of the era, but also as a technically skilled ballerina. English dancer Edouard Espinosa listed her as one of “the great outstanding PREMIERES ETOILES” of France. As a ballet mistress and choreographer, she was praised by fellow Parisian artists including Jules Massenet, Louis Delluc, Pierre-Barthélémy Gheusi, and Albert Carré. Upon her death, contemporaries credited her with ushering in a new era of ballet, particularly through her Greek-inspired choreography from 1899 to 1912.