Palimpseste

Palimpseste is inspired by a Vue du Nuit postcard of the Moulin Rouge from the early 20th century. It speaks to a night when a man sees the performer Otero exhausted on the streets of Montmartre after her performance and helps her back to the one-room apartment of her friend. The piece explores the feminine experience and how the public lives of performers during the Belle Epoque denied the reality of private feminine spaces. Set in Montmartre, c. 1890-1900—between the velvet glare of the Moulin Rouge and the private, precarious spaces of women’s lives.