{"id":124831,"date":"2026-06-03T15:18:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T19:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=124831"},"modified":"2026-06-03T15:18:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T19:18:18","slug":"preview-toronto-performer-saint-stella-brings-louise-last-dance-toronto-heading-edinburgh-fringe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2026\/06\/03\/preview-toronto-performer-saint-stella-brings-louise-last-dance-toronto-heading-edinburgh-fringe\/","title":{"rendered":"PREVIEW | Toronto Performer Saint Stella Brings Louise: The Last Dance To Toronto Before Heading To Edinburgh Fringe"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"L&R:
L&R: Performer Saint Stella as Louise Weber in Louise: The Last Dance (Photos courtesy of the artist); Middle: The real Louise Weber (Public domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Saint Stella is a fixture of Toronto\u2019s performing arts community, a performer, producer, and multidisciplinary theatre artist. Their latest show \u2014 Louise: The Last Dance \u2014 brings to life the story of the woman who invented the iconic can-can dance.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re performing two shows that bring the character to Toronto before they head to Scotland for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for the show\u2019s international debut from August 7 to 29.<\/p>\n

Saint Stella<\/h2>\n

With an educational background in visual art that includes a BFA in Photography from Toronto Metropolitan University, Saint Stella has carved a 20+ year career that incorporates dance, theatre, burlesque, and visual art.<\/p>\n

Stella has produced three consecutive sold-out Toronto Fringe productions; Lysistrata, Carmilla, and Mayhem at Miskatonic. Those productions seamlessly brought together movement, text, and contemporary cabaret.<\/p>\n

Stella is a frequent performer in the Toronto burlesque scene and beyond, including award winning performances in Las Vegas and Massachusetts. Stella has performed twice at the Burlesque Hall of Fame, received an Emerging Queer Artist Award from Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, and a Rainbow Community Arts Grant.<\/p>\n

\"Photograph
Photograph of Louise Weber aka La Goulue (second from left) with three other dancers, ca. 1881 to 1891 (Anonymous\/Public domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Louise Weber: La Goulue<\/h2>\n

It is believed that Louise Weber was born to Jewish parents in the Alsace region of France. She worked in her mother\u2019s laundry before making the break to dance halls.<\/p>\n

She launched her dance career in small clubs in and near Paris, and quickly learned how to work the crowd. Louise developed her signature can-can dance to tease her audience with a glimpse of the heart she’d embroidered on her knickers. Sometimes, she’s flip a man’s hat off his head with a high kick.<\/p>\n

She began posing for artists and photographers to earn extra money after meeting Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec painted her often. A favourite subject of his, his iconic posters and paintings of her performances at the Moulin Rouge are now valued as emblematic of the Parisian Belle \u00c9poque.<\/p>\n

She was the headline act at the Moulin Rouge in 1889, where her high kicking dance drew crowds of wealthy patrons. Louise earned her nickname, La Goulue, which means \u201cthe glutton\u201d due to her habit of finishing customer\u2019s drinks while she danced by. Legend has it that she walked a goat on a leash, and once, during a dance, she called out, \u201cHey Wales! The Champagne\u2019s on you?\u201d to the Prince of Wales.<\/p>\n

In 1895, she left the Moulin Rouge, and invested her own money into a show where she performed with live wild animals. She toured around France as part of a fair, and went on to perform as a belly dancer and in a sideshow for about five decades.<\/p>\n

Behind the fame, money, and her cheeky public persona, there was a much darker side, however. She was a survivor of domestic violence.<\/p>\n

Louise was eviscerated by a vicious press who, at the same time as they dubbed her the Queen of Monmartre, reduced her to a string of lurid headlines.<\/p>\n

Eventually, she exhausted the money she\u2019d made during her heyday, and now poor and struggling with alcoholism, she returned to Montmartre. She lived her final days in a caravan, tending to stray animals and eking out a living selling peanuts, cigarettes, and matches on the street.<\/p>\n

Louise Weber died in 1929 at age 62 and is buried in the Montmartre Cemetery.<\/p>\n

Louise Weber in the early 1920s:<\/p>\n