I came across this image today, taken by German avant-garde photographer, Lise Bing of a can can dancer at the Moulin Rouge in the 1930s. I read a little bit about Bing –– an influential photographer, who ran with the likes of Cartier-Bresson, Man Ray, and Brassaï –– but I thought mostly about the dancer in the picture. The strain on her body, to dance night after night, for a pittance. That she was likely a prostitute, who like the famous Jane Avril, had run away from a life of poverty and abuse. That it was a thrilling life, and a gruelling one.