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Recently his life and art were used to create a full length ballet production of the Little Dancer of Fourteen Years. In the early 1870’s the female ballet dancer became his favorite theme. His intension was to capture classically perfect movements, spontaneous, unselfconscious gestures preserving such movements for posterity. He sketched from a live model in his studios and combined posses that depicted rehearsals and performance scenes. When the dancers were actually engaged in ballet, they often exhibited questionable technique however, standards have changed and what was acceptable then is frowned on today. One of his most famous works of art is The Little Dancer of Fourteen Years 1880-1920. This small bronze figure conveys the nervous discipline of a young dancer.


The position of her arms, drawn straight down and clasped behind her back, articulate the fragile bones of her chest and shoulders; the forward thrust of her head strains her facial features, blurring the lines between rendering and realty.This sculpture was exhibited in his life time and received mixed reviews. In Paris in 2003 Degas’ most famous stature, The Little Dancer, came to life in the ballet production, in the perfect synthesis of classical music, classical art highlighting harmony of line and continuity of the human form in the ballet combining the expressions by Degas the artist in his drawings and sculpture were presented in the ballet production. The culmination of all these forms of art would have pleased Degas greatly.