At the Moulin Rouge, The Dance At the Moulin Rouge, The Dance At the Moulin Rouge, the Dance is an oil-on-canvas painted by French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. It was painted in 1890, and is the second of a number of graphic paintings by Toulouse-Lautrec depicting the Moulin Rouge cabaret built in Paris in 1889. It portrays two dancers dancing the can-can in the middle of the crowded dance hall. A recently discovered inscription by Toulouse-Lautrec on the back of the painting reads: "The instruction of the new ones by Valentine the Boneless." This means that the man to the left of the woman dancing, is
Moulin Rouge! (Reprise)"). The storyline of "Moulin Rouge" can be traced back to Alexandre Dumas, "fils"' "The Lady of the Camellias", although Luhrmann, as an opera director, was probably more directly influenced by Verdi's adaptation, "La traviata". When asked about his inspiration for "Moulin Rouge!", Luhrmann remarked: Luhrmann revealed that he drew from the Greek tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice in the DVD's audio commentary. The legend of Orpheus says he was a musical genius, far surpassing anyone in his world; the filmmakers chose to replicate this by using songs from the mid-to-late 20th century, many decades after the film's 1899 setting.