After shedding her inhibitions when she posed as a nude model, Mata Hari adapted her practices and provocative picture postcard poses to her newly acquired profession as a dance. Her mood was melancholy, her movements sensual and suggestive. The Paris critics wrote: "Suddenly Mata Hari appears; the eye of the dawn, the glorious sun, the sacred bayadere whom only the priests and the gods can claim to have seen in the nude. She is tall and slim and supple like the unrolled serpent which is hypnotized by the snake charmer's flute, her flexible body at times becomes one with the undulating flames to stiffen suddenly in the middle of her contortions, like the flaming blades of a kris.

Then with a brutal gesture, Mata Hari rips of her veils, tears at her jewels, and throws away the ornaments that cover her breasts and naked her body seems to lengthen way up to the shadows! Her outstretched arms lift her unto the very tip of her toes; she staggers, beat the empty air with her shattered arms, whips the imperturbable night with her long heavy hair.and falls to the ground.

So feline, extremely feminine, majestically tragic, the thousand curves and movements of her body trembling in a thousand rhythms. Mata Hari danced like David before the holy of holies, like Salambo before Tamit, like Salome before Herod."

What kind of dance did she do?

The only exotic dancing she saw was an occasional Javanese religious dance drama when she accompanied her husband to the Dutch East Indies. Indonesia dances were slow and trance-like. Her dance, the dance she created for Western audiences, was a hodge-podge fantasy. Her music was, in the words of a viewer, " inspired by Hindu and Javanese melodies." Her limited theatrical imagination concocted a strangely put together costume which resembled a Javanese winged head piece, jeweled breast-plates, and a hip scarf which brought to her ensemble a pseudo Egyptian look. Even her professional name was misleading. The name Mata Hari was Malay, yet she called her dance Hindu although she had never been to India. But no matter, no one in Paris knew any better, or cared. Mata Hari wasn't selling culture, she was selling sex.

An admirer wrote: "No one before her has dared to remain like this without any veils, Mata Hari does not only act with her feet, her arms, eyes, mouth and crimson fingernails, Mata Hari, Unhampered by any clothes, plays with her whole body. And then, when the gods remain unmoved by the offer of her beauty and youth, she offers them her love chastityAnd one by one her veils fall at the feet of the god. Erect in her proud and victorious nudity, she offers the god the passion which burns in her."

Collette, the French novelist, was in the audience for several of Mata Hari's performances and wrote, "I have seen her dance at Emma Calve's. She did not actually dance, but with graceful movements, shed her clothes. She arrived fairly naked at her recitals, danced "vaguely" with down cast eyes, and would disappear enveloped in veils." In many performances where nudity was prohibited Mata Hari wore a skin colored leotard which gave the appearance that she was nude.

When, in order to survive, Mata Hari posed for nude photographs, they were collected by admirers she would never meet. Now dancing in the same costume in which she had been photographed, she would excite and entice her future patrons in the audience. And, as they vied for her attention, she calculatingly went with the highest bidder. She was becoming a well-known courtesan.

Her first lover was a wealthy German lieutenant by the name of Herr Kiepert who brought her to Berlin in 1906 and set her up in apartment a safe distance from his wife. It was her association with him that finally raised the question eleven years of whether or not she was to be considered a German spy. As with all her lovers, Mata Hari was allowed to pursue her career even though she lived discreetly with well-known men. She had begun her career in France, went on to perform in Spain Monte Carlo, before conquering Vienna. In 1907 she took a three-month vacation probably in the company of Herr Kiepert. She wrote her agent Gabriel Astruc, I took a long voyage to Egypt as far as Assuan, hoping to find classical dances; but unfortunately everything that is lovely has disappeared and the dances that are left are insignificant and not graceful."

Although Mata Hari called her dances "Oriental", and considered herself "authentic", it was surprising that she couldn't find anything of value in the music of Egypt. It remains a mystery why she did not use Arabian musicians at all. At that time there were street dancers and musicians, lots of ghawazee, and rababas, mizmars, neys, and darboukas, not to mention the exhilarating throbbing of tambourines, defs, and the like. But according to her correspondence, she was not impressed. Not that she didn't like foreign music either. Wasn't she enamoured of Javanese music? And, in one of her dance photographs she is backed by an Indian orchestra under the direction of Inayat Khan consisting of tablas, sitar, two sarods, and a sarangi. There was a probability that Parisians had seen and heard an abundance of Middle Eastern music at the great Paris expositions in 1885. Then, too, Mata Hari appeared with a troupe of Arabian dancers in her first public appearance at the Olympia Theater in Paris 1905.

After suffering in her youth the death of her mother, the strained relationship with her step-mother, followed by a disastrous marriage, Mata Hari viewed her Parisian theatrical success as a spiritual reward for all the mental and physical torture she had heretofore endure. Her timing was perfect, for "La Belle Epoch" was a time when Frenchmen were overindulging themselves in conduct which went way beyond the norm. The rich were complaisant and decadent, serving up for dessert the daily gossip of who was whose lover or mistress. Courtesans were flaunted by the wealthy as a badge of their economic virility and according to their ability to be extravagant, Mata Hari made herself availableand why not? Hadn't she been used to servants and a life of leisure in her youth? She accepted her role as a dancer-harlot and was rewarded richly for her favors. She was hardened to it by the knowledge that she could not look back. She was a divorcee in a time when women were outcasts for that and chances for a good re-marriage were slim. Also, in thinking about how she was constantly being flirted with and desired by many men without a commitment or promise of security, she was no way out of her dilemma.

Her periodic retirements from performing whether on holiday or in seclusion with one of her lovers, were bringing disillusionment. Upon her return to the stage in 1908 she found numerous imitators in the French capital.

There were naked dancers to be seen in theaters and cabarets since many women discovered that a shapely body could be easily admired if shown in a state of undress. Mata Hari complained to the press: "Two and a half years ago I made my first appearance at a private performance at the Musee Gimet; ever since that memorable date ladies styling themselves "Eastern Dancers" have sprung out of the ground and honor me with their imitations. I would feel highly flattered with this mark of attention, if these ladies' performances were accurate from a scientific and aesthetic point of view; but they are not."

Mata Hari's survival mechanism was her ego, her drive, and her expert knowledge of the value of publicity. There was much controversy as to her genuine talent and ability to dance. In Vienna a reporter wrote, "I would have to lie if I were to say that the performance was more than that of an amateur." Another negative criticism which she indifferently pasted in her scrapbook said: "The new art of the dance, which Mata Hari more feels than expresses, is still waiting for its great exponent. If she had not had the advantage of "Nude Publicity", she would not have been a success."

A poem dedicated her shows how popular she became in spite of these unfavorable remarks:

"It was since Duncan our first chance,
To see such an amazing dance,
For while Mata Hari showed legs galore,
And even a little-little more,
It did our eyes a lot of good
To watch her daintily stepping foot
And lovely head, which was set upon
An enticing body, with so little on,
And Mata Hari, dresses as before,
First lost one veil, then lost one more,
Till finally with little to hide,
She was ready to be Siva's Bride
At which point she, like a girl of tender age,
She quickly stood up-and disappeared backstage,
Each person now was a Mata Hari fan,
But then appeared a fully dressed man,
Who said: "We're turning of the light
Mata Hari will show no more tonight."