The kind of dance photographed by Valérie Belin is an image of social conformism and the figures performed by the partners come from a strict register of “standards” from what is a demonstration discipline. The couples formed are thus two bodies that are trained to produce an image, a motif, or even a “cliché.” In this sense, they recall the gaudy couples painted by Picabia whose lurid finish evokes cheap make-up and places the event somewhere between seduction and dread. The equivalent of the excessive decorative vocabulary seen in Picabia is to be found in the sartorial code of the dancers, in their petrified hairstyles and their chunky, glitzy jewellery. The light, which illuminates the woman’s face and leaves the man’s in shadow, seems to locate them in two distinct spaces and heightens the dramatic effect of the distance between them.