This is essentially a dance film not a trick film. The two dancers, Cornier and Mescot, made a whole series of films for Pathé in 1901, their Danses cosmopolites au jardin de Paris. This was intended to launch an important new catalogue section Bals et Danses devoted to dance film which was becoming an increasingly important part of the repertoire and would become more important as the various dance crazes of the 1900s-1920s multiplied (although dance films would after 1908 largely be incorporated in the film-magazines and newsreels).
Another reason for giving such an important place to dance films, like the contemporary "magic show" films was that they were both areas where Pathé hoped to, and did, establish a distinct edge over his rivals by the use of the increasingly refined colourisation system being developed by cinamatographer (and Pathé's Spanish agent) Segundo de Chomón in his workshop in Barcelona (the stencil system that what would eventually be patented as Pathéchrome in 1905).
So what De Chomón is take selected frames from the various Garnier-Mescot films, hand-coloured them and put them together in a continuous sequence to create a sort of cross between a dance film and quick-change where the illusion is given that the pair dance a whole range of dances, representing different nations and in different costumes, without ever leaving the scene. The result is a very attractive films of a much greater sophistication than any other company at this time was capable of producing.
The emphasis remained of course on the more popular and sensational aspect of dance. A lead dance film of 1903 consisted of "The Wickedest Girls In the World" showing their pussies - ah, they do, they do, I promise you - and this same couple (Cornier and Mecot) would return that year too to dance a cakewalk for Pathé at the height of the "cakewalk" craze in Europe (1902-1904). One has to live film not just watch it.....