Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Who is Loie Fuller?
She was born Marie Louise Fuller in the outskirts of Chicago in 1862. Loie began her career as a child actress but later on in her life she traveled with a melodrama called "Quack MD" as a burlesque dancer as well as a skirt dancer. She was fascinated by the flow of the silk skirt she danced with and while she was in a performance of Arabian Nights she started to think more about how the lighting would look like against the flowing skirt, and that's where her inspiration is believed to have developed for her career. Of her dances, the most famous is Serpentine Dance was created in 1891 and later a movie was made by the frontier men for film, Louis and Auguste Lumier. In the 1890s she had moved to Paris to develop a career as a the first American modern dancer to travel and perform in Europe. She made many connections with various artists and political icons such as symbolist movement's Stephane Mallarme, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec and Queen Marie of Romania. With Loie's political connections she was able to help Romania recieve a loan from the United States during World War I. Her last performance was Shadow Ballet which was performed in London in 1927. Loie later died January 1, 1928 at the age of 65. She is still an inspiration to Jody Sperling who's company 'Time Lapse Dance' is based on Loie's philosophy of natural dance and lighting concepts. www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIrnFrDXjlk
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Do you know if there are any other components that contributed to her conversion to dance from acting other than wearing a flowy skirt? IT seems like an awful abrupt transition to create an entire dance style simply because she wore a flowy skirt. Are there any other ideas or people that inspired her to contribute to the dance world?
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, because she had no formal training of dance through her life, while acting and touring the lights become somewhat of a fascination to her and mixed with costumes she was creating an interesting visual, not necessarily focusing on the technique aspect of dance. I also believe that because she was dancing in the time of the feminist movement with Isadora Duncan and 'naturalist' dance, she was exploring more organic aspects of dance. The skirt was more of a trademark of Loie's.
ReplyDeletecool, that makes alot of sense. She definitely seems like a curious person. Not many people would care to even toy with dance had they no prior interest in it. I think you're right, both the skirt and dance seemedl ike contributions to toying with technology more than anything else.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the helpful answer!