Contributions to the Dance World

Loie Fuller may not have had formal training but she has done a lot for the dance world we know today. She was invested in experimenting with stage lighting, attempting to make things more interesting than just having a plain spotlight and the lights that surrounded the edge of most stages. She did have a history in theatre but since she went out on her own as a solo performer, she decided that she wanted to use fabric against the lights to create an optical illusion of shadows to the audience. Her first piece "The Serpentine" was a piece in which she used a very large piece of fabric that she swirled around and was in a way snake-like. I believe this paved the way for others to experiment with different fabrics and lighting cues that would make their pieces very different than it would have been before. She was very much involved with politics, so I believe she was an inspiration for people to begin paying attention to issues of the world and dance about it. Loie is also a continuous inspiration to a company called Time Lapse Dance. Their dances are all Loie inspired so that we may still be able to see her dance.

Worldly Things

Around the time of when Loie was broadening her horizons, World War II was beginning. She was making friends with many artists, a couple were mentioned before, but she was also making friends and connections with the U.S. Embassy in Paris and also Queen Marie of Romania. This friendship actually helped Romania receive a loan from the United States. Also during WWI, she repaid France by urging her fellow American's to join the conflict on that country's side, and by persuading them to contribute to the relief of its wounded and its war widows and orphans. She made many people aware of the war going on but still was able to be a pioneer of the modern dance world.

Dance Lineage

Loie Fuller never had any formal training but did dance with Isadora Duncan. She created a school based upon the ideology of natural dance and being organic. Loie invited Isadora to dance in her school/company but instead helped fund Isadora's tour through Europe. She worked with many other artists and painters such as Toulouse-Lautrec and but as far as dancing she always did her own thing and helped begin the new 'freestyle' of the modern dance world. She definitely is an inspiration for others in the dance world but she was not necessarily one of the "Major Modern Marvel's". She did however pave the way for other's to break out of the 'ballerina' image the Russian world was putting into the minds of people around the world.