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.
I had never heard of Loie Fuller before this class but I find it so interesting that she did so much with lights and special effects, she was so ahead of her time. She must have been a genius, no wonder everyone was amazed by here she was pushing all of the limits and opening up new doors to new opportunities.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree! I had also never really heard of her or what she did for the dance world. I'm so glad she was a women's rights activist as well, since she was so intelligent in many areas including politics I feel she was a very important key in the development of allowing women to be liberated.
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