February 03, 2006

Loie Fuller, First Dance Technologist

Loie Fuller (1862-1928), a modern dance pioneer, was known for her captivating theatrical and dance performances that combined projections of multi-colored lights onto her flowing silk costumes. She was the first dancer to use the then new incandescent lights of Edison fame, a traveling team of lighting and stage engineers, and her own patented dress designs for her tours in the US and France.

Below I put together a range of online resources (articles, pictures, audio and video) that provide an intriguing portrait of Loie Fuller.

Loie Fuller - NYPL Digital Gallery

Profiles and Bio

- Loie Fuller profile from Wikipedia.

- Loie Fuller profile from online excerpts of CD-ROM program titled "The Early Moderns".

Audio Programs

- Listen to "The spectacular Dances of a Chicagoland Native" (program description), an Interview with Chicago Sun-Times dance and theater critic Hedy Weiss about an exhibition of Toulouse-Lautrec's works including those of one of his favorite subjects, Loie Fuller.

- Listen to "Loie Fuller, Goddess of Light" on Studio 360 This Week (scroll down to third story about Loie Fuller). Interview is with Jody Sperling (dance choreographer and scholar - see below under reconstructions) and others.

Articles and Reviews

- "The Light Fantastic - Fuller, Rosenthal & Tipton", Dance Magazine (February 1996), describes how Thomas Edison's invention of incandescent light made Loie Fuller's experiments with lighting, color and movement possible.

- "Art Nouveau's Esthetic in Motion: Invoking the Spirit of Loie Fuller", by Anna Kisselgoff, a 1998 review of Brygida Ochaim who performed a mixed-media work inspired by Fuller at a dance festival "Four Centuries of Dance in France."

Multimedia Presentations

- Tom Gunning in his audio and image presentation, “Light, Motion, Cinema: The Heritage of Loie Fuller and Germaine Dulac” discusses the influence of Fuller on experimental filmmaker Germaine Dulac.

Films

- These hand tinted stills of The Serpentine Dance from The Edison Art Company might be of Loie Fuller (I'm not sure) who went to Edison's Movie Studio in Menlo Park, New Jersey to have her dances recorded. There is an excellent DVD box set "Edison - The Invention of the Movies (1891-1918)" that includes the Serpentine Dance. It's available through Amazon.com. But you can also rent it through NetFlix, which I did last year - hours and hours of early films that are fascinating to watch.

Serpentine Dance - Edison Art Company

Books

- "Loie Fuller: Goddess of Light" by Richard Nelson Current and Marcia Ewing Current with Photography by Langfier. You can read first chapter and review in New York Times Book Review.

- Quote (scroll down to Chapter 10) from Isadora Duncan's "My Life" about Loie Fuller:

Before our very eyes she turned to many coloured, shining orchids, to a wavering, flowing sea flower, and at length to a spiral-like lily, all the magic of Merlin, the sorcery of light, colour, flowing form. What an extraordinary genius! No imitator of Loie Fuller has ever been able even to hint at her genius!...I went every night to see Loie Fuller, from a box, and I was more and more enthusiastic about her marvelous ephemeral art. That wonderful creature--she became fluid; she became light; she became every colour and flame, and finally she resolved into miraculous spirals of flames wafted toward the Infinite.

Reconstructions of Loie Fuller Dances

- Jody Sperling, choreographer, performer and scholar, re-creates the performances of Loie Fuller through her Time Lapse Dance company. Read about Jody Sperling's performances of Loie Fuller-style solos - including the Serpentine Dance.

Jody Sperling - Dance of the Elements
Copyright Julie Lemberger, 2005

- On Jody Sperling's site, you'll find links to a number of reviews of her performances.

Images, Photographs and Posters

- Eight images of Loie Fuller from the New York Public Library Digital Gallery.

- Image of Loie Fuller in exhibit, "Art, Lies and Videotape: Exposing Performance", at Tate Museum.

Loie Fuller - Untitled 1905
Photo Credit: Roger Sinek

- Search for images of Loie Fuller in Google Images

Inventions

- Description and image of US Patent issues to Loie Fuller for a Garment for Dancers (3rd image on page).

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