Loie Fuller, First Dance Technologist -- Dancing into the Future

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February 3, 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 from New York Public Library Digital Gallery

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 - The Edison Art Company

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 in recreation of Loie Fuller's Dance of the Elements

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 - Tate Museum - Photo Credit Roger Sinek

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).

Posted by Doug Fox on February 3, 2006 8:00 AM

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5 Comments

matt said:

bravo doug, Loie Fuller is one of my top five dance inspirations. i always talk about her when i'm introducing students to dance and technology. thanks for a great set of links.

Added: February 3, 2006 10:08 AM | Permalink

Elaine Supkis said:

Yes, a number of people are now recreating her dances...mostly IMPROPERLY. Namely, they are sloppy with the arm work and sloppy with the choreography, settlling for what I call, the "easy side effects."

I wish I had the films still, the ones made way back in 1977. I can still do the dances, they are imprinted on my mind.

The problem of her dances is, you have to be very strong, physically, to do the greater dances, the ones with more than 100 yds of cloth. And the arms have to become extentions of the cloth, no crooks in the arms, they are held, nearly always pretty straight, instead the degree of movement and the direction is what determines what the material does. Any flexion like I noted in one photo here by an imitator, ruins the flow the the material! Note how the material sags.

Gads. It burns me up, heh. Maybe I should try regaining my throne.

Anyway, I nearly died in 1980 and took five years to come back again and by then, I was busy with keeping a family going, no dinero, you know.

Added: February 3, 2006 8:22 PM | Permalink

maria said:

just a quick thanks...i'm writing a research paper on Loie and this site helped A TON!

Added: February 21, 2006 9:57 PM | Permalink

Shalise Fuller said:

this is great for my school project.

Added: February 8, 2007 10:45 AM | Permalink

Jane Cook said:

Loie Fuller was my grandfather's second cousin. Her grandfather Jacob and my grandfather's grandmother Harriet Fuller Cook were brother and sister

Added: May 1, 2007 11:03 AM | Permalink

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Since 2005, Doug Fox's blog has covered the intersection of dance and the Internet. A primary focus is to help dancers and dance companies use the Internet and their dance videos for marketing, educational, creative and revenue-generation purposes.

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Dancing into the Future

February 3, 2006