Loie Fuller

Loie Fuller (Marie Louise Fuller) (January 15, 1862–January 1, 1928) was a pioneer of both modern dance and theatrical lighting techniques.

Career

Born in the Chicago suburb of Fullersburg, now Hinsdale, Illinois, Fuller began her theatrical career as a professional child actress and later choreographed and performed dances in burlesque (as a skirt dancer), vaudeville, and circus shows. An early free dance practitioner, Fuller developed her own natural movement and improvisation techniques. Fuller combined her choreography with silk costumes illuminated by multi-coloured lighting of her own design.

Although Fuller became famous in America through works such as 'Serpentine Dance' (1891), she felt that she was not taken seriously by the public who still thought of her as an actress. Her warm reception in Paris during a European tour persuaded Fuller to remain in France and continue her work. A regular performer at the Folies Bergere with works such as Fire Dance, Fuller became the embodiment of the Art Nouveau movement.

Fuller's pioneering work attracted the attention, respect and friendship of many French artists and scientists including: Jules Chéret, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, François-Raoul Larche, Henri-Pierre Roché, Auguste Rodin, Stephane Mallarme and Marie Curie. Fuller held many patents related to stage lighting including chemical compounds for creating color gel and the use of chemical salts for luminescent lighting and garments (stage costumes US Patent 518347). Fuller was also a member of the French Astronomical Society.

Fuller is responsible for the European tours of the early modern dancers (she was the first American modern dancer to perform in Europe), introducing Isadora Duncan to Parisian audiences and developing the acceptance of modern dance as a serious art form.

Fuller formed a close friendship with Queen Marie of Romania; their extensive correspondence has been published. Fuller, through a connection at the U.S. embassy in Paris played a role in arranging a U.S. loan for Romania during World War I. Later, during the period when the future Carol II of Romania was alienated from the Romanian royal family and living in Paris with his mistress Magda Lupescu, she befriended them; they were unaware of her connection to Carol's mother Marie. Fuller initially advocated to Marie on behalf of the couple, but later schemed unsuccessfully with Marie to separate Carol from Lupescu.

Fuller occasionally returned to America to stage performances by her students, the "Fullerets" or Muses, but spent the end of her life in Paris where she died of breast cancer in 1928. Cremated, her ashes are interred in the columbarium at Cimetière du Père Lachaise in Paris.

She had a number of well-documented lesbian relationships [1]

Continuing influence

Fuller’s work has been experiencing a resurgence of artistic and public interest. Sally R. Sommer has written extensively about Fuller’s life and times Marcia and Richard Current published a biography entitled Loie Fuller, Goddess of Light in 1997. And Giovanni Lista compiled over 800 pages of Fuller-inspired art work and texts in Loie Fuller, Danseuse de la Belle Epoque, 1994.

Fuller continues to be an influence on contemporary choreographers. Among these are Jody Sperling and Time Lapse Dance, who began creating Loie Fuller-style solos with live piano accompaniment for New York City audiences in 1999. Jessica Lindberg spent three years researching and reconstructing Fuller’s "Fire Dance" (1896) and returned this Fuller master work to the stage in 2003. Lindberg collaborated with lighting designer Megan Slayter in 2004 to reconstruct Fuller’s "Night" (1896) for performance by MOMENTA, a dance company in Chicago, Illinois. MOMENTA preformed Fuller’s "Fire Dance" (Lindberg’s reconstruction 2003) at the "Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre" exhibit presented by the National Gallery of Art, Washington and The Art Institute of Chicago in 2005. Lindberg lectured at the exhibit in Chicago on Fuller’s choreographic style and her influence on artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec.

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