Fifteen Years of a Dancer's Life

With Some Account of her Distinguished Friends

Loie Fuller

• Publisher: Patavium Publishing
• Year: 2023
• eBook ISBN:
  9781805232551
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

At a time when Art Nouveau was all the rage, Fuller burst upon the scene as its living embodiment. A new kind of dancer whose simple movements were highly expressive, she created a fantasy world of dazzling shapes and light play. Every mixed-media artist today owes a debt to her pioneering use of electrical lighting and her synthesis of music, color, light and fabric.—Anna Kisselgoff. The New York Times
Loïe Fuller began her theatrical career as a professional child actress and later choreographing and performing dances in burlesque, vaudeville, and circus shows. Although Fuller became famous in America, she felt that she was not taken seriously by the public. After a warm reception in Paris during a tour, Fuller remained in France and became a regular performer at the Folies Bergère with works such as Fire Dance; she 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, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Marie Curie. More a theatrician than a dancer, Fuller invented many effects we still use today: the stage surrounded in black curtains to focus attention on the performer; the color-wheel; scenic projection; and, "specials" that are individual lights used to emphasize an effect. She took pieces out of the stage floor, replacing them with glass panels and upwardly directed lights. 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. She was also a member of the French Astronomical Society. Fuller is responsible for the European tours of the early modern dancers, introducing Isadora Duncan to Parisian audiences and developing the acceptance of modern dance as a serious art form.-Uni of Washington.

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• ILLUSTRATIONS
• I - MY STAGE ENTRANCE
• II - MY APPEARANCE ON A REAL STAGE AT TWO YEARS AND A HALF
• III - HOW I CREATED THE SERPENTINE DANCE
• IV - HOW I CAME TO PARIS
• V - MY APPEARANCE AT THE FOLIES-BERGÈRE
• VI - LIGHT AND THE DANCE
• VII - A JOURNEY TO RUSSIA-A BROKEN CONTRACT
• VIII - SARAH BERNHARDT-THE DREAM AND THE REALITY
• IX - ALEXANDRE DUMAS
• X - M. AND MME. CAMILLE FLAMMARION
• XI - A VISIT AT RODIN’S
• XII - M. GROULT’S COLLECTION
• XIII - MY DANCES AND THE CHILDREN
• XIV - PRINCESS MARIE
• XV - SEVERAL SOVEREIGNS
• XVI - OTHER MONARCHS
• XVII - SOME PHILOSOPHERS
• XVIII - HOW I DISCOVERED HANAKO
• XIX - SARDOU AND KAWAKAMI
• XX - AN EXPERIENCE
• XXI - AMERICAN AFFAIRS
• XXII - GAB
• XXIII - THE VALUE OF A NAME
• XXIV - HOW M. CLARETIE INDUCED ME TO WRITE THIS BOOK