Loie Fuller the Butterfly dance or the serpentine dance

Loïe Fuller is a dancer who was born in 1862 in Chicago suburb of Fullersburg. She 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.

Her dances begin really slowly with sweeping movements, moving her long dress kept in her hands like a butterfly. During her performance she creates new colored spaces around her. Our eyes are captivated by her dress. In fact, her dance is kind of hypnotic : indeed, she makes circles with her legs and arms, her dress following her body. The dances become abstract : the movements of her dress make us think of a painting, like brushtrokes. Indeed, although the video is in black and white, her assistant only colors the dress on the videotape.
Her work permit us to let our imagination running. When we see Loïe Fuller dancing, we can think of snakes, butterflies waving their wings, flowers, or any natural elements but also things more abstract, like energy circulation, colored fluids in motion. Our perception is shared between something beautiful, attractive and something more terrifying because Fuller disappears under her mass of cloth.

Loie Fuller have revolutionned the classical dance : she proposes an instinctive dance, more natural and