Loie Fuller: Goddess of Light

Profiles the dancer who broke the mold of traditional choreography and paved the way for other pioneers in modern dance

A biography of the unique performer once described as ``the beautiful girl who, in her floating draperies, swirls endlessly around in an ecstasy.'' With Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis, Fuller is generally credited with inventing American modern dance. But unlike the other two women, she accomplished her work primarily with imagery, created by the interplay of fabric, which she manipulated, and special lighting effects that brought the use of electric light in crafting theatrical illusion to unimagined heights of sophistication. The Currents are not dance historians--he is a Bancroft Prizewinning biographer and historian, and she is an art curator and a collector of art inspired by Fuller--and their cursory comments on other dancers and dance history are not the book's strong point. But their portrait of Fuller as a businesswoman of the theater is vivid and detailed. She wasn't content simply to perform. Instead, Fuller established a school and two art museums, choreographed prolifically and produced countless shows, toured the world with her company of dancers (and a large corps of electricians), wrote plays, explored and advanced various techniques of stagecraft, and served as an all-around muse for emerging Art Nouveau. She also rose socially from her midwestern milieu (she was born in Illinois in 1862) to become the close friend of Rodin, Pierre and Marie Curie, and Princess Marie of Romania. Our glimpses here of Loie the woman are relatively few. Her private life, including various flirtations with women and one long-term relationship, seems less open to scrutiny than her theatrical impact, and this is too bad. The Currents' tendency to portray her as a shy plain-Jane who compensated royally onstage is also too simple to fully persuade. Still, this saga of a life in the theater is irresistible in romantic scope, in sheer unlikelihood, and in Fuller's persistence of vision. It's a tale of impossible dreams mostly fulfilled. (color and b&w illustrations, not seen) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The life of Loie Fuller, "magician of light," has become legend, more lore than fact. In this first English-language biography of the American-born theatrical performer extraordinaire, Richard Current, a prolific author on diverse subjects, and his wife, a collector of Loie Fuller art, combed primary materials to tell the true story of her remarkable career. She created a sensation in France in 1892 when she introduced her serpentine dances?depictions of moods and emotions created by her skillful manipulation of voluminous folds of silk through an interplay of colored lights. With no formal dance training, Fuller was a determined and enthusiastic innovator. She also inspired visual artists, counted among her friends the rich and famous, and helped to cofound two museums. Curiously, since her death in 1928, Fuller's contributions have been eclipsed by those of her rival, Isadora Duncan. Based upon this research, scholars can now more accurately assess Fuller's legacy. Recommended for public and academic libraries, as well as specialized dance collections.?Joan Stahl, National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.