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It is said that 'The Butterfly Girl'
Loïe Fuller (1862-1928) created the Serpentine
Dance for the Follies-Bergere
(later in Paris, "#FFCCFF">France )
in 1892 in New York. >Loïe"#99CCCC">
Fuller was thirty years old
at the time and was more an actress than a dancer. Loïe at
a young age took dance lessons, but gave them up as being to difficult.
Loïe worked in Burlesque
and Vaudeville as a dancer at the time and her invention was due
to a "prop." Annabella
Moore made many dance
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films
in the early 1890's, with a few being the Serpentine Dance in
1894.
-- The story goes that Loie received
a voluminous skirt of transparent white silk and while dancing
around sensuously with it in front of a mirror one day, the sun's
light had shown thru the silk and it had such a beautiful effect,
she had a vision: With dramatic lighting (replacing the sun's
light) she could create fantastic, suggestive shapes on-stage
by agitating swaths of silk (special cuts) which had an
aluminum ring at the top and from underneath swirl the swaths
with a pair of hand held wands attached to the open ends. She
would whirl around on a glass platform (new effect added later
) with many different colored lights and different swaths
of the cloth shining up and thru. Spotlights whose colors kept
changing and mixing. She would place a hypnotic hold on her audiences
with billowing shapes such as butterflies, flowers or flames would
come alive while she danced. >
-- The music Loïe would pick
would tend to be on the dramatic side, Like the song "Ride
of the Valkyries "
by Wagner. This dance sensation was more of a gimmick than a dance
however. Many people tried to imitate her act, but none came close,
she even took an imitator to court over this dance. The year 1893
Fuller had the dancing garment patented in Great Britain and France
and in 1894 obtained the same patent in the US (U.
S. Patent #518, 347). Loïe would also sell ashtrays,
molded with her likeness of the dance in 1927.
Of
the other Serpentine dances they are basically a weaving and spiraling
or so called Serpentine movement. This movement is used in various
other dances as well and has nothing to do with the Loïe
Fuller version.
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Films / Movies |
Ballets / Stage |
| 1894
- Annabelles Serpentine dance[Dickson Photography] |
Follies
Bergere (1892) |
| 1896
- Annabelles Serpentine dance |
Gay's
Electric Company (1904) |
| 1896
- Danse Serpentine [Lumière
Films] |
Japanese
Doll (written by Fuller-1907) |
| 1896
- Skirt Dance by Annabelle |
Les
Feeries Fantastiques de la Loie Fuller |
| 1897
- Serpentine Dance[Edison Films] |
Salome (Fuller) |
| 1897
- Butterfly Dance |
Publications |
| 1898
- Skirt Dance |
1913
- Fifteen years of a dancer's life |
| 1899
- Danse serpentine par Mme. Bob Walter |
1908
- Quinze Ans de ma (Loie bio) |
| 1900
- Danse Serpentine[William Moritz collection] |
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| 1902
- New Serpentine and Fire Dance |
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| 1903
- Serpentine Dance[Dickson Photography] |
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| 1907
- Danse Serpentine (Leopoldo Fregoli) |
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| 1934
- Le Lys[George R. Busby] |
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| 1990
- Loïe Fuller Danse des couleurs[Brygida
Ochaim] |
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| $
1994 - Landmarks of Early Film, Vol. 1 [DVD] |
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| 1995
- Serpentine Dancer, The (Germany) |
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| Paul
Killiam Tape # 5 (Annabelles) |
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| $
The Movies Begin Volume 1 (Great Train
Robbery + Serpentine) |
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| $
The Movies Begin: Early Cinema [DVD] |
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