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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, France) in 1892 in New York. Loïe 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
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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Related Films / Movies |
Ballets / Stage |
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1895 - Annabelles Serpentine dance [Dickson Photography] |
Follies Bergere (1892) |
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1896 - Annabelles Serpentine dance |
Gay's Electric Company (1904) |
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1896 - Danse Serpentine [Lumière Films] |
Japanese Doll (written by Fuller-1907) |
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1896 - Skirt Dance(Annabelle) |
Les Feeries Fantastiques de la Loie Fuller |
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1897 - Butterfly Dance (Annabelle) |
Salome (Fuller) |
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1897 - Serpentine Dance [Edison Films] |
Publications |
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1898 - Skirt Dance |
1913 - Fifteen years of a dancer's life |
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1899 - Danse serpentine par Mme. Bob Walter |
1908 - Quinze Ans de ma (Loie bio) |
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1900 - Danse Serpentine [William Moritz collection] |
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1902 - New Serpentine and Fire Dance |
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1903 - Serpentine Dance(Caroline Hipple) |
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1903 - Serpentine Dance [Dickson Photography] |
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1907 - Danse Serpentine (Leopoldo Fregoli) |
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Rosita Royce's 'Dance of the Doves' (Buresque dancer) |
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Sally Rand's Bubbe Dance |
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1934 - Le Lys [George R. Busby] |
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1939 - Words Fair - Crystal Lassies |
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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 [DVD] (Great Train Robbery + Serpentine) |
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The Movies Begin: Early Cinema [DVD] |
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Ballrooms
