Serpentine dance
The serpentine dance is a veil dance developed at the end of the 19th century by the American dancer Loïe Fuller . Characteristic of this dance is the huge veil costume made of light silk fabric, which the dancer swings around her body in ever new wave and spiral shapes.
history
The serpentine dance was created in 1891 in connection with a theater scene in which Loïe Fuller was supposed to play a young widow who is being hypnotized.
Loïe Fuller , the inventor of the serpentine dance and "Fee de l'Electricité", experimented with colored light effects and photographs that she had projected onto her veil costume during her dance. The enthusiasm for the serpentine dance was so great around 1900 that there were many imitators who performed serpentine dances in burlesque and vaudeville theaters in the style of Loïe Fuller . At the end of the 20th century interest in this dance style reawakened. Contemporary performances, such as the serpentine dances by the American choreographer Jody Sperling, as well as a large number of video clips on YouTube in which old film recordings of serpentine dances are artistically rearranged, confirm the fascination that this dance still exerts today. At the beginning of the 21st century, “Isis wings”, named after the Egyptian goddess Isis, became a popular dance prop in Raqs Sharqi. These large veil wings made of thin pleated fabric probably had the serpentine dance costume as a source of inspiration.
The costume
The serpentine dance costume is based on the tradition of “skirt dance”, a dance in which the dancer elegantly moves her long, wide skirt to the rhythm of the music. The serpentine costume, however, is an oversized skirt, which consists of a circle several meters long, conical strips of silk fabric and, due to its size, is no longer attached to the hips, but to the shoulders or head. Invisible aluminum rods sewn into the costume, held by the dancer with the hands, serve as arm extensions to keep the masses of material moving. In 1894 Loïe Fuller patented the pattern for her serpentine costume in the USA.
Literature and web links
- Loie Fuller's autobiography
- Brandstetter, Gabriele & Brygida Maria Ochaim, Loïe Fuller: dance, light play, Art Nouveau. Freiburg i.Br .. Rombach, 1989, ISBN 3-7930-9052-3 .
- Petra Bahr: Loie Fuller. Border crosser of the dance aesthetic. In: Tà katoptrizómena. Magazine for theology and aesthetics, 1st year, issue 2/1999.
- Video of Loie Fuller's serpentine dance
- Jody Sperling, Library of Congress: American Memory. Retrieved November 14, 2010.
- Video: Homage to Loie Fuller
Individual evidence
- ^ Loie Fuller: Fifteen years of a dancer's life, with some account of her distinguished friends. H. Jenkins limited, 1913. ( Digitized - Internet Archive )
- ↑ Petra Bahr: Loie Fuller Border Crosser of the Dance Aesthetic (1) . In: Magazine for Theology and Aesthetics 2/1999 . theomag.de. Retrieved October 27, 2019.
- ↑ Patent US518347