Obsessed with Light

Overview

Marie Louise Fuller, known as Loïe Fuller, was an American actress and dancer who honed her craft in burlesque, circuses, and vaudeville. In 1890s Paris, she signed with the Folies Bergère and skyrocketed to fame. Toulouse-Lautrec painted her, symbolists adored her, and she became a muse for Art Nouveau. Her performances fused dance with swirling fabric and light, projected from behind or beneath a glass stage she designed herself. Dubbed the "Fairy of Light," her Serpentine Dance captivated Georges Méliès and Alice Guy, and her style left its mark on René Clair's early cinema.