OBSESSED WITH LIGHT

Review by Celia Ipiotis

As much an inventor as a dance artist, Loie Fuller mesmerized millions of people when she projected lights from in front of and below her body to conjure phenomenal kaleidoscopic optical illusions.

Volumes of diaphanous material hung suspended from her neck covering long curved sticks extending the reach of her hands. When ruffled up and down, round and round, Fuller created layers of color and light transforming the body into a butterfly, a lily and so many other metaphors.

The closing night film of the Dance On Camera 52nd Festival, Obsessed With Light is effectively directed by Sabine Krayenbuhle and Zeva Oelbaum. They knit together historical footage with contemporary works inspired by Fuller.  What unfurls is a rich tapestry of discoveries by a passionately devoted mover and transformer of light and shape. 

Originally a theater performer, Fuller wanted to do something that excited audiences, and before Isadora Duncan, she broke unknown territory by releasing the body from the tutu and toe shoes of the day, reconsidering dance as a sculptural form radiating effervescent light.

For anyone who does not know Loie Fuller, her image is dominant in Art Deco posters of a woman in a billowing gown of celestial colors.

All the historical dialogue and text in the film is pulled from primary source material found in Loie Fuller’s autobiography “Fifteen Years of a Dancer’s Life.” Interviews with living artists, vintage footage of Fuller in performance, and contemporary works inspired by Fuller shape this fascinating film with the great Cherry Jones voicing Loie Fuller.

Expertly edited by Sabine, the film effortlessly slips from the past to the present incorporating her many accomplishments and relationships with great people of the era including Marie Curie. 

A tidily researched film, people might be surprised to learn that Fuller was responsible for producing Isadora Duncan’s first European tour or that Fuller patented scores of inventions and claimed her own pavilion in the 1900 Paris World’s Fair in order to demonstrate her lighting discoveries and applications. So far ahead of her time, she couldn’t copyright her famous “Serpentine Dance” because the law did not recognize dance as a copyrightable form. 

Unlike most dancers, Fuller’s full-bodied figure surprised critics but despite her fulsomeness, when she danced, she created magic.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Celia Ipiotis