Loie Fuller

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Loie Fuller, 1892.
Image courtesy of www.abcgallery.com

Loie Fuller was born in Illinois in 1862. She was a visionary in the field of dance, inventing new ways to create form through movement. Her main canvas was the silk fabric that she wore while dancing, and by holding long poles, she extended the reach of her media. She also introduced electric lighting to change the visual effects of her dance. 

She moved to Paris in the 1890s, where her fluid artforms gained her attention from many artists, such as Toulouse-Lautrec and her use of technology caught the eye of revolutionary scientists, such as Marie Curie. 

Fuller's Serpentine Dance is included in the Museum of Modern Art's current exhibition, On Line. With the The Serpentine Dance she manipulated the silk, physically by using the bamboo rods and visually with the light. As noted on the MoMA website, she is widely recognized as having been influential on the Cubists and Futurists for her use of fabric to create movement in three-dimensional space, which they aimed to do through sculpture and painting.

In the late 1800s, Fuller was using fabric to change contemporary ideals in various artforms, including dance, art, film, science and technology. Historically, there are not many individuals who have had that significant of an impact on so many fields simultaneously.