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Loie Fuller

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For the film, see Loie Fuller (film).

Loie Fuller
Fuller in 1900
Born
Marie Louise Fuller

(1862-01-15)January 15, 1862
Hinsdale, Illinois, U.S.
DiedJanuary 1, 1928(1928-01-01) (aged 65)
Paris, France
Resting placePère Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, France
Other namesLouie Fuller
OccupationDancer
PartnerGab Sorère (1898–1928)

Loie Fuller (/ˈloʊi/;[1] born Marie Louise Fuller; January 15, 1862 – January 1, 1928), also known as Louie Fuller and Loïe Fuller, was an American dancer and a pioneer of modern dance and theatrical lighting techniques.

Early life and debut

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Marie Louise Fuller was born on January 15, 1862, in Fullersburg, Illinois, on a remote farm conveniently linked to Chicago by a newly-constructed plank road. When Fuller was two, her parents Reuben Fuller and Delilah Eaton moved to Chicago and opened a boarding house. Her early exposure to the arts came through her parents - her father was a skilled fiddler and dance caller, while her mother had aspired to be an opera singer before marriage.[2] Fuller's parents took her to the Progressive Lyceum, a hub of Freethought, on Sunday mornings.[3]

Fuller debuted on the stage as a toddler, performing a variety of dramatic and dance roles in Chicago. Her first performance, according to her memoir, was reciting "Mary Had a Little Lamb" at a Sunday school event.[2] Her formal dramatic debut at the age of four was at the Chicago Academy of Music, playing a young boy in Was He Right?.[4] Fuller's career as a child performer progressed with little formal training and much variety, as she experimented with dramatic reading, singing, and dance.[5] From 1878 to 1879, she toured with the Felix A. Vincent Company, performing in "Aladdin," a pantomime spectacle filled with magical scene transformations. This experience exposed her to important principles of stagecraft. [2]

As a child, Fuller's family moved in and out of Chicago, with Fuller eventually securing a part in Buffalo Bill's touring act at the age of nineteen.[3] From 1881 to 1889, Fuller performed in western melodramas and musical burlettas in New York City and the Midwest, with notable roles in "Davy Crockett" (1882) and "Twenty Days, or Buffalo Bill's Pledge" (1883).[2]

Despite her initial success, Fuller faced significant financial challenges early in her career. In 1889, she attempted to expand her career by venturing into production, traveling to London to mount and star in the play "Caprice." This endeavor proved to be both a critical and financial failure, leaving Fuller broke and unemployed in London. Following this setback, Fuller's fortunes changed when she secured a role as an understudy at London's Gaiety Theatre, known for its skirt dances. This engagement proved pivotal, as it exposed her to a dance form that would influence her later innovations.[2]

Marie Louise Fuller changed her name to the more glamorous "Loïe" at the age of sixteen.[6] An early free dance practitioner, Fuller developed her own natural movement and improvisation techniques. In 1889, Fuller visited the Paris Exposition Universelle, where she was particularly impressed by the Palais d'électricité and the illuminated fountains of the Champs de Mars, which later influenced her innovative use of lighting in her performances.[2] In multiple shows she experimented with a long skirt, choreographing its movements and playing with the ways it could reflect light.[citation needed]

Career

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By 1891, Fuller combined her choreography with silk costumes illuminated by multi-coloured lighting of her own design, and created the Serpentine Dance.[7] After much difficulty finding someone willing to produce her work when she was primarily known as an actress, she was finally hired to perform her piece between acts of a comedy entitled Uncle Celestine, and received rave reviews.[8]

"Soon, she (Loïe Fuller) auditioned for Rudolph Aronson of New York's Casino Theatre. He named her dance “The Serpentine” and hired her to perform it as an entr’act in the comedy Uncle Celestin. Fuller achieved critical success with her Serpentine performances at the Casino and—when a dispute with Aronson forced her to switch venues—at the Madison Square Theatre. However, Fuller's artistic achievements were soon dwarfed by legal troubles (among them, a copyright infringement suit against Minnie Renwood, the dancer Aronson hired to replace Fuller..."[9]

Portrait of Fuller by Frederick Glasier, 1902

Almost immediately, she was replaced by imitators (originally Minnie "Renwood" Bemis). Fuller's innovative choreography led to legal challenges as she sought to protect her work. In 1892, she filed a lawsuit against imitator Minnie Renwood Bemis in an attempt to secure intellectual property rights for her Serpentine Dance. The case, Fuller v. Bemis, became a landmark in dance copyright law.[10] Despite Fuller's precaution of submitting a written description of her dance to the U.S. Copyright Office, the U.S. Circuit Court denied her request for an injunction. The court ruled that the Serpentine Dance told no story and was therefore not eligible for copyright protection as a dramatic composition, which was the only category under which dance could potentially be protected at the time.[10] The judge stated: "A stage dance illustrating the poetry of motion by a series of graceful movements, combined with an attractive arrangement of drapery, lights and shadows, but telling no story, portraying no character and depicting no emotion, is not a 'dramatic composition' within the meaning of the Copyright Act."[10] The precedent set by Fuller's case remained in place until the passage of the Copyright Act of 1976, which explicitly extended protection to nondramatic choreographic works.[11][12] Another notorious imitator was Lord Yarmouth, later 7th Marquess of Hertford, who performed the Serpentine Dance under the stage name of ‘Mademoiselle Roze’.[13][14] Fuller's pursuit of copyright protection was part of a broader struggle for artistic recognition and control over her work in a male-dominated theatrical industry. As a performer selling her live enactment of the Serpentine Dance in the theatrical marketplace, Fuller's body circulated in commodity form. Her attempts to protect her performing body from becoming fully open to capital by asserting property rights over her image and choreography marked a complex negotiation between her status as artist and commodity.[10]

In the hope of receiving serious artistic recognition that she was not getting in America, Fuller left for Europe in June 1892. She became one of the first of many American modern dancers who traveled to Europe to seek recognition. Her warm reception in Paris persuaded Fuller to remain in France, where she became one of the leading revolutionaries in the arts.[5]

A regular performer at the Folies Bergère with works such as Fire Dance, Fuller became the embodiment of the Art Nouveau movement and was often identified with symbolism, as her work was seen as the perfect reciprocity between idea and symbol.[3] Fuller began adapting and expanding her costume and lighting, so that they became the principal element in her performance—perhaps even more important than the actual choreography, especially as the length of the skirt was increased and became the central focus, while the body became mostly hidden within the depths of the fabric.[15] The choreography of the Serpentine Dance was filmed by multiple early filmmakers, including Auguste and Louis Lumière, but it is unclear whether the recordings depict Fuller herself.[16][17]

Table lamp: Dance of the Lily (Loie Fuller) – around 1901-Gilt bronze-Museum Wiesbaden-Raoul Larche (1860–1912)

Gab Sorère and Fuller would make three films together, Le Lys de la vie (The Lily of Life, 1921), Visions des rêves (Visions of dreams, 1924) and Les Incertitudes de Coppélius (Uncertainties of Coppelius, 1927).[18] Le Lys de la vie was a silent film, based upon a story written by Queen Marie of Romania, a close friend of the couple[19] and is the only one of the films which survived.[18]

"The only surviving reel of her work is a segment from Le Lys de la Vie, and features a show within a show with classically-costumed figures dancing by the sea, a banquet, royal intrigue, and romance with René Clair featured as a prince on horseback.[20][21][22][23][24]"

According to Celia McGerr's biography of René Clair, in 1920, singer Damia "persuaded a reluctant Clair to play the role of a suave Parisian in Loie Fuller's poetic film on danceLe lys de la vie, by telling him about the pretty girls who would be present."[25]

Fuller at the Folies Bergère, poster by PAL (Jean de Paléologue)

Fuller's pioneering work attracted the attention, respect, and friendship of many French artists and scientists, including Jules Chéret, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, François-Raoul Larche, Henri-Pierre Roché, Auguste Rodin, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Franz von Stuck, Maurice Denis, Thomas Theodor Heine, Paul-Léon Jazet, Koloman Moser, Demétre Chiparus, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Marie Curie. Fuller was also a member of the Société astronomique de France (French Astronomical Society).[26][27]

Fuller patented many of her innovations in stage lighting, including the use of chemical compounds for creating color gel, and the application of chemical salts to luminescent lighting and garments.[16]

Fuller supported other pioneering performers, such as Sada Yacco[28][29][30] and fellow United States-born dancer Isadora Duncan. Fuller helped Duncan ignite her European career in 1902 by sponsoring independent concerts in Vienna and Budapest.[31]

Fuller's work attracted the attention and respect of many French artists and scientists. She was also a member of the Société astronomique de France (French Astronomical Society).[10]

Loie Fuller's original stage name was "Louie". In modern French "L'ouïe" is the word for a sense of hearing. When Fuller reached Paris she gained a nickname which was a pun on "Louie"/"L'ouïe". She was renamed "Loïe" – this nickname is a corruption of the early or Medieval French "L'oïe", a precursor to "L'ouïe", which means "receptiveness" or "understanding". She was also referred to by the nickname "Lo Lo Fuller".[citation needed]

A dancer, possibly Fuller, performing Fuller's serpentine dance in a 1902 film

Personal life

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Fuller met her romantic partner of over 30 years, Gab Sorère, in the mid-1890s. Sorère was born Gabrielle Bloch, the daughter of wealthy French bankers, in 1870, and eventually took the name Gab Sorère in 1920. Bloch first saw Fuller perform at the age of 14, and by 1898 Fuller and Bloch were living together.[32]

Fuller and Bloch's relationship initially attracted some attention in the press, as Bloch dressed exclusively in menswear, and was 8 years Fuller's junior. The press coverage of their relationship declined over time, focusing more on Fuller's mother, and allowing Bloch and Fuller to live a relatively unbothered life.[33]

Fuller met Crown Princess Marie of Romania, later to become Queen Marie, in 1902, at a performance in Bucharest. Marie and Fuller became close, and maintained an extensive correspondence as close friends. Their relationship was the subject of scandalous rumors,[34] alleging that Fuller and Queen Marie were lovers.[35] Fuller, through a connection at the United States embassy in Paris, played a role in arranging a United States loan for Romania during World War I.[citation needed]

Later, during the period when the future Carol II of Romania was alienated from the Romanian royal family and living in Paris with his mistress Magda Lupescu, she befriended them; they were unaware of her connection to Carol's mother Marie. Fuller initially advocated to Marie on behalf of the couple, but later schemed unsuccessfully with Marie to separate Carol from Lupescu.[36] With Queen Marie and American businessman Samuel Hill, Fuller helped found the Maryhill Museum of Art in rural Washington state, which has permanent exhibits about her career.[37]

Later life and death

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Fuller occasionally returned to America to stage performances by her students, the "Fullerets" or Muses, but spent the end of her life in Paris. She died of pneumonia at the age of 65 on January 1, 1928, in Paris, two weeks shy of her 66th birthday. She was cremated and buried in the columbarium of the Père-Lachaise cemetery (site No. 5382) in Paris.[38]

Legacy

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Fuller depicted by Koloman Moser (1901)
Fuller painted by Toulouse-Lautrec (1892)
Poster featuring Fuller at the Folies Bergère by Jules Chéret

After Fuller's death, her romantic partner of thirty years, Gab Sorère inherited the dance troupe as well as the laboratory Fuller had operated.[39][32] Sorère took legal action against dancers who wrongfully used Fuller's fame to enhance their own careers[40][41][42][43] and produced both films and theatrical productions to honor Fuller's legacy as a visual effects artist.[44]

Fuller's work has been experiencing a resurgence of professional and public interest. Rhonda K. Garelick's 2009 study entitled Electric Salome demonstrates her centrality not only to dance, but also modernist performance.[45] Sally R. Sommer has written extensively about Fuller's life and times[46] Marcia and Richard Current published a biography entitled Loie Fuller, Goddess of Light in 1997.[47] The philosopher Jacques Rancière devoted a chapter of Aisthesis, his history of modern aesthetics, to Fuller's 1893 performances in Paris, which he considers emblematic of Art Nouveau in their attempt to link artistic and technological invention.[48] Giovanni Lista compiled a 680-page book of Fuller-inspired art work and texts in Loïe Fuller, Danseuse de la Belle Epoque in 1994.[49] In the 1980s, Munich dancer Brygida Ochaim[50] revived Fuller's dances and techniques, also appearing in the Claude Chabrol film The Swindler.

In 2016, Stéphanie Di Giusto directed the movie The Dancer about the life of Loïe Fuller, with actresses Soko as Loïe and Lily-Rose Depp as Isadora Duncan. Jody Sperling choreographed Soko's dances for the movie, served as creative consultant and was Soko's dance coach, training her in Fuller technique.[51] The movie premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.[52]

Fuller continues to be an influence on contemporary choreographers. Sperling, who re-imagines Fuller's genre from a contemporary perspective, has choreographed dozens of works inspired by Fuller and expanded Fuller's vocabulary and technique into the 21st century. Sperling's company Time Lapse Dance consists of six dancers all versed in Fuller-style technique and performance. Another is Ann Cooper Albright, who collaborated with a lighting designer on a series of works that drew inspiration from Fuller's original lighting design patents.[53] Shela Xoregos choreographed a tribute, La Loȉe, a solo which shows several of Fuller's special effects.[citation needed]

Taylor Swift's 2018 Reputation Tour featured a segment dedicated to Fuller. During her performance of "Dress" each night on the tour, several dancers recreated the "Serpentine Dance."[54][55] In the Reputation Stadium Tour concert film on Netflix, after "Dress" there is a message showing Taylor's dedication to Fuller.[56]

Into the 2019 film Radioactive Loie Fuller (Drew Jacoby) is a friend of the main character Marie Curie. The scientist envisions Fuller dancing in the green light of radium.[57] The dancer also introduces the Curies to a medium.

Written works

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Fuller's autobiographical memoir Quinze ans de ma vie was written in English, translated into French by Bojidar Karageorgevitch and published by F. Juven (Paris) in 1908 with an introduction by Anatole France.[58] She drafted her memoirs again in English a few years later, which were published under the title Fifteen Years of a Dancer's Life by H. Jenkins (London) in 1913.[59] The New York Public Library Jerome Robbins Dance Collection holds the nearly complete manuscript to the English edition and materials related to the French edition.[60][61][62]

Fuller's autobiography is a first hand account, and she was known for being very adaptive in her story telling. There are seven highly dramatized versions of how she got her first silk skirt; however, the real story is unknown. As well as writing about inventing the Serpentine Dance, she also wrote extensively about her own theories of modern dance and motion.[63]

See also

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Works

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  • Fuller, Loie (1908). Quinze ans de ma vie [Fifteen years of my life]. Translated by Karageorgevitch, Bojidar. Paris: F. Juven.
  • — (1913). Fifteen years of a dancer's life, with some account of her distinguished friends. London: H. Jenkins.

References

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  1. ^ "Say How: F". National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled. Archived from the original on October 6, 2019. Retrieved February 3, 2023.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "The International Encyclopedia of Dance", The International Encyclopedia of Dance, Oxford University Press, 1998, doi:10.1093/acref/9780195173697.001.0001/acref-9780195173697, ISBN 978-0-19-517369-7, retrieved November 9, 2024
  3. ^ a b c Current, Richard Nelson; Current, Marcia Ewing (1997). "From "Louie" to "Loie"". Loie Fuller, goddess of light. Boston: Northeastern University Press. ISBN 978-1-55553-309-0 – via The New York Times.
  4. ^ Garelick 2009, p. 23.
  5. ^ a b Sommer 1975, p. 55.
  6. ^ "West End Opera House Grand Complimentary Benefit". The Chicago Tribune. June 13, 1878.
  7. ^ "Loie Fuller | American dancer". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on August 3, 2020. Retrieved October 4, 2017.
  8. ^ Cohen, Selma (1998). "Fuller, Loie". In Cohen, Selma Jeanne (ed.). The International Encyclopedia of Dance. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195173697.001.0001. ISBN 9780195173697.
  9. ^ "Loie Fuller Biographical Essay".
  10. ^ a b c d e Kraut, Anthea (2011). "White Womanhood, Property Rights, and the Campaign for Choreographic Copyright: Loïe Fuller's Serpentine Dance". Dance Research Journal. 43 (1): 3–26. doi:10.5406/danceresearchj.43.1.0003. ISSN 0149-7677.
  11. ^ Kraut, Anthea (2016). "White Womanhood and Early Campaigns for Choreographic Copyright". Choreographing copyright: race, gender, and intellectual property rights in American dance. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-936036-9.
  12. ^ Hall, Alison (August 16, 2017). "65th Anniversary of the First Copyrighted Choreography—Although Not Copyrighted As Choreography". Copyright: Creativity at Work. Library of Congress. Retrieved August 31, 2023.
  13. ^ Peter Jordaan, A Secret Between Gentlemen: Lord Battersea's hidden scandal and the lives it changed forever, Alchemie Books, Sydney 2022, ISBN 978-0-6456178-0-1, pp104-106.
  14. ^ Rogers, Destiny (July 17, 2022). "On this day: The twirling Earl of Yarmouth in Mackay". QNews. Retrieved August 31, 2023.
  15. ^ Sommer 1975, p. 58-59.
  16. ^ a b Dillon, Brian (September 30, 2014). "Serpentine Dancer: The life and legacy of the wildly inventive choreographer and performer Loie Fuller". Frieze. Retrieved August 31, 2023.
  17. ^ "'Serpentine Dance' by the Lumière brothers" Archived June 17, 2014, at the Wayback Machine. YouTube
  18. ^ a b Garelick 2009, p. 56.
  19. ^ Garelick 2009, pp. 57–58.
  20. ^ ""La Loïe" as Pre-Cinematic Performance – Descriptive Continuity of Movement – Senses of Cinema". March 13, 2011.
  21. ^ "True Republican 8 January 1921 — Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections".
  22. ^ Coleman, Bud (2002). "The Electric Fairy: The Woman Behind the Apparition of Loie Fuller". In Marra, Kim; Schanke, Robert (eds.). Staging Desire: Queer Readings of American Theater History. University of Michigan Press. pp. 311–337. ISBN 978-0-472-90416-7.
  23. ^ Christout, Marie-Françoise; Palfy, Barbara (1996). "The Dancing Muse of the Belle Époque". Dance Chronicle. 19 (2): 213–216. doi:10.1080/01472529608569242. JSTOR 1567904.
  24. ^ "Camille Saint-Saëns and La Loïe Fuller at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition". San Francisco Bay Times. December 5, 2015.
  25. ^ "The Italian Straw Hat".
  26. ^ Bulletin de la Société Astronomique de France (in French). 1895.
  27. ^ France, Société astronomique de (1895). Bulletin de la Société astronomique de France et revue mensuelle d'astronomie, de météorologie et de physique du globe (in French). La Société.
  28. ^ "Miss Loie Fuller as a Translator". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. November 15, 1908.
  29. ^ Le Panorama: Exposition universelle (in French). France: Ludovic Baschet. 1900.
  30. ^ Duncan, Isadora (1927). "Chapter Ten". My Life. United States: Boni and Liverlight. pp. 94–96.
  31. ^ Au, Susan (2002). Ballet and Modern Dance. New York: Thames and Hudson. p. 90. ISBN 9780500203521.
  32. ^ a b Coleman 2005, p. 173.
  33. ^ Garelick 2009, p. 4.
  34. ^ de Morinni, Clare (1942). "Loie Fuller: The Fairy of Light". Dance Index. 1 (3): 40–52.
  35. ^ Garelick 2009, p. 65.
  36. ^ Easterman, Alexander Levvey (1942). King Carol, Hitler and Lupescu. London: V. Gollancz Ltd. pp. 28–32, 58–61. OCLC 4769487.
  37. ^ "About Maryhill Museum of Art's Permanent Collection". Maryhill Museum of Art. December 31, 2012. Archived from the original on January 15, 2023. Retrieved January 15, 2023.
  38. ^ "Les grands noms de la danse !". bertrandbeyern.fr (in French). Archived from the original on May 18, 2022. Retrieved April 2, 2022.
  39. ^ "Loie Fuller's Work in Life Will Be Carried on by Intimate Friend". Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania: The Evening News. January 28, 1928. p. 4. Archived from the original on June 17, 2018. Retrieved June 17, 2018 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  40. ^ "Imprisoned Dancer Released". The Manchester Guardian. London, England. September 19, 1929. p. 12. Archived from the original on June 18, 2018. Retrieved June 17, 2018 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  41. ^ Chicago Daily Tribune 1929-09-13: Vol 88 Iss 220. September 13, 1929.
  42. ^ Variety (1929). Variety (September 1929). Media History Digital Library Media History Digital Library. New York, NY: Variety Publishing Company.
  43. ^ "Dancer Goes to Holloway Prison". The Glasgow Herald. September 13, 1929. p. 18.
  44. ^ Albright, Ann Cooper (2016). "Resurrecting the Future: Body, Image, and Technology in the Work of Loïe Fuller". In Rosenberg, Douglas (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Screendance Studies. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. pp. 715–730. ISBN 978-0-19-998160-1. Archived from the original on February 10, 2023. Retrieved June 17, 2018.
  45. ^ Garelick 2009.
  46. ^ Sally R. Sommer, "La Loie: The Life and Art of Loie Fuller", Penguin Publishing Group, 1986, ISBN 9780399129018.
  47. ^ Current, Richard Nelson; Current, Marcia Ewing (1997). Loie Fuller, goddess of light. Boston: Northeastern University Press. ISBN 978-1-55553-309-0.
  48. ^ Jacques Rancière, Aisthesis: Scenes from the Aesthetic Regime of Art, trans. Zakir Paul, Verso, 2013, 93–109.
  49. ^ Lista, Giovanni (2006). Loïe Fuller, danseuse de la Belle Époque. Hermann Danse (2nd ed.). Paris: Hermann. ISBN 978-2-7056-6625-5.
  50. ^ Loïe Fuller – la danse des couleurs, April 5, 2018, archived from the original on September 22, 2020, retrieved August 29, 2020
  51. ^ Rizzuto, Rachel (January 31, 2017). "Jody Sperling Brings the Magic of Loie Fuller to La Danseuse". DanceTeacher. Archived from the original on December 7, 2022. Retrieved February 10, 2023.
  52. ^ "Lily-Rose Depp et Soko, comme une évidence dans "La Danseuse"". Télérama. May 14, 2016. Archived from the original on May 15, 2016. Retrieved May 15, 2016.
  53. ^ "Dancing with Light". Loie Fuller.
  54. ^ Bate, Ellie (June 19, 2018). "13 Seriously Impressive Facts You Probably Didn't Know About Taylor Swift's Reputation Tour". BuzzFeed. Archived from the original on October 2, 2018. Retrieved October 7, 2018.
  55. ^ Borrelli-Persson, Laird (August 8, 2019). "Vogue Visited Taylor Swift's Muse, Loie Fuller, at Home in 1913". Vogue. Retrieved March 18, 2023.
  56. ^ "9 Things You Might Have Missed in Taylor Swift's Netflix Concert Film". E! Online. December 31, 2018. Retrieved March 18, 2023. After performing "Dress," a dedication to the late actress and dancer Loie Fuller, who passed away in 1928, appeared on the screen.
  57. ^ Dargis, Manohla (July 23, 2020). "'Radioactive' Review: Marie Curie and the Science of Autonomy". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 1, 2022. Retrieved April 1, 2022.
  58. ^ Fuller 1908.
  59. ^ Fuller 1913.
  60. ^ ""Fifteen years of my life"". NYPL Digital Collections. Retrieved December 20, 2023.
  61. ^ ""Fifteen years of my life"". NYPL Digital Collections. Retrieved December 20, 2023.
  62. ^ "Chapter 20 (with a section which eventually became chapter 3)". NYPL Digital Collections. Retrieved December 20, 2023.
  63. ^ Sommer 1975, p. 56.

Sources

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Loie Fuller.
Wikisource has the text of a 1906 New International Encyclopedia article about "Loie Fuller".
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