Win tickets to DanceHouse presents MOMIX (US), an astounding company of ‘dance-illusionists’, in the Canadian premiere of Viva MOMIX, on stage in Vancouver April 12 & 13, 2019.

Ravinia Festival entrance Highland Park, Illinois. The Ravinia Festival is the oldest outdoor music festival organization in the United States. It’s located in Highland Park, Illinois about 25 miles north of Chicago on the shores of Lake Michigan. The park was created in 1904 by A.C. Frost , the owner of the Chicago & Milwaukee Electric Railway (precursor to the North Shore Line, mentioned in my previous blog) which traveled through the area. Frost figured that building a pla

Synthesizing elements from ancient and contemporary practices, Whispers is both a supernatural experience and mind and body training session exploring… Read More

American Loïe Fuller (1862-1928), was a solo dancer who had no formal training, but is recognised as being an important element in the development of modern dance. I discovered her work during some research for another project, and was intrigued by these amazing images of her manipulating yards of fabric supported by bamboo to elongate her arms which gave the effect of transforming her into a human/butterfly and human/flower hybrid. I was lucky enough to see some original footage of her performing the butterfly Dance at the Reina Sofia in Madrid. She became famous for the choreography, costumes and lighting effects in her Butterfly and Serpentine dances. Fuller's style of dance caused a sensation in France and I was also interested to see the responses her dramatic dances inspired in turn of the century artists and designers in Paris such as Toulouse Lautrec, Alphonse Mucha and Koloman Moser, many of which I will feature in my next post. Fuller was a child actress who worked in pantomime and then moved into burlesque and was influenced by the special effects of the stage, in which magic lanterns and calcium lights were used to project images onto fabric, and also the long lengths of material adapted for use in the skirts of other dancers in burlesque and vaudeville. These photographs of Fuller go some way to displaying the drama and spectacle of Fuller's costume and choreography. She creates dramatic shapes which are very reminiscent of a butterfly and a flower. She is literally engulfed in a column of fabric in the photographs below. The photographs are by Samuel Joshua Beckett and Frederick Glasier. Fuller combined a mixture of these special effects and developed others of her own to create something unique to stage performance at that time. Her first major choreographic hit was the Serpentine Dance of 1891 which became popular. She got into dispute with the management of the theatre however, and was released from her contract as result. Another dancer was hired by the theatre to perform Fuller's Serpentine Dance and this led to a legal battle to copyright her work, which ended in failure. Fuller then left the United States for Paris where her dances such as Papillon (1892),and Dance of the Lily, caused a sensation and she found huge acclaim amongst artists and writers as well as the general public. So popular did Fuller become that she was given her own theatre at the Exposition Universelle in Paris 1900. Here she was able to generously support other female dancers such as Isadora Duncan. Although Duncan is attributed as being the first pioneer of modern dance, we can now see the innovative work and techniques that Fuller created and performed throughout her career show her to be the actual original pioneer. Techniques and innovations that Fuller patented and employed in her performances verged on the cinematic and included using a complex set up of mirrors as a back-drop, dancing against a black floor and background which was lit by a wheel of projected coloured lights, dancing over a glass trap-door lit by red light to create the sensation of being engulfed by flame in the finale of her Fire Dance (1895). As well as designing all of her own silk costumes, Fuller experimented with glow-in-the-dark phosphorescent paints and other toxic chemicals which caused her to become ill, and would unfortunately lead to her demise. Fuller and her work continue to be an influence on contemporary dancers such as Jody Sperling and Ann Cooper Albright who draw on Fuller's dances and effects for their own choreography. An example of Loïe Fuller's choreography can be seen by clicking on the screen below. There seems to be much dispute about the many video clips which make claims to be of Loïe Fuller dancing, and of which dance she is actually performing. The woman in this clip resembles Fuller, and at the beginning of the clip the dancer is definitely performing a Butterfly dance, despite it being labelled the Serpentine Dance. If anybody reading knows better however, then please enlighten me.

If music be the food of love, then where better to dine out than a world-class concert hall or opera house? Here, Architonic examines a number of recently..

China's MAD architects and founder Ma Yansong design a sinious opera house in Harbin, pushing the city to the top of the country's cultural league-table

The last major element of Old Town Alexandria's waterfront plan has finally found the Alexandria City Council's approval this past weekend. According to Washington Business Journal, the Council...

Museum quality Giclee print - Premium fine art paper, 100% cotton, acid-free, archival

Nile Development and investment established Nile Tower New Capital the tallest towers of the new administrative capital

There’s a thread connecting the elemental ancient to the here and now, trailing slowly but firmly through Scottish Dance Theatre’s double bill of new works.

danse contemporaine, arts vivants d'ici et d'ailleurs

Explore this photo album by jodytld on Flickr!

China's MAD architects and founder Ma Yansong design a sinious opera house in Harbin, pushing the city to the top of the country's cultural league-table

South Korean artist Jae-Hyo Lee creates impressive wood sculptures using discarded tree trunks. To create the pieces, he first gathers chunks of tree trunk wood, burns the materials down and then polishes them into sleek sculptures or furniture. Lee works alongside a team of artisans to produce the large-scale pieces in Yangpyeong, Korea. All images […]

China's MAD architects and founder Ma Yansong design a sinious opera house in Harbin, pushing the city to the top of the country's cultural league-table

The fate of the controversial project lies in the hands of a federal judge who has twice refused to stop construction in North Dakota.

The Luminary Arts Center renovation transformed a historic North Loop performance space into a state of the art venue.

The Paris Opera will stream a selection of its ballets and operas on its website for free throughout March, April, and May.

Julie Taymor speaks to Shad ahead of a North American screening of her New York Metropolitan Opera production of Mozart's Magic Flute.

From Sleeping Beauty's Castle in Disneyland to the Eiffel Tower, fascinating photographs reveal how the world's most iconic structures were brought into existence.

Tyne Theatre & Opera House teams up with Newcastle University on oral history project to celebrate its 150-year birthday

Possibly a project for a theatre rather than a view of one actually in existence. The proscenium arch is decorated with various statues and two historiated reliefs of Apollo flaying Marsyas and Pan pursuing Syrinx. The performance has sometimes been identified as Othello. Formerly attributed to the School of Bibiena - the stage setting may well derive loosely from Bibiena-style designs. There is no very firm indication of date, but the costumes of the foreground figures seem to suggest the first half of the century. [National Gallery, London - Oil on canvas, 104.8 x 112.4 cm]