The inspiring true story of Loïe Fuller, a radical nineteenth-century art nouveau icon who turned artificial light into performance art and became the incandescent inventor of modern dance.
In a new era lit by Edison bulbs, Loïe Fuller was the quicksilver that connected scientific and artistic inspiration. In a flurry of shifting lights and serpentine spins, she inspired the earliest films of Georges Méliès and held Jean Cocteau spellbound. She even sought out the Curies for a radioactive showstopper. In this transportive and hypnotic historical narrative, the uninhibited Folies Bergère superstar la fée lumière is finally restored to her shimmering, glorious place in modern history.
The Electricity Fairy is part of Inventions: Untold Stories of the Beautiful Era, a collection of incredible true stories from the belle époque, an age of innovation, daring, bluster, and beauty when anything seemed possible. Each piece can be read, listened to, and marvelled at in a single sitting.
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[A loose collection exists online, a few dozen moving images: short film clips of a woman dancing]***
(Amazon Original Stories, 28 March 2019, 43 pages, ebook, borrowed from @AmazonKindle #PrimeReading)
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This is the most enjoyable tale in the Inventions series. This is well-researched and very thorough. I was intrigued by Loïe's story and how radical she was. I find it incredibly sad that so little historical record of someone so important remains. I'd never heard of Loïe before so I was fascinated and a little saddened by her story. This tale is well-written and Loïe, Marie Curie and Edison come to life on the page. This is not just Loïe's story. It tells the story of Marie Curie's radium discovery and Edison's push towards moving pictures.
