A Brief Biography

Loie Fuller was born Mary Louise Fuller sometime in January of 1863 in the small town of Fullersburg, near Chicago. An exact birthdate is difficult to pinpoint, since Fuller herself gave journalists eight different birth dates throughout her career. Although Fuller was not a dancer by training (she only took approximately six dance lessons in her life), she did perform with various vaudeville and burlesque troops, as well as acting with the Felix A. Vincent company in Chicago. Fuller utilized her innovations in lighting and costuming partially to draw attention away fromt he fact that she had a stocky build and that she was not well-trained, like the other popular dancers of her time. Fuller's movement was a sharp contrast to the more formal ballet that was so popular at the time in that she was much more natural and spontaneous, much of it inspired by forms from nature, and this helped her gain tremendous popularity in both the United States and Europe. The public's appreciation for her art form led to the production of Loie Fuller skirts, handkerchiefs, scarves, and even a Loie Fuller stove, of all things. Fuller started her own dance school in the early 1900s, and recruited girls from England (much as Anna Pavlova did later on). To these girls Fuller passed on her highly personal form of dance, something that had previously not been widely accepted or appreciated.
After World War I, Fuller did not do much dancing herself, but she sent out dancers from her school to perform all over Europe, and these groups continued to tour for almost a decade after Fuller's death. Her final performace was in London in 1927 before her death in January of 1928.