In addition to the purely Loie Fuller characteristic numbers, the Loie Fuller Dancers, on this tour, offered Some Dance Scenes from the Fairy Tale of Her Majesty Queen Marie’s “The Lilly of Life,” as presented at the Grand Opera, Paris.
Apart from this, the “children” had all the old Loie Fuller tricks, and a few new ones. Their dance vocabulary was far from extensive, but there was a pleasant enough quality about it.
When I made the tour, in association with Queen Marie, the “children” were, to put it kindly, on the mature side; and it took a great deal of their dramatic, vital and dynamic managers drive to keep the silks fluttering aloft. Mrs. Bloch was a remarkable woman, who had handled the “children” for Loie Fuller a long time.
The tour of the Loie Fuller Dancers is not one of my proudest achievements; but I know the gay colours, the changing lights brought pleasure to many.
Years later, on a visit to Paris, I received a telephone call from Mrs. Bloch, requesting an appointment. It was arranged for the following day. At the appointed hour I went down to the foyer of the Hotel Meurice to await her coming.
Some minutes later, I observed an elderly lady, supported by a cane, enter and cross the foyer, walking slowly as the aged do, and using her cane noticeably to assist her. I paid scant attention until, from where I sat near the desk, I overheard her explaining to the conciérge that she had a “rendezvous” with Monsieur Hurok.
I simply did not recognize the human dynamo of 1926. A quarter of a century had slipped by. Much of that time, she told me, she had spent in Africa. Despite the change in her physical appearance, despite the toll of the years, the flame still burned within her.
Her mission? To try to get me to bring the Loie Fuller Dancers to America for another tour.
As I observed the changes that had taken place in their manager, I could not help visualizing what twenty-five years must have done to the “children.”
C. A TEUTONIC PRIESTESS