The dancer in private is simply a bonnie, blue-eyed little woman, plain in her dress, and with a sweet frankness of manner and speech which render her eminently attractive. Her rooms boast of no costly luxuries, bric-à-brac, or the thousand and one costly trifles which artistes usually surround themselves with. One thing attracts you as you enter the little sitting-room, and that is a bust of her, by the great sculptor Hussin; in her boudoir are also several miniature models of stages, and it is by all sorts of experiments on these that Miss Fuller is enabled to judge of the effect of any new dance and lighting. At the conclusion of your visit you could not help feeling that you had been privileged to meet not only a great artiste, but also a good woman, against whose reputation a censorious and jealous world has never dared to breathe a word.
Needless to say, a host of imitators has arisen, some of whom, not content with pirating her dances, have tried to copy her dresses and even to use her name. The complicated lighting apparatus which attracts so much admiration is managed by the dancer's brothers, who practise every day with her, and as she is always inventing new dances, their work is no sinecure.
THE MIRROR DANCE.
From a Drawing.
One of her greatest successes has been the "Mirror Dance," in which, by some mysterious arrangement, eight Löie Fullers appear to be dancing at the same time, and the whole stage is bathed in a flood of glorious tints, in which may be seen aerial forms, in cloudlike vestures, whirling and dancing as if they were the fabled victims of the Tarantula; the whole forming an artistic spectacular effect that the world has never seen equalled.
There is only one sad note in the whole history of the clever little dancer—that is, her delicate health, and more especially the paralysis of the arms with which she once or twice has been threatened. She works very hard, and has to train as severely as any jockey. Short as her performances are, they are very fatiguing and a great physical strain.
From a Photo by Riders, Chicago.
A great compliment is now being paid her, the result of which the next Salon will show, for a clever young American artist has selected "Löie's Dance" as his subject. It is a large picture and vigorously treated: only half the dancer is shown, and she appears as if dancing out of the canvas. Miss Fuller has done wonders in improving the public taste, and proving that dancing is not an art that degrades, but, with modestly-draped figure and graceful movements, an educator, as everything that is beautiful ought to be. Let us hope that the craze for high kicking, unnatural straining of the muscles, and the hideous short skirts and scanty bodice will become a thing of the past, and that a mere display of skill and agility without the elegance or grace which ought to characterize the Terpsichorean art will die a natural death. La Belle Löie will visit England about May, and it is to be hoped that she will be accorded such a welcome as will induce her to prolong her stay among us. For it may truly be said there is not a discordant note in her whole performance, or a gesture or movement which would wound the susceptibilities of the most modest-minded of British matrons or maidens.