Press
13 November 2007
Wednesday Journal
MOMENTA Celebrates the works of Doris Humphrey
Ken Trainor
The concert opened with works from two of Humphrey’s early influences-“Le Lys (Lily of the Nile)” by Hinsdale area native Loie Fuller (1896) and “The Spirit of Incense” by Ruth St. Denis.
Fuller’s works are notably theatrical, relying as much on props and staging as bodily movement, reflecting modern dance’s emergence from (and transcendence of) its vaudeville origins. A single dancer (Mary Kelly Kren), arms extended by long poles and draped in 75 yards of white silk, revolves in one of Fuller’s standard “whirling dervish” choreographies, creating an effect that is part butterfly, part lily, entirely mesmerizing, thanks to the stylish lighting effects. A vision indeed.
For the full article:
Wednesday Journal of Oak Park and River Forest
31 October 2007
OakLeaves
Elizabeth Macik
As a finale to Momenta’s 25th Anniversary Celebration, the dance company will present two concerts highlighting historically important works by Illinois artists.
The evening concert, “Visionary Dances — The Gift of Visionaries Past and Present,” will offer recreations of several timeless and difficult pieces honoring Oak Park dance legend Doris Humphrey and Illinois native Loie Fuller, the star of the 1900 World Exposition in Paris.
Spinning silk
Fuller’s piece, “Le Lys - Lily of the Nile,” will be performed by a solo dancer, wrapped in almost 100 yards of silk as she manipulates 6-foot wands into lily-like shapes. A renaissance woman in her own right, Fuller was the first performer to insist on having the house lights off while she was onstage and understood how to manipulate stage lighting to add mood and atmosphere. “This piece was reconstructed in a different way than ‘Passacaglia and Fugue.’ It was real detective work put together from historical record, reviews, the score and a black and white film,” says Clemens.
For the full article:
OakLeaves
13 August 2007
Photography by Amitava Sarkar
18 June 2007
KALAMAZOO—Megan Slayter, assistant professor of dance at Western Michigan University, has been awarded a Gilmore Emerging Artist grant to conduct research in Paris on choreographer and dance lighting pioneer Loïe Fuller.
With the help of her research collaborator, dance historian and notator Jessica Lindberg, Slayter will recreate the third and final dance from Fuller’s original 1896 concert, “Lily of the Nile.”
That dance, along with Fuller’s “Night” and “Fire Dance,” will be performed this summer in Chicago in partnership with Momenta Dance Company. The performance will be included on a new DVD documentary on Fuller and will mark the first time the three Fuller works will be performed in more that 100 years.
Slayter was the technical production coordinator for the American Dance Festival in 2005. As a lighting designer and stage manager, she has worked extensively in the Chicago area with the Space/Movement Project and Robert Moses’ KIN and in Kalamazoo with WMU, Wellspring/Cori Terry and Dancers and Chenery Auditorium.
As a dancer, Slayter has performed in works by Lar Lubovitch, Bebe Miller, Victoria Uris and Cori Terry.
Media contact:
Jeanne Baron, (269) 387-8400, jeanne.baron@wmich.edu
WMU NewsOffice of University RelationsWestern Michigan University1903 W Michigan AveKalamazoo MI 49008-5433 USA(269) 387-8400 www.wmich.edu/wmu/news
31 May 2007
Summer Announcements
OSU Dance Alums, Jessica Lindberg (MFA ‘03) and Megan Slayter (MFA ‘03), in conjunction with MOMENTA Dance Company of Oak Park, Illinois, have been awarded a $10,000 grant from the Illinois Humanities Council to create a documentary about Loie Fuller. Lindberg and Slayter will be traveling to Paris, France in June to conduct research and shoot film for the project. They will also attend the Society of Dance History Scholars / Congress on Research in Dance Conference. On August 25th, at 8:00pm, Lindberg, Slayter and MOMENTA Dance Company will present live performances of Fuller’s “Night Dance,” “Fire Dance,” and the reconstructed premier “Lily of the Nile,” along with film clips to be used in the documentary, in MOMENTA’s own Doris Humphrey Memorial Theatre. The Fuller documentary is due out on DVD in January 2008.
15 March 2007
Kalamazoo, Mich.—Six individuals have received funding from the Irving S. Gilmore Emerging Artist Grant program.
The Emerging Artist Grant program is funded by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation and administered by the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo. This quarterly grant program provides up to $3,500 in financial support for promising Kalamazoo County artists who demonstrate serious commitment to advancing their work and professional art careers. A panel of volunteer artists representing various arts disciplines makes application reviews and funding decisions.
…Megan R. Slayter $4,000 In depth research in Paris of historically accurate lighting design for Loïe Fuller’s “Lily of the Nile.”…
The next deadline for the Emerging Artist Grant is April 1, 2007. For more information, contact the Arts Council at 269-342-5059, or e-mail Barbara Harkins at bharkins@kalamazooarts.com.
The Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo was founded in 1966. Its mission is to support, promote and fund the arts in the Greater Kalamazoo area.
Contact: bharkins@kalamazooarts.com
28 September 2005
Chicago Sun-Times
Sensual dancer inspired artists in late 1800’s
By Andrew Herrmann
…Fuller’s art lives on, through lithograph and film, part of a current Art Institute exhibition of the works of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. A room is devoted to Fuller’s free-flowing sensual performances that inspired Lautrec and some 70 other painters, sculptors and musicians at the turn of the century.
On Thursday, a re-creation of Fuller’s dance style will be performed at the Art Institute’s Fullerton Hall.
…”She performed in outfits that definitely showed her lines,” said dance historian Jessica Lindberg, who, by using film and written accounts of the era, has re-created Fuller’s act….
24 July 2005
Los Angeles Times
The past comes whirling back to life in historic works captured on camera.
By Lewis Segal
Revivals, reconstructions, evocations, fake antiques: The dance world’s attempt to turn its own history into box-office magic takes many forms.
Like some of Hollywood’s updated remakes, an iconic title might be all that remains of a landmark achievement after contemporary hacks are through with it. But even the worst adaptations often tell us what attracts us about classics and what we prefer to prune away.
Among recent dance releases on DVD, the uses of the past loom large. Indeed, quite apart from the lost choreography it reconstructs, the disc titled “Loïe Fuller’s Fire Dance” illuminates the process of researching and reanimating a forgotten dance in such detail that it becomes a kind of handbook on the subject.
Available from Ohio State University…the DVD includes studio and live performances by Jessica Lindberg of a career-defining 1896 Fuller solo set to Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.”
There’s also a documentary on Fuller (an American actress-turned-dancer who died in 1928), films of Fuller and her imitators, and answers to just about every question you might ask about how Lindberg pieced together this artifact of early modern dance. Shawn Hove’s editing is a model of tact - but you can also choose to see the solo straight through with no changes of camera angle.
Best of all, Lindberg’s scrupulous performance re-creates the sense of dance-metaphor that Fuller achieved with billowing fabric and colored lights, making us understand how this kind of dancing inspired audiences and formed a potent alternative to classical ballet (then in decline in Western Europe). Fuller didn’t just dance around a fire - she seemed enveloped in swirling flames, a volatile force of nature.
1 May 2003
Vol. 6 No. 3, Spring 2003
Dance Notation Bureau New York
OSU Extension News
Jessica Lindberg’s reconstruction of Loïe Fuller’s Fire Dance attracted considerable University attention. She received the Hayes award, the top prize for graduate research; danced the work at a campus-wide faculty awards evening; and was invited to present her video documentation to the OSU Board of Trustees. Lindberg is also the first dance student to win a Graduate School Leadership Award. The Fire Dance score will be placed in the DNB Archives, and dance film expert John Mueller of the OSU faculty is preparing a DVD on it.
1 January 2003
Vol. 6 No. 2 , Winter 2003
Dance Notation Bureau New York
OSU Extension News
Jessica Lindberg reconstructed Loïe Fuller’s 1896 Fire dance from reviews, photos, film fragments, sculpture and Fuller’s own words about her legendary lighting effects. Lindberg danced the work in a recent OSU performance, and is now preparing a written thesis, notation score and a DVD produced by dance film expert John Mueller, who brought his Dance Film Archives to Columbus on joining the OSU political science faculty.