ABSTRACT

In the history of modern dance, Loie Fuller, if she is mentioned at all, is usually followed by Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, and Josephine Baker. This chapter re-maps the history of the avant-garde insofar as it draws upon a variety of disciplines that are usually treated separately: dance, design, painting, and film. It considers the relationship of the music-hall to the revitalization of ballet, the influence of Symbolist notions of the ideal work of art, of the legacy the Ballets russes on perceptions of dance, the history of Futurism and Cubism in pre-war France, and the history of avant-garde film. F. T. Marinetti's 'Manifesto of the Futurist Dance' (1917) is the most obvious point of departure for a discussion of dance in avant-garde aesthetics. Many historians of avant-garde visual arts have written about the mutual influences of dance and painting in the performances of the Ballets russes.