Obsessed with Light

Columbia Arts and Maryhill Museum of Art present

Obsessed with Light

An exclusive recorded Q&A with the filmmakers will follow the screening. 

Obsessed with Light is a meditation on light and the enduring obsession to create. The film pulls back the curtain on Loïe Fuller, a wildly original performer who revolutionized the visual culture of the early 20th century. But it is not a bio-pic. Creating a dialogue between the past and the present, the documentary delves into the astonishing influence Fuller’s work has on contemporary culture including artists like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Taylor Swift, Bill T. Jones, Shakira and William Kentridge, among many others. In the process, the film uncovers commonalities that connect these creative luminaries to Fuller and each other.

The American creator of modern dance, Fuller (1862-1928) invented a completely new kind of spectacle which combined dance, fabric and movement. She also pioneered the ingenious use of electricity for the stage, even building a glass floor so that she could be lit from below. Anyone who has been to a rock concert has seen a modern version of her lighting designs. Fuller propelled herself into swirling abstractions that made audiences gasp and she immediately understood the importance of protecting her ownership of these innovations. Always struggling against a flood of imitators, Fuller was the first choreographer to attempt to copyright her dances and sued to protect her work as early as 1893.

Fuller shot to international stardom after performing at the Folies Bergère in Paris. Her rise to fame was intertwined with the very beginning of cinema and her Serpentine dance became an iconic subject for the earliest filmmakers like Georges Méliès and Alice Guy Blaché. It was also among the earliest footage ever to be hand-colored. 

Obsessed with Light is a film about transformation. It is about a Midwestern vaudeville performer who performed with Buffalo Bill before becoming a world-famous star of Belle Époque Paris and the embodiment of the Art Nouveau movement with her elaborate productions of ephemeral, shape-shifting abstractions. It's about a woman, described by contemporaries as "odd and badly dressed," who transformed herself into the "Fairy of Light" onstage. It's about a woman who became famous on her own terms– unapologetic about her body type and open about her sexual preference. And it's about a visionary artist who disrupted the prevailing notions of dance and the imagined limits of the human body. Lastly, the film is about a lost modernist whose story is crucial to understanding both early cinema and performance.

Loïe Fuller & The Maryhill Museum of Art

In her heyday, Loïe Fuller's circle of friends included artists, politicians, and European royalty. It was she who convinced railroad executive Sam Hill to turn his unfinished mansion south of Goldendale, WA into a museum showcasing French fine art. She also cultivated friendships with Marie, the Queen of Romania, and Alma de Bretteville Speckels, founder of the Museums of San Francisco's Legion of Honor art museum. 
Fuller’s close association with well-known artists in France helped build the core of the museum’s collection, including the acquisition of more than 80 works by French sculptor Auguste Rodin. Fuller is one of the primary founders of Maryhill Museum of Art (35 Maryhill Museum Drive, Goldendale, WA 98620; open daily from March 15-November15) along with Hill, Queen Marie, and Spreckels.

Visit The Loie Fuller Exhibition at Maryhill Museum of Art, which includes Art Nouveau posters, photographs, art glass, and memorabilia from her 35-year career as a performer.