Dance piece based on Loïe Fuller

The butterfly »silk moth« (Latin: bombyx mori) served as a model for a spectacular dance costume: the American dancer Loïe Fuller (1862-1928) invented it for her »serpentine dance«, with which she entered into dance history. She danced in New York, Paris and London, was the first to work with electric lighting and coloured projections on stage and a part of the Jugendstil movement. Auguste Rodin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Stéphane Mallarmé were all influenced by this dancer.

The Polish choreographer Ola Maciejewska, born in Rybnik near Katowice in 1984, was inspired by Loïe Fuller. Initially, she created the solo »Research« (2011), in which she gave rise to sculptural forms with costumes and dance. This mostly improvised solo was usually presented in exhibition spaces.

In »Bombyx mori«, these parameters are developed further: Three dancers multiply the minimalist synthesis of bodies, material and sound; the noise of the fabric plays a major role. Three black »serpentine butterflies« by Loïe Fuller are emerged from the larvae and returned transformed. The piece has been seen in Paris, Brussels and Vienna.

Ola Maciejewska received a theatre and dance education in Warsaw, Rotterdam and Utrecht. She worked as a dancer and performer with the choreographers Bruno Listopad and Philippe Quesne. Her first own choreography »Tekton« had its world première in Geneva in 2014. Since 2016, she has been »artiste associée« at the Centre chorégraphique national de Caen in northern France.