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[17] Matters of Tact Writing History from the Inside Out Dance Research Journal 35 no. 2; 36, no. 1, 2003–2004. long before i became a committed academic, long before i was a college professor teaching dance history, long before terminal degrees and professional titles, i chanced upon an exhibition of early dance photographs at the rodin Museum in Paris. i bought the small catalogue, and from time to time i would page through the striking black-and-white images searching for dancing inspiration. i always paused at a certain one of loïe Fuller. There she is, radiant in the sunlight of rodin’s garden; chest open, arms spread like great wings, running full force toward the camera. it is an image of a strong, mature woman—one who exudes a joyful, earthy energy. A copy of this photograph taken in 1900 by Eugène Druet currently hangs above my desk. Let’s begin with traces. Traces of the past. Traces of a dance. Traces of light . . . and color and fabric. Traces of a body, animating all these sources of movement. Traces of a life, spent spinning across nations, across centuries , across identities. How do we trace the past? Reconfigure what is lost? Are traces always even visible? With a nod to the meanings embedded in historical study, Walter Benjamin once wrote: “To dwell means to leave traces.”1 indeed, traces are the material artifacts that constitute the stuff of historical inquiry—the bits and pieces of a life that scholars follow, gather up, and survey. The word itself suggests the actual imprint of a figure who has passed—the footprint, mark, or impression of a person or event. These kinds of traces are omnipresent in the case of loïe Fuller. Some traces are more visible than others; some more easily located. But all traces—once noticed—draw us into another reality. Someone passed this way before. i had been thinking about writing a book on loïe Fuller for some time, but it took me awhile to come to terms with how i wanted to respond to the less visible traces of her work. My book project began with a question: why do so many critics and historians dismiss the bodily experience of her dancing in their discussions of Fuller’s theatrical work? The question grew into a dance. The dance, in turn, taught me how to write history from in- 176 dancing histories side the vibrations of its ongoing motion. This is the story of an intellectual approach to the past that not only recognizes the corporeal effects of the historian’s vantage point, but also mobilizes her body within the process of research and writing. This is the story of a dance shared across a century of time and two continents, a dance that takes place at the meeting point of physical empathy and historical difference. Perhaps we should lose the noun, which renders us nostalgic, maybe even melancholic at the extreme. Replace our ambition to find out what happened with a curiosity about how it came to be that it was happening. Replace traces with tracing—the past with the passion. Tracing the contours of fabric which spiral upward and outward, we spill over beyond any one historical or aesthetic discourse. This act of tracing can help us become aware not only of what’s visible, but also what is, has been, will always be, less clearly visible. Beyond the image into the motion. i am engaged in writing on Fuller. i use this term “engaged” very consciously , for i want to highlight both the sense of binding oneself to another person and its etymological meaning as “interlocking”—a literal as well as a figurative meshing with someone or something. i have chosen to work on this project in a way that integrates conceptual and somatic knowledge , engaging my physical as well as my intellectual and analytic facilities. Dancing amidst clouds of fabric in elaborate lighting effects, i try to understand something of Fuller’s experience from the inside out. i also dance with words; moving with my writing to see how ideas resonate in my body. Then too, as i weave my way through archival materials and historical accounts of cultural milieus, i practice staying attentive to what i have learned through that dancing experience. This research process challenges traditional separations between academic scholarship and artistic creation, between criticism and autobiography—in short, between dancing and writing. More than just another layer of...

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