Annabelle Serpentine Dance

In this approximately 34-second Thomas Edison-produced short, we see Annabelle Moore performing the Loie Fuller-choreographed "Serpentine Dance" in two different fantastical, flowing robes.

Moore was one of the bigger stars of the late Victorian era. She was featured in a number of Edison Company shorts, including this one, which was among the first Kinetoscope films shown in London in 1894.

Loie Fuller had actually patented the Serpentine Dance, which Moore performs here in robes (as well as entire frames) that are frequently hand tinted in the film, presaging one of the more common symbolic devices of the silent era. Supposedly, the Moore films were popular enough to have to be frequently redone (including refilming). The version available to us now may be a later version/remake. Moore became even more popular when it was rumored that she would appear naked at a private party at a restaurant in New York City. She later went on to star as the "Gibson Bathing Girl" in the Ziegfeld Follies in 1907. She appeared there until 1912.

The short is notable for its framing of motion, which, especially during the "second half", becomes almost abstract. It somewhat resembles a Morris Louis painting, even though this is almost 60 years before Louis' relevant work.

You should be able to find this short on DVD on a number of different anthologies of early films.

IMDb's keywords: Dance | Wings | Kick | Dance Routine | Leg describe the entire film. They're sorta spoiling the film themselves that way, but it's hard when a film is a short documentary. I gave this movie five stars because it is a mesmerizing spectacle of the early cinema. Yet, I didn't rate it higher because the mesmerizing spectacle wears off as the film goes on. You have to understand that this was not made to be a narrative film. It's only something to look at, and not even for the entirety of the film itself. So, I say, it's not enough to keep your interest, but it is worth looking at for a minute to see a bit of history.

Part of the prints were hand-colored. It was the very first time a film is hand-tinted. Before that, probably only fully animated movies had colours, such as Émile Reynaud,s Pauvre Pierrot, from 1892. Annabelle Moore's dancing in 1895 in studio acquired a very special effect, particularly when there is a change in colour.

In a flowing-robe of a dress, Annabelle gracefully moves her arms while standing in place. This causes a swirl of material to float about her body in an effect that is both spectacular and artistic. It does show much less of Annabelle than we saw in "Annabelle Butterfly Dance".

The film version that I viewed had "copyright Aug. 1897" imprinted on several frames. It was hand-tinted so that the Ms. Whitford's robe changed to various pastel colors as it swirls. The tinting process, usually done by women, had to be laborious. The Kinetograph would film at 48-frames per second. If that were the case for this 18-second film, there would be 864 frames where only the dress would be hand-painted.

One of the earliest surviving films, and most certainly among the first hand-tinted, "Annabelle Serpentine Dance" (1895) is a purely cinematic feast, a celebration of motion and color. Annabelle Moore, a Broadway dancer, is dressed in white, flowing robes that change color as the dance progresses.

Several other contemporary serpentine dance films exist. It's fascinating how early cinema saw dance as essentially cinematic and most certainly made it so for us. Hypnotic and brilliant, this film, no matter how elementary it might seem for people accustomed to narrative cinema, exudes an acute understanding of what works visually.