Annabelle Serpentine Dance

Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1895)

Mention Annabelle Moore to a sold-out crowd at the latest summer blockbuster and it's doubtful a single person could tell you who she was. In fact, it would be hard to find anyone who could tell you who she was except for the most knowledgeable film buffs out there. In a short period, Annabelle Moore made about ten films for the Edison studio where she pretty much danced in a variety of ways. The title tells you what's going on in this film that clocks in just under a minute. Obviously most people aren't going to see anything special in what's going on here and it's doubtful most would even be entertained by the dance today. With that said, those who enjoy these early movies from Edison will like this simply because of Annabelle's style when she dances and the way the camera captures it.

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.

This very early feature contains quite a bit of talent on display, both on the part of the dancer Annabelle and on the part of the Edison filming and production crew. The 'serpentine' dancing creates quite an attractive scene, and the motion is almost hypnotic in its effect. To top it off, there is the hand coloring of portions of the print, one of the earliest such efforts.

The photography catches the action of the dances very well, and it is especially commendable for such an early effort. The camera field catches everything, and uses the space most efficiently. The color still looks good, and it might have looked even more impressive in its original condition.

The dance itself is well worth seeing. The skillful movement of the dancer's dress allows the viewer to sense a rhythm even without the original musical accompaniment. It creates a pleasing effect that has held up well.

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.

Color and dance didn't begin with this film; sometime between October and November 1894, the Edison Company filmed and later hand-colored three dance films: "Imperial Japanese Dance" and two films featuring Lucy Murray. Carmencita had already danced before the Kinetograph in probably the first filmed dance during March. Moreover, this film, "Annabelle Serpentine Dance", is at least the third time that Annabelle Whitford Moore appeared before the Kinetograph for a series of dance films. This is, however, one of the earliest we've inherited with a colorized print (exhibitors had the option to pay less for no hand-coloring), and it is, I think, one of the more interesting early dance films.

According to Charles Musser's exhaustive research ("Annotated Filmography"), Annabelle first performed her Butterfly, Serpentine and Sun dances before the Kinetograph by 10 August 1894. These films were very popular and eventually the negatives would wear out. Thus, by February 1895, Annabelle was back in the "Black Maria" to repeat her performances. Between April and August 1895, she returned once again, which is when she made this film--the one most commonly available (Edison: The Invention of the Movies, the Movies Begin series). (The Viva la Dance-Unseen Cinema DVD features three versions of Annabelle's Serpentine Dance, as well as two versions of her Butterfly Dance, one of her Sun Dance, and two films of the Serpentine Dance as performed by others.) In the "Filmography", Musser also includes two unidentified versions of Annabelle performing the Serpentine Dance. He suspects that one of them was made in the fall of 1894 and the other, which Annabelle performs barefoot, was made sometime between 1895 and 1897. William K.L. Dickson also filmed Annabelle's Serpentine Dance and other dances for American Mutoscope in 1896. Overall, that's six films of Annabelle performing the Serpentine Dance.

On a further note, the Butterfly Dance is easily distinguishable from the Serpentine Dance, as Annabelle is wearing butterfly wings on her back in addition to milder skirt fluttering and different dance movements that mimic a butterfly rather than a serpent. Nevertheless, these films have been misrepresented (including on the Movies Begin) as Serpentine Dance films. The Sun Dance is closer to the Serpentine Dance, however, but involves Annabelle sitting on the floor shortly in a pose, like the Sun eclipsing (Unseen Cinema mistakes one of these as a Serpentine Dance).

Many others around the world also performed the Serpentine Dance, and they were often made in imitation of the Edison-Annabelle films. The Sklandowsky brothers projected it onto the screen with "Serpentinen Tanz" (1895), performed by a Miss Ancion. Apparently, leading French filmmakers, Georges Méliès, Alice Guy, and the Lumière Company all took turns in producing their cinematic versions, as well. One of the Edison films was also one of the first films that Méliès and Robert Paul exhibited (including cinematically) before making their own.

Loïe Fuller originally created and performed the Serpentine Dance on stage. The dance, as seen in this film, is essentially the dancer fluttering wands attached with swaths of silk extending from the dancer's skirt in an abstract manner that resembles the movement of a serpent. On the stage, this was accompanied by color transformations created by the lighting effects reflecting upon the fabric. It's ingenious that this film, one of the first of its kind, is hand colored, or tinted, to provide a correspondent affect on film. The Kinetograph was an immobile, deaf, black-and-white recorder essentially trapped within the "Black Maria" studio, offering viewers the same sunlit shadows and black background for every film. The hand coloring makes all the difference--makes it beautiful. As Annabelle waves her skirt, we see the colors transform from yellow to red and purple. Additionally, her hair is continuously tinted red. One can see in the extant posters and photographs that Fuller likewise achieved color transformations, as well as changes in lighting, in her stage performances. She also took her Serpentine Dance further--and was an inspiration among the Art Nouveau movement--than is represented in Annabelle's performance, which is limited to 50 feet of film and the imitative performance of a relative amateur. The Lumière film, which takes place on a stage (and is colorized), is probably closer to Fuller's work.

Furthermore, dance is often metaphorically sexual and that's the case with this film, although not in an overly obvious manner (or much at all to today's eyes). "Fatima's Coochee-Coochee Dance" (1896), a belly dance, although tame by today's standards, was censored via crossbars across the frame--blocking out her chest and hip areas. Additionally, as Musser has pointed out, the individualized peephole nature of Kinetoscope viewing was consistent with this eroticism and voyeurism and accentuated it. On the other end, spectators could partake in viewing Sandow flex his muscles and pose while wearing a scantly loincloth, or view the popular boxing bouts.

"Annabelle Serpentine Dance" also represents one of the many early films that took their subjects from vaudeville and the stage. Known as "Peerless Annabelle" on the stage, Moore had recently made her début in 1893 and would continue to have a successful theatrical career after appearing in film. She was only about 17 years old when Heise made this film, after all.

This film also fits into Tom Gunning's definition of the "cinema of attractions". These early films are non-narrative in the general sense, but rather present something of novelty or interest without the building up of a story. "Annabelle Serpentine Dance" is a spectacle for the eye--without a story, yet not absent of meaning and art--brief but captivating.

(Note: This is the third in a series of my comments on 10 "firsts" in film history. The other films covered are Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge (1888), Blacksmith Scene (1893), The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1895), La Sortie des usines Lumière (1895), L' Arroseur arose (1895), L' Arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat (1896), Panorama du Grand Canal vu d'un bateau (1896), Return of Lifeboat (1897) and Panorama of Eiffel Tower (1900).)