新TOEFL阅读真题详解:LOIE FULLER 美国舞者

　　The United States dancer Loie Fuller (1862–1928) found theatrical dance in the late nineteenthcentury artistically unfulfilling. She considered herself an artist rather than a mere entertainer,and she, in turn, attracted the notice of other artists.

　　Fuller devised a type of dance that focused on the shifting play of lights and colors on thevoluminous skirts or draperies she wore, which she kept in constant motion principallythrough movements of her arms, sometimes extended with wands concealed under hercostumes. She rejected the technical virtuosity of movement in ballet, the most prestigiousform of theatrical dance at that time, perhaps because her formal dance training was minimal.Although her early theatrical career had included stints as an actress, she was not primarilyinterested in storytelling or expressing emotions through dance; the drama of her dancingemanated from her visual effects.

　　Although she discovered and introduced her art in the United States, she achieved her greatestglory in Paris, where she was engaged by the Folies Bergère in 1892 and soon became “LaLoie,” the darling of Parisian audiences. Many of her dances represented elements or naturalobjects—Fire, the Lily, the Butterfly, and so on—and thus accorded well with the fashionableArt Nouveau style, which emphasized nature imagery and fluid, sinuous lines. Her dancing alsoattracted the attention of French poets and painters of the period, for it appealed to their likingfor mystery, their belief in art for art's sake, a nineteenth-century idea that art is valuable initself rather than because it may have some moral or educational benefit, and their efforts tosynthesize form and content.

　　Fuller had scientific leanings and constantly experimented with electrical lighting (which wasthen in its infancy), colored gels, slide projections, and other aspects of stage technology. Sheinvented and patented special arrangements of mirrors and concocted chemical dyes for herdraperies. Her interest in color and light paralleled the research of several artists of the period,notably the painter Seurat, famed for his Pointillist technique of creating a sense of shapes andlight on canvas by applying extremely small dots of color rather than by painting lines. One ofFuller's major inventions was underlighting, in which she stood on a pane of frosted glassilluminated from underneath. This was particularly effective in her Fire Dance (1895), performedto the music of Richard Wagner's “Ride of the Valkyries.” The dance caught the eye of artistHenri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who depicted it in a lithograph.

　　As her technological expertise grew more sophisticated, so did the other aspects of herdances. Although she gave little thought to music in her earliest dances, she later used scoresby Gluck, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, and Wagner, eventually graduating to Stravinsky,Fauré, Debussy, and Mussorgsky, composers who were then considered progressive. Shebegan to address more ambitious themes in her dances such as The Sea, in which her dancersinvisibly agitated a huge expanse of silk, played upon by colored lights. Always open toscientific and technological innovations, she befriended the scientists Marie and Pierre Curieupon their discovery of radium and created a Radium Dance, which simulated thephosphorescence of that element. She both appeared in films—then in an early stage ofdevelopment—and made them herself; the hero of her fairy-tale film Le Lys de la Vie (1919) wasplayed by René Clair, later a leading French film director.

　　At the Paris Exposition in 1900, she had her own theater, where, in addition to her owndances, she presented pantomimes by the Japanese actress Sada Yocco. She assembled an all-female company at this time and established a school around 1908, but neither survived her.Although she is remembered today chiefly for her innovations in stage lighting, her activitiesalso touched Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis, two other United States dancers who wereexperimenting with new types of dance. She sponsored Duncan's first appearance in Europe.Her theater at the Paris Exposition was visited by St. Denis, who found new ideas aboutstagecraft in Fuller's work and fresh sources for her art in Sada Yocco's plays. In 1924 St.Denis paid tribute to Fuller with the duet Valse à la Loie.

　　Paragraph 1: The United States dancer Loie Fuller (1862–1928) found theatrical dance in thelate nineteenth century artistically unfulfilling. She considered herself an artist rather than amere entertainer, and she, in turn, attracted the notice of other artists.

　　1. What can be inferred from paragraph 1 about theatrical dance in the late nineteenthcentury?

　　○It influenced many artists outside of the field of dance.

　　○It was very similar to theatrical dance of the early nineteenth century.

　　○It was more a form of entertainment than a form of serious art.

　　○It was a relatively new art form in the United States.

　　Paragraph 2: Fuller devised a type of dance that focused on the shifting play of lights andcolors on the voluminous skirts or draperies she wore, which she kept in constant motionprincipally through movements of her arms, sometimes extended with wands concealed underher costumes. She rejected the technical virtuosity of movement in ballet, the mostprestigious form of theatrical dance at that time, perhaps because her formal dance trainingwas minimal. Although her early theatrical career had included stints as an actress, she wasnot primarily interested in storytelling or expressing emotions through dance; the drama of herdancing emanated from her visual effects.

　　2. According to paragraph 2, all of the following are characteristic of Fuller's type of danceEXCEPT

　　○experimentation using color

　　○large and full costumes

　　○continuous movement of her costumes

　　○ technical virtuosity of movement

　　3. The word prestigious in the passage is closest in meaning to

　　○highly regarded

　　○financially rewarding

　　○demanding

　　○serious

　　4. Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the highlightedsentence in the passage? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave outessential information.

　　○Fuller was more interested in dance's visual impact than in its narrative or emotionalpossibilities.

　　○Fuller used visual effects to dramatize the stories and emotions expressed in her work.

　　○Fuller believed that the drama of her dancing sprang from her emotional style of storytelling.

　　○Fuller's focus on the visual effects of dance resulted from her early theatrical training as anactress.

　　Paragraph 3: Although she discovered and introduced her art in the United States, she achievedher greatest glory in Paris, where she was engaged by the Folies Bergère in 1892 and soonbecame “La Loie,” the darling of Parisian audiences. Many of her dances represented elements ornatural objects—Fire, the Lily, the Butterfly, and so on—and thus accorded well with thefashionable Art Nouveau style, which emphasized nature imagery and fluid, sinuous lines. Herdancing also attracted the attention of French poets and painters of the period, for it appealedto their liking for mystery, their belief in art for art's sake, a nineteenth-century idea that art isvaluable in itself rather than because it may have some moral or educational benefit, and theirefforts to synthesize form and content.

　　5. The word engaged in the passage is closest in meaning to

　　○noticed

　　○praised

　　○hired

　　○attracted

　　6. The word synthesize in the passage is closest in meaning to

　　○improve

　　○define

　　○simplify

　　○integrate

　　7. According to paragraph 3, why was Fuller's work well received in Paris?

　　○Parisian audiences were particularly interested in artists and artistic movements from theUnited States.

　　○Influential poets tried to interest dancers in Fuller's work when she arrived in Paris.

　　○Fuller's work at this time borrowed directly from French artists working in other media.

　　○Fuller's dances were in harmony with the artistic values already present in Paris.

　　参考答案

　　1. ○3

　　2. ○4

　　3. ○1

　　4. ○1

　　5. ○3

　　6. ○4

　　7. ○4

　参考译文：

　　Loie Fuller(1862-1928)作为一位美国的舞者，认为19世纪末的舞台式舞蹈缺乏艺术性。她把她自己定义为一位艺术家而不仅仅演艺人员，随之下来，她也得到了其他艺术家的关注。

　　Fuller设计了一种注重灯光变换和她所穿的大体积的裙子或布料的颜色的舞蹈，所以她的舞姿则主要体现在上肢动作，而有些时候她的服装的体积是需要用隐藏在下面的棍状物体来填充实现的。她没有采用在当时的舞台式舞蹈上声望很高的高技术含量的芭蕾动作，原因可能是她所接受的正式舞蹈培训太少了。虽然在她早期的舞台事业里体现了作为一名艺术家的一些约束，她的主要精力并没有放在通过舞蹈来传递故事或感情上，而是通过视觉效应散发出她舞蹈的戏剧性。

　　尽管她是在美国找到并呈现了她的艺术，她最大的成就在巴黎，在1892年她被Folies Bergere(一个巴黎剧院)所雇佣,而不久变成“La Loie”----巴黎观众的宠儿。因为她的很多舞蹈作品例如火，百合花，蝴蝶等等代表的都是一些元素或自然物体，所以它们与注重自然风景和流畅弯曲线条的时尚Art Nouveau的风格是一致的。她的舞蹈还吸引了当时法国的诗人和画家的注意，因为它符合他们对神秘色彩的喜好，他们对于艺术只为艺术产生的信仰----19世纪艺术被认为它的本身比它所带来的道德或教育利益更有价值，和他们对外形和内容的合成所做的研究努力。

　　Fuller本人倾向于科学，所以经常试用电气灯光(电灯在那个时候才刚刚面市)，染色胶，投影片，和其他方面的舞台技术。她对色彩和灯光的研究与当时几位艺术家相应，特别是在画布上以描绘极其细微的点来创造形状和光泽，而不是用线条的而著名的点彩派画家Seurat。Fuller主要的发明之一是地面照明，意思是她站在一块毛玻璃上，而光是从下面照射上来的。这个发明尤其在她以Richard Wagner的“Ride of the Valkyries”作为背景音乐的作品火(1895)中起到了很大作用。这个舞蹈吸引了艺术家Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec的眼球，他把它在石版画中描绘了出来。

　　随着她的工艺技术变得更加成熟，也带动了她的舞蹈的其他方面。尽管在她在早期舞蹈作品中，没有花太多心思在音乐上，但随后她使用了Gluck, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin,和Wagner的乐曲，最后则变成了采用在当时被认为进步的一些作曲家的曲子，像Stravinsky, Fauré, Debussy, 和Mussorgsky。她开始强调更有野心的主题，比如作品大海，在这个作品中舞者们在色光灯所创造的辽阔的隐形丝绸下摇摆。因为Fuller总是对科技创新抱有很开放的态度，她与科学家Marie和Pierre Curie在镭的研究中成为了朋友，并创造出了作品镭来模仿该元素的磷光。她也踏足了电影业----那个时候还处于早期发展中----她的电影都是自己制作拍摄的;在她的童话电影Le Lys de la Vie (1919)中饰演英雄角色的，是后来一名知名法国电影导演René Clair。

　　在1990年的巴黎展览会上，她得到了一个独立剧场，在那里，除了她自己的舞蹈，她还呈现了日本女演员Sada Yocco的哑剧。1908年左右，她成立了一个女子公司并建立了一所学校，但是哪个都没有成功。尽管她主要是被她所带来的舞台灯光革新所为人们熟知的，但她的事迹也与Isadora Duncan和Ruth St. Denis, 这两个当时尝试新型舞蹈的舞者有关。她赞助了Duncan在欧洲的首次亮相。St. Denis拜访了她在巴黎展览会的博物馆，他分别为Fuller的作品和她在Sada Yocco剧本的艺术作为找到了新的编剧想法和鲜活的来源。1924年，St. Denis对Fuller的双人表演Valse à la Loie表达了赞赏。