Alice Matilda Lethbridge (1866 – 4 February 1948) was an English music hall dancer and Gaiety Girl, best known for her "skirt dance" act.
Overview
Alice Matilda Lethbridge (1866 – 4 February 1948) was an English music hall dancer and Gaiety Girl, best known for her "skirt dance" act.
Early life
Alice Matilda Lethbridge was born in Clerkenwell, the daughter of Thomas and Louisa (née Holliday) Lethbridge. Travel writer Grace Marguerite Hay Drummond-Hay was her niece, the daughter of her brother Sidney Lethbridge. Alice Lethbridge studied dance with John D'Auban.
Career
Lethbridge was a Gaiety Girl, best known for performing a "skirt dance", in which she manipulated a voluminous long skirt while dancing, swirling the fabric to reveal glimpses of knees and thighs.
Lethbridge's version of the skirt dance involved arching her back almost to the horizontal, a challenging position that may have inspired similar moves for American dancer Loie Fuller. In 1896 she was described as "the tallest dancer on the English stage".
