The Journal of Sport History announced on its website that the Summer 2014 issue will feature an article about the amazing Charmion, written by graduate student Bieke Gils. The document, “Flying, Flirting and Flexing: Charmion’s Trapeze Act, Sexuality, and Physical Culture at the Turn of the Twentieth Century” suggests that Charmion pushed the envelope in much the same way Miley Cyrus twerked her way to fame this past year.
The abstract of Gils’ article follows:
On December 25, 1897, Laverie Vallée, better known by her stage name Charmion, made her debut in Koster and Bial’s vaudeville theater in New York City with a provocative undressing act on the trapeze and demonstrations of her upper-body muscularity. Though part of a wave of female aerialists at the turn of the twentieth century whose performances quite literally “flew” in the face of Victorian values, Charmion was among the first to take advantage of the developing photography, cinema and print industries to promote her act and was one of Thomas Edison’s first female silent movie subjects. The carnivalesque atmosphere generally associated with vaudeville performers made provocative acts like Charmion’s not only permissible, but also very popular. Her performances certainly embodied both desires and fears of a society that was forced to revisit Victorian ideals about women’s sexuality, physical prowess, and the female body more generally. (source: Journal of Sports History website, April 2014).
Below is a You Tube video of a short clip of Charmion that was produced by Thomas Edison.