This study focuses on seven women who used the fin-de-siècle’s popular stage as a space to develop their experimental performance practices: acts that won them international fame and critical acclaim.

The diverse entertainment careers of Maud Allan (1873–1956), Jane Avril (1868–1943), Loïe Fuller (1868–1926), Sylvia Grey (1866–1958), Yvette Guilbert (1867–1944), Letty Lind (1862–1923) and Cissie (Cecilia) Loftus (1876–1943) encompassed song, dance, impersonation and acting. In accounts, reviews, autobiographical writings, interviews and other cultural products associated with them it is clear that individual female celebrities understood their work as creative, professional and original performance practice. The absence of their creative work from studies of performance history reveals much about hierarchical approaches to cultural environments, gender and physical, non-scripted performances that demands to be interrogated.