[1][2] Born in Choisy-le-Roi, a suburb of Paris, Loudières had enjoyed music from an early age but it was her doctor who recommended she should take up ballet, given her rather fragile constitution.
When she was 19, she danced her first solos in L'Oiseau bleu, Michel Fokine's Le Spectre de la Rose and Paul Taylor's Aureole.
[5] After she had danced Kitri in Rudolf Nureyev's Don Quixote, the artistic director Rosella Hightower elevated her to étoile in 1982.
[4] She has also worked with Alvin Ailey, Mats Ek, William Forsythe, Martha Graham, Jiří Kylián, Serge Lifar, Kenneth MacMillan, Roland Petit, Paul Taylor, and Twyla Tharp.
In 1993, she was awarded the Grand Prix National de la Danse and was decorated in 1996 as a Commandeur des Arts et Lettres.