Isadora Duncan

Isadora Duncan
Birth name	Angela Isadora Duncan
Born	(1877-05-27)May 27, 1877, San Francisco, California, U.S.A
Died	September 14, 1927(1927-09-14) (aged 50) Nice, France
Nationality	American, Russian
Field	Dance & choreography
Movement	Modern/Contemporary dance
Influenced	Michel Fokine, Sergei Diaghilev, Edward Gordon Craig

Isadora Duncan (May 27, 1877 — September 14, 1927) was a dancer, considered by many to be the creator of modern dance. Born in the United States, she lived in Western Europe and the Soviet Union from the age of 22 until her death at age 50. In the United States she was popular only in New York, and only later in her life. She performed to acclaim throughout Europe.

Duncan's fondness for flowing scarves was the cause of her death in an automobile accident in Nice, France when she was passenger in an Amilcar, and her silk scarf, draped around her neck, became entangled around the open-spoked wheels and rear axle, breaking her neck.^[1]

Early life

Angela Isadora Duncan was born in San Francisco, California, as the youngest of four siblings. She had three older siblings, two brothers Augustin Duncan and Raymond Duncan, and Elizabeth Duncan who was her older sister, also a dancer.

Their parents were Joseph Charles Duncan (1819–1898), a banker, mining engineer and connoisseur of the arts, and Mary Isadora Gray (1849–1922). Soon after Isadora's birth, her father lost the bank and he was publicly disgraced and the family became extremely poor.

Her parents were divorced by 1880 (the papers were lost in the San Francisco earthquake), and her mother moved with her family to Oakland. She worked there as a pianist and music teacher. In her early years, Duncan did attend school but, finding it to be constricting to her individuality, she dropped out. As her family was very poor, both she and her sister gave dance classes to local children to earn extra money.^{[citation needed]}

In 1895 Duncan became part of Augustin Daly's theater company in New York. She soon became disillusioned with the form.

Her father, along with his third wife and their daughter, died in the 1898 sinking of the British passenger steamer SS Mohegan.^{[citation needed]}

Work

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Isadora Duncan performing barefoot. Photo by Arnold Genthe during her 1915–18 American tour.

Duncan began her dancing career by teaching lessons in her home from the time she was six through her teenage years. Her different approach to dance is evident in these preliminary classes, in which she “followed [her] fantasy and improvised, teaching any pretty thing that came into [her] head”.^[2] A desire to travel brought Duncan to Chicago where she auditioned for many theater companies, finally finding a place in Template:Augustin Daly’s company. This job took her to New York City where her unique vision of dance clashed with the popular pantomimes of theater companies.^[3] Feeling unhappy and limited with her work in Daly’s company and with American audiences, Duncan decided to move to London in 1898. There she found work performing in the drawing rooms of the wealthy and inspiration from the Greek vases and bas-reliefs in the British Museum.^[4] The money she earned from these engagements allowed her to rent a dance studio to develop her work and create larger performances for the stage.^[5] From London, Duncan travelled to Paris, where she drew inspiration from the Louvre and the Exhibition of 1900.^[6]

One day in 1902, Loie Fuller visited Duncan’s studio and invited Duncan to tour with her. This took Duncan all over Europe creating new works using her innovative dance technique.^[7] This style consisted of a focus on natural movement instead of the rigid technique of ballet.^[8] She spent most of the rest of her life in this manner, touring in Europe as well as North and South America, where she performed to mixed critical reviews.^[9] Despite the critics’ mixed reactions, she became quite popular for her distinct style and inspired many visual artists, such as Antoine Bourdelle, Auguste Rodin, and Abraham Walkowitz, to create works based on her.^[10]

Duncan disliked the commercial aspects of public performance like touring and contracts because she felt they distracted her from her real mission: the creation of beauty and the education of the young. To achieve her mission, she opened three schools to teach young women her dance philosophy. The first was established in 1904 in Grunewald, Germany. This institution was the birthplace of the “Isadorables,” Anna, Maria-Theresa, Irma, Lisa, Gretel, and Erika, Duncan’s protégées who would go on to continue her legacy.^[11] Later, Duncan established a school in Paris that was shortly closed due to the outbreak of World War I.^[12] In 1921, her leftist sympathies took her to the Soviet Union where she founded a school in Moscow. However, the Soviet government’s failure to follow through on promises to support her work caused her to move West and leave the school to Irma.^[13]

Philosophy

Isadora Duncan in a Grecian-inspired pose and wearing her signature Grecian tunic.

Duncan’s philosophy of dance moved away from rigid ballet technique and towards what she perceived as natural movement. To restore dance to a high art form instead of entertainment, she sought the connection between emotions and movement: “I spent long days and nights in the studio seeking that dance which might be the divine expression of the human spirit through the medium of the body’s movement.”^[14] Duncan took inspiration from ancient Greece and combined it with an American love of freedom. This is exemplified in her revolutionary costume of a white Grecian tunic and bare feet. Inspired by Grecian forms, her tunics also allowed a freedom of movement corseted ballet costumes and pointe shoes did not.^[15] Costumes were not the only inspiration Duncan took from Greece. She was very inspired by ancient Greek art and utilized some of those forms in her movement (see image).^[16]

Duncan wrote of American dancing: “let them come forth with great strides, leaps and bounds, with lifted forehead and far-spread arms, to dance.”^[17] Her focus on natural movement emphasized steps, such as skipping, outside of codified ballet technique. Duncan also cites the sea as an early inspiration for her movement: “I was born by the sea, and I have noticed that all the great events of my life have taken place by the sea. My first idea of movement, of the dance, certainly came from the rhythm of the waves.”^[18]

Also, she believed movement originated from the solar plexus, which she thought was the source of all movement: “For hours I would stand quite still my two hands folded between my breasts, covering the solar plexus…I was seeking and finally discovered the central spring of all movement, the crater of motor power, the unity from which all diversities of movement are born, the mirror of vision for the creation of the dance—it was from this discovery that was born the theory on which I founded my school.”^[19]

It was this philosophy and new dance technique that garnered Duncan the title of the creator of modern dance.

Early life

Duncan’s philosophy of dance moved away from rigid ballet technique and towards what she perceived as natural movement. To restore dance to a high art form instead of entertainment, she sought the connection between emotions and movement: “I spent long days and nights in the studio seeking that dance which might be the divine expression of the human spirit through the medium of the body’s movement.”^[20] Duncan took inspiration from ancient Greece and combined it with an American love of freedom. This is exemplified in her revolutionary costume of a white Grecian tunic and bare feet. Inspired by Grecian forms, her tunics also allowed a freedom of movement corseted ballet costumes and pointe shoes did not.^[21] Costumes were not the only inspiration Duncan took from Greece. She was very inspired by ancient Greek art and utilized some of those forms in her movement (see image).^[22]

Duncan wrote of American dancing: “let them come forth with great strides, leaps and bounds, with lifted forehead and far-spread arms, to dance.”^[23] Her focus on natural movement emphasized steps, such as skipping, outside of codified ballet technique. Duncan also cites the sea as an early inspiration for her movement: “I was born by the sea, and I have noticed that all the great events of my life have taken place by the sea. My first idea of movement, of the dance, certainly came from the rhythm of the waves.”^[24]

Also, she believed movement originated from the solar plexus, which she thought was the source of all movement: “For hours I would stand quite still my two hands folded between my breasts, covering the solar plexus…I was seeking and finally discovered the central spring of all movement, the crater of motor power, the unity from which all diversities of movement are born, the mirror of vision for the creation of the dance—it was from this discovery that was born the theory on which I founded my school.”^[25]

It was this philosophy and new dance technique that garnered Duncan the title of the creator of modern dance.

Personal life

Isadora Duncan and Sergei Yesenin

Both in her professional and private lives, Duncan flouted traditional mores and morality. She was bisexual. She alluded to her Communism during her last United States tour, in 1922-23; Duncan waved a red scarf and bared her breast on stage in Boston, proclaiming, "This is red! So am I!".^[26]

Duncan bore two children, both out of wedlock—the first, Deirdre (born September 24, 1906), by theatre designer Gordon Craig, and the second, Patrick (born May 1, 1910),^[27] by Paris Singer, one of the many sons of sewing machine magnate Isaac Singer. Both children died in an accident on the Seine River on April 19, 1913. The children were in the car with their nurse, returning home after lunch with Isadora and Paris Singer. The driver stalled the car while attempting to avoid a collision with another car. He got out to hand-crank the engine, but forgot to set the parking brake. The car rolled across the Boulevard Bourdon, down the embankment and into the river. The children and the nanny drowned.^[27]

Following the accident, Duncan spent several months recuperating in Corfu with her brother and sister. After this, she spent several weeks at the Viareggio seaside resort with actress Eleonora Duse. The fact that Duse was just coming out of a relationship with rebellious young lesbian feminist Lina Poletti fueled speculation as to the nature of Duncan and Duse's relationship, but there has never been definite proof that the two were involved romantically.^[28] In her autobiography, Duncan relates that she begged a young Italian stranger — the sculptor Romano Romanelli^[29] — to sleep with her because of her desperation to have another baby. She did become pregnant after the deaths of her elder two children. She gave birth to a son, who lived only a few hours and was never named.

In 1922 she married the Russian poet Sergei Yesenin who was 18 years' her junior. Yesenin accompanied her on a tour of Europe and the United States. The following year he left Duncan and returned to Moscow. He committed suicide in 1925, aged 30.

She had a lengthy and passionate affair with female poet Mercedes de Acosta.^[30] Duncan and de Acosta wrote regularly in often revealing letters of correspondence. In one from 1927, Duncan wrote: (quoted by Hugo Vickers in "Loving Garbo") "...A slender body, hands soft and white, for the service of my delight, two sprouting breasts round and sweet, invite my hungry mouth to eat, from whence two nipples firm and pink, persuade my thirsty soul to drink, and lower still a secret place where I'd fain hide my loving face...."^[31] In another letter to de Acosta she wrote: "Mercedes, lead me with your little strong hands and I will follow you—to the top of a mountain. To the end of the world. Wherever you wish." Isadora, June 28, 1926.^[31] De Acosta had once proclaimed that from the moment she first saw Isadora Duncan, she looked upon her as a great genius, and was taken by her completely.^[31]

Later life

By the end of her life Duncan's performing career had dwindled and she became as notorious for her financial woes, scandalous love life and all-too-frequent public drunkenness as for her contributions to the arts. She spent her final years moving between Paris and the Mediterranean, running up debts at hotels. She spent short periods in apartments rented on her behalf by a decreasing number of friends and supporters, many of whom attempted to assist her in writing an autobiography. They hoped it might be successful enough to support her. In a reminiscent sketch, Zelda Fitzgerald recalled how she and her husband sat in a Paris cafe watching a somewhat drunk Duncan. He would speak of how memorable it was, but what Zelda recalled was that while all eyes were watching Duncan, Zelda was able to steal the salt and pepper shakers from the table.^[32]

In her book Isadora, an Intimate Portrait, Sewell Stokes, who met Duncan in the last years of her life, describes her extravagant waywardness. Duncan's autobiography My Life was published in 1927. Composer Percy Grainger called Isadora's autobiography a "life-enriching masterpiece."^[33]

Death

Tomb of Isadora Duncan at Père Lachaise Cemetery

Duncan's fondness for flowing scarves was the cause of her death in an automobile accident in Nice, France, at the age of 50. The scarf was hand-painted silk by the Russian-born artist Roman Chatov, and was a gift from her friend Mary Desti, the mother of American film director Preston Sturges.

On the night of September 14, 1927, Duncan was a passenger in the Amilcar^[34] automobile of a handsome French-Italian mechanic Benoît Falchetto, whom she had nicknamed "Buggatti" (sic).

Before getting into the car, she reportedly said to her friend Mary Desti and some companions, "Adieu, mes amis. Je vais à la gloire!" (Goodbye, my friends. I go to glory!), however, according to American novelist Glenway Wescott, who was in Nice at the time and visited Duncan's body in the morgue, Desti admitted that she had lied about Duncan's last words. Instead, she told Wescott, Duncan said, "Je vais à l'amour" (I am off to love). Desti considered this embarrassing, as it suggested that she and Falchetto were going to her hotel for a tryst. Her silk scarf, a gift from Desti, draped around her neck, became entangled around the open-spoked wheels and rear axle, breaking her neck.^[35]

As The New York Times noted in its obituary: "Isadora Duncan, the American dancer, tonight met a tragic death at Nice on the Riviera. According to dispatches from Nice, Miss Duncan was hurled in an extraordinary manner from an open automobile in which she was riding and instantly killed by the force of her fall to the stone pavement."^[36] Other sources described her death as resulting from strangulation, noting that she was almost decapitated by the sudden tightening of the scarf around her neck.^[37] The accident gave rise to Gertrude Stein's mordant remark that "affectations can be dangerous."^[38] At her death, Duncan was a Soviet citizen. Her will was the first of a Soviet citizen to be probated in the U.S.^{[citation needed]}

Isadora Duncan was cremated, and her ashes were placed next to those of her beloved children^[39] in the columbarium at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. The headstone of her grave contains the inscription in French: "Ballet School of the Opera of Paris." (École de Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris)

Legacy

Duncan restored dance to a high place among the arts. Breaking with convention, she traced the art of dance back to its roots as a sacred art.^[37] She developed within this idea, free and natural movements inspired by the classical Greek arts, folk dances, social dances, nature and natural forces as well as an approach to the new American athleticism which included skipping, running, jumping, leaping and tossing.

Duncan's work has been moved forward through Anna Duncan and Irma Duncan, two of her six adopted daughters. This coaching and repertory has been passed to third generation Duncan dancer Lori Belilove whose lineage and performing career have earned her an international reputation as the premier interpreter and ambassador of the dance of Isadora Duncan.^[40] She founded The Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation in 1979 and The Isadora Duncan Dance Company in 1989. The Company is the premier Duncan Company performing in the world today and has performed to national and international acclaim in dance festivals around the world and in such prestigious New York venues as the Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse, Whitney Museum of American Art's Equitable Series, 92nd Street Y, Carnegie Hall, Duke Theater on 42nd Street, Judson Dance Theater and Symphony Space.^[41] Photographs and articles of the Isadora Duncan Dance Company have appeared in numerous international dance publications and periodicals including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Dance Magazine, Time Out, Backstage, Ballet Internationale, Korean Times, Dancar Magazine (Brazil), Dance Magazine Australia, The Greek-American, and the book, Dance Photos, published by Dance Ink, as well as a photo layout in Fitness Magazine. The Foundation and Company's performances, master classes, workshops, and teacher training certifications enable children, college students and professional dancers to truly experience the purity, timelessness, authentic phrasing, and musicality that has been passed down to Lori Belilove and so to her dancers through the direct line of Isadora Duncan's legacy.

While her schools in Europe did not survive for long, her work had impact in the art and her style is still danced by a new generation of loyal followers based on the instruction of Maria-Theresa Duncan, the last of the Isadorables.

In 1977, Maria-Theresa co-founded the Isadora Duncan International Institute (IDII) in New York. Although Maria-Theresa died in 1987, IDII continues to educate and instruct in the original choreography, style and techniques of Isadora Duncan. Maria-Theresa personally passed on the choreography to one of her pupils, Jeanne Bresciani, who is now the artistic director and director of education of the Institute. Graduates of the IDII certification programs also perform Duncan's choreography and hold classes in the Duncan technique.^{[citation needed]}

Carl Sandburg, a poet and writer, in his poem Isadora Duncan wrote: "The wind? I am the wind. The sea and the moon? I am the sea and the moon. Tears, pain, love, bird-flights? I am all of them. I dance what I am. Sin, prayer, flight, the light that never was on land or sea? I dance what I am."^{[citation needed]}

Already in 1913, when the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées was built, Duncan's likeness was carved in its bas-relief over the entrance by sculptor Antoine Bourdelle and included in painted murals of the nine muses by Maurice Denis in the auditorium.

In 1987, she was inducted into the National Museum of Dance C.V. Whitney Hall of Fame.

In popular culture

This "In popular culture" section may contain minor or trivial references. Please reorganize this content to explain the subject's impact on popular culture rather than simply listing appearances, and remove trivial references. (April 2012)

Film and TV

In the 1968 film titled Isadora, starring Vanessa Redgrave, Isadora Duncan's life has been portrayed most notably. In 1966 BBC biopic by Ken Russell's, subtitled 'The Biggest Dancer in the World' and introduced by Duncan's biographer, Sewell Stokes, she was played by Vivian Pickles.

And Then There's Maude, the theme song to the 1970s American TV sitcom Maude contains a reference to Duncan with the line "Isadora was a the first bra burner."

In the 1988 film "Bull Durham," Annie Savoy states "I've tried all the major religions and most of the minor ones -- I've worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan... "

In a deleted scene of Titanic (1997), Rose talks about her dreams, saying "I don't know what it is, whether I should be an artist or a sculpter or a, I don't know, a dancer like Isadora Duncan, or wild pagan spirit!"

2003 in "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days", the necklace Andie wears is named after Isadora Duncan.

Ballet

In 1981, she was the subject of a ballet, Isadora, written and choreographedby the Royal Ballet's Kenneth MacMillan, and performed at Covent Garden.^[42]

Stage play

A 1991 stage play When She Danced about Duncan's later years by Martin Sherman, won the Evening Standard Award (best actress) for Vanessa Redgrave. In 2008, based on the stage play, a Hungarian musical was produced in Budapest.

Poetry and prose

In 'Fever 103', a poem by Sylvia Plath first published in the Poetry magazine's August 1963 edition, a reference to Duncan's fatal accident is made in the lines: 'Love, love, the low smokes roll/ From me like Isadora’s scarves, I’m in a fright/One scarf will catch and anchor in the wheel.'

The children's gothic book series, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, includes a set of fraternal triplets named Isadora, Duncan, and Quigley Quagmire.

Music

In 1990, the song "Isadora Duncan" was the first song on the album "Little" written and recorded by Vic Chesnutt.

Robert Calvert recorded a song about Duncan on his Revenge LP. The song is called "Isadora". Salsa diva Celia Cruz sang a song titled "Isadora" in Duncan's honor. Finnish musician Juice Leskinen recorded a song called "Isadora Duncan". Russian singer Alexander Malinin recorded a song about the death of Isadora Duncan. Russian band Leningrad have a song about her on their Pulya (Bullet) album. American post-hardcore group Burden of a Day has a song titled, "Isadora Duncan" on their 2009 album OneOneThousand.

In his song Salome, British singer Pete Doherty makes a reference to Isadora Duncan by saying: "As she dances and demands, the head of Isadora Duncan on a plate".

Sources

1. My Life by Isadora Duncan. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1927. OCLC 738636
2. The Art of the Dance by Isadora Duncan / pref. par Sheldon Cheney. New York: Theater Arts, 1928. 147 pages. Edited, with an introduction by Sheldon Cheney. ISBN 0-87830-005-8
3. Isadora, an Intimate Portrait by Sewell Stokes. New York: Brentanno's Ltd, 1928.
4. The Technique of Isadora Duncan by Irma Duncan. Illustrated. Photographs by Hans V. Briesex. Posed by Isadora, Irma and the Duncan pupils. Printed in Austria by Karl Piller, Wien VIII, 1937. ISBN 0-87127-028-5
5. Life Into Art. Isadora Duncan and Her World. Edited by Doraee Duncan, Carol Pratl, and Cynthia Splatt. Foreword by Agnes de Mille. Text by Cynthia Splatt. Hardcover. 199 pages. W. W. Norton & Company, 1993. ISBN 0-393-03507-7
6. Duncan Dance: A Guide for Young People Ages Six to Sixteen by Julia Levien (with illustrations by the author from life and memory). “A Dance Horizons book”. 1994. ISBN 0-87127-198-2
7. Anna Duncan: In the footsteps of Isadora (Ilsadoras fotspar) by Anna Duncan. Stockholm: Dansmuseet, 1995. ISBN 91-630-3782-3
8. Isadora: A Sensational Life by Peter Kurth. Little Brown, 2001. ISBN 0-316-50726-1
9. Maria Theresa: Divine Being, Guided by a Higher Order (The Adopted Daughter of Isadora Duncan) by Pamela De Fina. 2003. Pittsburgh: Dorrance. ISBN 0-8059-4960-7
10. Isadora & Elizabeth Duncan in Germany; edited by Frank-Manuel Peter. Cologne: Wienand Verlag, 2000. ISBN 3-87909-645-7
11. Isadora Duncan, in Narrate, uomini, la vostra storia by Alberto Savinio, Bompiani,1942, Adelphi, 1984.

References

Notes

Further reading

• Daly, Ann. Done into Dance: Isadora Duncan in America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995.
• Duncan, Isadora (1927). My Life. New York: Boni and Liveright. OCLC 738636. 
• Duncan, Isadora. The Art of the Dance. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1969.
• "Atlas F1 historical research forum about the Amilcar debate". 2002-07-21. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. http://web.archive.org/web/20070927012036/http://forums.atlasf1.com/printthread.php?threadid=9925. Retrieved 2007-07-02. 

• Kurth, Peter. Isadora: A Sensational Life. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2001.

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Isadora Duncan

Dance portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Isadora Duncan

• Three famous photographs of Isadora Duncan
• isadoraNOW Foundation
• Dances By Isadora, Inc.
• Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation, Inc.
• Isadora Duncan's Web Links
• Isadora Duncan International Institute, Inc.
• Isadora Duncan Dance Group (London/Paris)
• Modern Duncan biographer, Peter Kurth's Isadora Duncan page
• Image Galleries @ NYPL & Library of Congress
• Isadora Duncan Archiv, a German web site.
• Place where she lived during her childhood (map)
• Isadora Duncan Heritage Society Japan
• 1921 passport photo , Isadora Duncan
• Archive film of Anna Duncan dancing a piece by Isadora Duncan in 1942 at Jacob's Pillow