DUNCAN, ISADORA 1878-1927

Modern dancer

Innovator of Dance

Isadora Duncan introduced a new, and what many considered radical, style of movement to the American dance world in the 1900s. In an era when American dance was dominated by the formalities of classical ballet, Duncan broke from strictly choreographed steps into flowing, almost spontaneous moves that shocked Victorian audiences with their open sensuality.

Early Life

Duncan was born in 1878 and reared in the San Francisco Bay area. Educated by her freethinking mother, Isadora's upbringing was unique for the period. Comprised of classical music and great poets, her education centered on the arts and the potential of radical expression to change society. This emphasis led Isadora and her three siblings to pursue careers in the theater. As a girl, Duncan enjoyed dancing and motion, and rather than restricting her love of movement, Duncan's mother provided her with encouragement and support. By the time she was a teenager, Duncan had cultivated the fundamentals of what would later would be her contribution to modern dance—a style of dance built on free, natural, expressive movements.

Radical Movement

Duncan's dance inspired much commentary, from critics who viewed it as degenerate and from supporters who viewed it as nothing short of revolutionary. Embraced by a generation of avant-garde poets, painters, and political radicals, Duncan's dance came to symbolize liberation from the stagnant and suffocating traditions of Victorian culture. Like many other innovators, Duncan found Europe to be a much more welcoming place for her than the United States, and she toured Europe extensively throughout the 1900s.

Symbol of Liberation

Duncan boasted that she had been a radical since the age of five, but her political views took a more radical turn when she toured Russia in the wake of the 1905 revolution. There Duncan came to see the possibility of an intimate relationship between revolutionary politics and revolutionary art, and these ideas increasingly shaped her dance. Duncan believed that liberating the body from rigid and highly choreographed dance mirrored the liberation of humanity from the confines of mind-numbing convention and blind obedience to outmoded political systems. From the 1900s on, Duncan became a living symbol of revolt, revolution, women's emancipation, and sexual freedom. Duncan spoke out in support of many radical issues; foremost was the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. In 1921 Lenin invited her to establish a school of dance in Moscow. In the Soviet Union Duncan threw herself into creating a politically informed art for the masses. She choreographed dances for the Soviet Union's national anthem, the workers' hymn "The Internationale," as well as for other national peoples' songs, such as Ireland's "Wearin' o' the Green" and France's "Carmagnole."

Expatriate

Through most of the 1900s and 1910s Duncan lived in Europe and the Soviet Union but returned to America to give extended tours benefiting Russian famine relief and other radical causes. On a visit in 1922, when many Americans viewed foreigners and communists with suspicion, immigration officials detained Duncan at Ellis Island in New York City. There officials questioned her about her pro-Bolshevik views. Exposure of her radical politics led the press and conservative civic groups to vilify her as a dangerous radical promoting communism. Newspapers ran headlines that announced Duncan was an "agent of Moscow," and many cities canceled her performances in the wake of such damning press. Finally, deprived of her U.S. citizenship, Duncan fled what she called the "narrow-minded, hypocritical, loathsome United States," vowing never to return. Duncan lived out her life in France, until her death in an automobile accident in 1927.

Sources:

Lillian Loewenthal, The Search for Isadora: The Legend & Legacy of Isadora Duncan (Pennington, N.J.: Princeton Book Co., 1993);

Nancy L. Ruyter, Reformers and Visionaries: The Americanization of the Art of Dance (New York: Dance Horizons, 1979);

Cynthia Splatt, Life into Art: Isadora Duncan and Her World, edited by Spart, Doree Duncan and Carol Prati (New York: Norton, 1993).

Isadora Duncan

The American dancer and teacher Isadora Duncan (1878-1927) is considered one of the founders of modern dance.

Isadora Duncan was born Dora Angela Duncan on May 27, 1878, in San Francisco. By the age of 6 Isadora was teaching neighborhood children to wave their arms, and by 10 she had developed a new "system" of dance with her sister Elizabeth, based on improvisation and interpretation. With her mother as accompanist and her sister as partner, Isadora taught dance and performed for the San Francisco aristocracy.

The Duncans went to Chicago and New York to advance their dancing careers. Disheartened by their reception in eastern drawing rooms, they departed for London. In Europe, Duncan won recognition. She shocked, surprised, and excited her audience and became a member of the European intellectual avantgarde, returning triumphantly to America in 1908.

Duncan attacked the system of classical ballet, which was based on movement through convention, and rejected popular theatrical dance for its superficiality. She encouraged all movement that was natural, expressive, and spontaneous. Conventional dance costumes were discarded in favor of Greek tunics and no shoes to allow the greatest possible freedom of movement.

Experimenting with body movements, she concluded that all movements were derived from running, skipping, jumping, and standing. Dance was the "movement of the human body in harmony with the movements of the earth." Inspired by Greek art, the paintings of Sandro Botticelli, Walt Whitman's poems, the instinctual movements of children and animals, and great classical music, she did not dance to the music as much as she danced the music. For her, the body expressed thoughts and feelings; each dance was unique, each movement created out of the dancer's innermost feelings. Her dances were exclusively female, celebrating the beauty and holiness of the female body and reflecting the emergence of the "new woman" of this period.

After World War I Duncan traveled throughout Europe. Her first school (in Berlin, before the war) had collapsed for lack of funds. In 1921 she accepted the Soviet government's offer to establish a school in Moscow. But financial problems continued. Meanwhile, she married the poet Sergei Yesenin. When the couple came to America in 1924 at the height of the "Red scare," Duncan was criticized for her "Bolshevik" dances. Returning to Russia, her husband committed suicide.

By 1925 Duncan's life had been filled with tragedy. In 1913 her two illegitimate children had been accidently drowned; she had had a stillbirth; and she became disillusioned with the Soviet Union. She was famous but penniless. In 1927, while riding in an open sports car, her scarf caught in a wheel and she was strangled.

Isadora Duncan's death was mourned by many. She left no work that could be performed again, no school or teaching method, and few pupils, but with her new view of movement she had revolutionized dance.

Further Reading

There is no balanced assessment of Isadora Duncan's life. The best introduction is her own passionate and sensitive autobiography, My Life (1927). She has been eulogized by friends—see Mary Desti, The Untold Story: The Life of Isadora Duncan, 1921-1927 (1929)—exposed by enemies, and sometimes appreciated by scholars. A scholarly but badly written biography is Ilya Schneider, Isadora Duncan: The Russian Years (1969). Recent, more dispassionate accounts are Allan Ross Macdougall, Isadora: A Revolutionary in Art and Love (1960), and Walter Terry, Isadora Duncan: Her Life, Her Art, Her Legacy (1964). □

Duncan, Isadora (1878–1927),dancer born in San Francisco, developed her theories of interpretative dancing, based on classic forms and such modern aesthetic thought as that of Whitman, during her long residence in Europe. Her autobiography, My Life (1927), is noted for its frank revelations of an eventful career. A brief biography appears in Dos Passos's The Big Money. Her letters to Gordon Craig were edited by Francis Steegmuller as “Your Isadora” (1974), and diverse writings and talks were collected as Isadora Speaks (1981).

Duncan, Isadora (1877–1927) US dancer, pioneer of modern dance. She achieved fame in Europe for her emotional, expressive style. Ducan died tragically when her scarf caught in the wheel of her car and strangled her. She wrote an autobiography, My Life (1926–27).