Isadora Duncan was born Dora Angela Duncan in 1878 in California. From an early age Isadora Duncan moved throughout Europe with her family and it seems only fitting that she chose to live the majority of her life in France as well as other locations in the Mediterranean. It is also worth noting that as her dance career blossomed, she found a warmer reception abroad as American tastes still appeared ill-suited to her particular form of free expression. In short, Isadora Duncan revolutionized ballet of the early twentieth century as she focused more on freedom of movement instead of the stiff conventions of traditional dance. This freedom bled into her personal as well and she was known to have had a number of tumultuous affairs with a number of men as well as a few women, including the poet Mercedes de Acosta.
Although a spiritual woman, especially when it came to the ideals set forth by the ancient Greeks, the ballerina Isadora Duncan was often known to have engaged in public drunkenness and accumulated a number of debt throughout Europe. Generally, her wide circle of friends, many of whom were among the European intellectually or culturally elite would attempt to help her handle her problems. Even though Isadora Duncan had a habit of causing trouble wherever she went, she became a cultural icon and traveled (and lived) in Russia as well as other places throughout Europe when she began setting up her schools. The death of Isadora Duncan was an incredible and surprising tragedy, especially for a dancer so young. Isadora Duncan died a tragic death at the age of 49 (1927) when one of her signature long scarves got caught in the axle of an automobile and broke her neck. Although her life was cut dramatically short, Isadora Duncan achieved a great deal in her lifetime and she completely changed the way the world would view ballet, and eventually, modern dance.
Isadora Duncan opened her first school of dance in 1909 while living in France. She was firmly committed to the idea that traditional ballet was “ugly” and wanted to teach her students to move more naturally. Being a great admirer of Greek art, sculpture in particular, Isadora Duncan tried to integrate these ancient notions of pure movement and nature into her teaching. She was convinced that dance, being one of the oldest art forms, had an essence to it that traditional ballet was missing. Isadora Duncan endeavored to find the meaning of life through dance and in order for such a search to take place she needed to be free from the restraints of tradition. This school became widely popular and she received a great deal of acclaim from many in France. It was clear that her school would succeed and she enlisted the help of her sisters and others to manage the daily operations while she followed the whims of her restless mind to yet another destination.
The second phase of Isadora Duncan’s artistic career began when she moved to the Soviet Union in 1922. A large part of her desire to go to there was based in her respect for the revolutions taking place. At this time the Bolsheviks were granting rights to women and serving as a model for the society in which Isadora Duncan seemed to have been dreaming of. Well known throughout Europe by this time she was received warmly and ended up marrying the Russian poet Sergei Yesenin. They remained together as she left Russia and toured Europe with the prospect of setting up more schools to spread her ideas but eventually her husband returned to Russia where he committed suicide. After this period in her life, Isadora Duncan began concentrating more effort on her schools throughout Europe and tried to further get to the root of her philosophy of dance. Also during this time friends encouraged her to write a memoir but this was not published until after her death. It includes long essays about her feelings about art and dance and what their function should be and serves as a brilliant testament to what would later become modern dance.
Aside from freedom of movement and an escape from the traditional conventions of dance, Isadora Duncan also had unique views on performance. For instance, she grew frustrated when she found that some of the students at her schools in Europe were performing for commercial interests and was a firm believer in the idea that performance should be pure and natural and that these commercial concerns were harmful. Even though Isadora Duncan obviously performed quite often, these were not traditional shows and although one might expect there was a fair amount of commerce involved, she genuinely wished for her audiences to see art rather than stale traditional dance. Every element of the dance performance changed even in terms of costuming. Known for her loose and flowing garb onstage and long scarves, everything about her performances stressed freedom. At one point, Isadora Duncan bared a breast to a crowd in New York, a bold symbol of freedom and adoration of the human body.
In closing, Isadora Duncan’s emphasis on freedom of movement and seeing dance as an extension of the psyche went on to have a great impact on modern and interpretive dance. For Isadora Duncan, the range of human emotion could be expressed by bodily and her career marked a change in people thought about and understood dance. Even in death Isadora lives in the spirit of a new way of dancing and appreciating movement.
Other essays and articles in the Arts Archives related to this topic include : The Life and Works of Martha Graham : A Biography • The Life and Works of Marius Petipa • The Influence of European Monarchs on Classical Ballet
