The Legacy Left Behind

“The dancer of the future will dance, not in the form of nymph, nor fairy, nor coquette, but in the form of woman in its greatest and purest expression. She will realize the mission of woman’s body and the holiest of all its parts. She will dance the changing life of nature, showing how each part is transformed into the other. From all parts of her body shall shine radiant intelligence, bringing to the world the message of the thoughts and aspirations of thousands of women. She shall dance the freedom of woman. O, what a field is here awaiting her! Do you not feel that she is near, that she is coming, this dancer of the future! She will help womankind to a new knowledge of the possible strength and beauty of their bodies and the relation of their bodies to the earth nature and to the children of the future.”⁴

—Isadora Duncan

http://oberon481.typepad.com/oberons_grove/2014/05/honoring-isadora-duncans-grande-marche.html

Isadora Duncan had a very sudden and tragic death on September 14, 1927. She had just met a young man in France who invited her to take a ride in his convertible. As she was driving off she spoke to her friends and said "Adiea, mes amis, je vas a la gloire!" which means "Goodbye my friends, I go to glory!" As they drove away Duncan's long scarf flew behind them getting tangled in the rear wheel. The scarf broke her neck instantly and caused her death ("Who").

Though she is no longer here, her legacy lives on. She has been an inspiration to many dancers and she created modern dance that still is progressing today. Isadora Duncan has been an inspiration to me in so many ways. She was a feminist, before society allowed. She broke barriers and created an entirely new dance form that celebrates the female and natural body. She broke through all the restraints society placed on her, and inspired future dancers to step out of their comfort zones to do the same.

As a feminist, I have the upmost respect for Duncan. Gender inequality is still very prevalent in today's world. Through dance, artists around the world can bring this issue into the media and make a change. An example of one artist who is living proof of Duncan's influence is Yvonne Rainer. She has created many dances that support the female mind and body, but her main goal is to create dance that does not exhibit the female body as a sexual object. In her dance Trio A she refuses to acknowledge the audience's gaze. Rainer was fed up with the "impoverishment of ideas, narcissism, and disguised sexual exhibitionism of most dancing" (Copeland). 

Here is Yvonne Rainer's Trio A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZwj1NMEE-8


Works Cited
Copeland, Roger. "Why Women Dominate Modern Dance." The New York Times. The New York    
         Times, 17 Apr. 1982. Web. 14 Dec. 2014.

Landing, Kristie. "Isadora Duncan: A Revolutionary Dancer." Broad Strokes The National Museum of Women in the Arts Blog. WordPress, 15 June 2012. Web. 14 Dec. 2014.

Themes Over Time

Isadora Duncan's works varied throughout her lifetime. Her life's trials and struggles influenced her works as she grew older. In the beginning of her career she was very joyful. From 1900 to 1913 her dances exhibited inspiration from nature and from Greek culture. Her lyrical years were from 1900 to 1910 and these consisted of themes of nature. She was young, joyful, and graceful. Her movement during this era was very childlike and celebratory. Also during this time she studied sculptures, case paintings, bas reliefs and mythologies from the ancient Greek culture and gained inspiration for new movement and costuming. Her movement and themes were still very joyful during this time. All of this changed after 1913. Some of the pieces from this time include Water Study, Ballspiel, and Lullabye and Morning Star, Musette, and Bacchanal.

Here is a short piece of Duncan's Ballspiel performed by dancer Maria Simpson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDA8TOFpbG8

Isadora Duncan was greatly affected by the repercussions of WWI and by the death of her two children. Her daughter Deirdre and son Patrick died tragically in a drowning. The car driven by their nanny rolled off the road into the river Seine and all three drowned. "Her dances Mother and  Marche Funebre, featuring music by Scriabin and Chopin respectively, were inspired by her loss and conveyed her heartbreak on a universal level" ("Who") . Her choreography from 1912 to 1920 were considered the "Heroic and Monumental" dances ("Who"). Also being effected by WWI she choreographed dances such as Military Polonaise and Nocturne Duet that was marked by heroic postures that depicted a battle of adversity and oppression ("Dances"). 

Marche Funebre performed by Patricia Adams: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_jWuO57kLA

From 1908 to 1915, Duncan choreographed pieces that dealt with her constant battle to reconcile her love life and her art. Pieces such as, The Many Faces of Love, Frolic, Rose Petals, and Flames of the Heart all showed the torment she experienced and her life as a woman ("Dances"). Duncan's choreography spoke the truth and told her life story. 

Rose Petals staged by Loretta Thomas for Triad Dance Ensemble's performance at the Tutsten Theater in Narrowsburg, NY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAvdFSiHQwk

At the end of her career from 1912-1925 Duncan was responding to the Russion Revolution. A lot of these pieces were based off political occurrences. A few of these pieces include Revolutionary, The Crossing at St. Petersburg, and Marche Slav ("Dances"). The choreography played with the contrast between movement and stillness ("Who"). 

Here is Lori Belilove, the Artistic Director of the Isadora Duncan Dance Company, performing The Revolutionary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0ic5gNsNSM

Duncan experienced a lot of trials in her lifetime and she freely shared these with the world through her choreography. 


Works Cited

"Dances from the Repertory of Isadora Duncan." Lori Belilove and the Isadora Duncan Dance Company. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2014.

"Who was Isadora Duncan?" Lori Belilove and the Isadora Duncan Dance Company. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2014.

The Female Body

"The dancer wanted to reclaim the female body by redefining female beauty, moving it, literally and metaphorically, from the vaudeville house to the concert stage-from the realm of the commercial to that of the aesthetic. Then, perhaps, would women attend to their own "natural" bodily form, rather than to that of the corset." 

(Daly, 170)

http://www.isadoraduncan.org/the-foundation/about-isadora-duncan

Isadora Duncan celebrated the female and maternal body. She aimed to create an image of a strong, self reliant woman in herself and her dancers. As the quote above mentions, she wanted to change the way in which dance was viewed. She used her body and movement as a medium for change.

Dance had previously been seen as a "leg business." Concert dance had become an objectified art. Through her new progressive costuming and movement, she made dance an art form. Isadora stripped the dancers of their corsets and replaced them with sheer, loose fabric and tunics. The new costuming showed the natural female body. "In its signification of transparency, the tunic let the female body be perceived as a unified whole. Her costume also became an emblem of women's emancipation, a radical performance of a woman's body freed from the binding and stifling layers of culture" (Francis). Duncan was not trying to make a fashion statement, but rather start a female movement. 

Duncan opened a new door for female expression. She made dance a sexlessness art form. With this new art form, her dances were understood differently by everyone that saw them. She made it so the performances had many interpretations. With her progressiveness in costuming and movement she became a representation of the political and social changes. Though she was making changes, there were still those who ridiculed her for her efforts and discredited her feminist movement. For example, Floyd Dell wrote:

"That women should make so much fuss about getting the vote, or that they should so excite    

themselves over the prospect of working for wages, will appear incomprehensible to many      

people who have a proper regard for art, for literature, and for the graces of social intercourse."

Dell only considered the performance in the terms of "masculine desire" (Francis). There were many other critics who believed she should not be taken seriously. However even through the ridicule, Duncan continued to create performances that presented a unity of womanhood. Even at the end of her career, she was celebrating the female body and she began to focus on not only the unity of woman, but of all sexes and races.

"It is not only a question of true art, it is a question of race, of the development of the female sex to beauty and health, of the return to the original strength and to natural movements of a woman's body. It is a question of the development of perfect mothers and birth of healthy and beautiful children."

For more Isadora Duncan quotes visit: http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/160918.Isadora_Duncan

Works Cited

Francis, Elizabeth. "From Event to Monument: Modernism, Feminism, and Isadora Duncan." American Studies 

      35.1 (1994): 25-45. Web. 14 Dec. 2014.

The Natural Body

"When I was fifteen years old and I realized that there was no teacher in the world who could give me any help in my desire to be a dancer because at that time the only school that existed was the ballet, I turned, as I had noticed all other artists except dancers do, to the study of nature. Is anything more marvelous or beautiful in nature than the study of the delicated love movements of plants? My imagination was first captured by Shelley’s wonderful poem The Sensitive Plant, and for my dances I studied the movements of the opening of flowers and the flight of bees and the charming graces of pigeons and other birds."  
-Isadora Duncan

 

Isadora Duncan celebrated the natural body and movement. She did so through her movement and in the way she dressed. Her technique was based off very childlike movement, such as running and skipping. She transformed every day movement into dance. A lot of her movement also consisted of wave motions and circular forms. Growing up she lived in San Francisco and was inspired by the continuous flowing motion of the waves and the sun. She believed that movement came from within, like rays emanating from the sun. 

http://www.belairmedia.com/wp-content/themes

Besides her unique movement, she celebrated the natural body through her clothing. She was the first dancer to remove the point shoe and corset. These both restricted the dancer from being grounded into the earth and utilizing the spine. The corset was replaced by loose, flowing clothing that celebrated the natural body. 

The music Duncan used also reflected ideas of nature and the natural. In what were referred to as her lyrical years she used "themes of nature set as autobiographical dance poems to the music of Chopin and Schubert" (Lori).  She would emerge herself in nature for inspiration. 

Taking the word natural into a new context, Duncan believed that the natural was based on the rediscovery of the classical principles of beauty, motion, and form. She became inspired by early Greek paintings and architecture. She would costume her dances with a Greek theme. She also began to study the architecture and paintings of the early Greek era and gained new ideas for movement.

http://www.danceheritage.org/duncan.html

Works Cited

"Who Was Isadora Duncan?" Lori Belilove and The Isadora Duncan Dance Company. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2014.

The Beginning of Isadora Duncan

Progressive Mind. Progressive Body.

Isadora Duncan .

http://6247daisy.wordpress.com/tag/isadora-duncan/

Isadora Duncan was at the forefront of modern dance and created a new idea of movement. With the progressiveness of Duncan's mind and body, she was born to dance.

She was born in 1877 in San Francisco, California. She was raised by a single mother who, as a pianist and music teacher, was a large artistic influence on her life. Isadora was raised to be independent and individualistic. She dropped out of school at age 12 and began teaching dance at age 15. Isadora made everyday movements into dance. A lot of her technique focused on the childlike body. Running, skipping, leaping, and falling were all common in her choreography. Her technique also had a large focus on breathing and how breathing naturally changed and effected movement.

The largest effect Duncan had on modern dance was rebelling against restraints. She was the first dancer to remove the corset and shoes. She wanted to expose the natural body. In order to do so she replaced the corset and point shoes, with flowing clothing and bare feet.

Isadora's career took her all over the United States and the world. When she first started out she moved to New York and Chicago, but it was not long before her career took her all through Europe. She was a sensation in Europe and a spectacle to be seen. Her movement was defying the idea of what was considered dance and breaking the rules of ballet. She was an inspiration to audiences as well as other artists. Her new, popular movement is what gained her the name "Mother of Modern Dance."
 

For more information on Isadora Duncan's early life and career, visit http://www.biography.com/people/isadora-duncan-9281125#schools-and-isadorables



Works Cited

CiertaMujer. "Isadora Duncan Biography." Web log post. Imminent Change. WordPress, 4 June 2010. Web. 04 Dec. 2014.

"Isadora Duncan Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 04 Dec. 2014.