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.