Today, it’s the birthday of Isadora Duncan, who was born on May 26^th, 1877 in San Francisco and was one of the founding mothers of modern dance. She grew up under poor conditions after her mother had divorced her father early and they moved to Oakland. Here she began dancing outside in the woods and by the ocean becoming inspired by the wind and the natural rhythms of the waves. She began early to teach her dance to children in her neighborhood. And when she grew up, she continued her pursuit of dancing outdoors and barefoot, releasing herself from the burden of the corsets used in classical ballet. 

Isadora sought freedom. To feel free when she danced, and to portray freedom in her movements. She realized how her center of the soul was in the solar plexus and decided to create her motions as emanations of expressions from this our center. She used her body’s natural way of letting one motion flow into the next, with the natural forces of gravity, seeking to reach upwardly and downwardly in a dynamic between the two. Her signature movements include an elongated neck but that is relaxed as she looks up to the sky and her arms stretched to the sides, but with her hands drooping down in a gesture of laissez-faire. 

Isadora lived a tumultuous life, including moving around Europe, first to Britain, then to France and Germany, and with a sejour to Russia, where she became a citizen thanks to her relationship with a Russian poet, and her dedication to honor the Russian workers, through her choreography called The Revolutionary. Her greatest inspiration came from Greece though, from where she sought to give life to the design and form of antique urns, as well as to find the strength and grace in Greek gods and goddesses and their games at Olympus, as models for her motifs. 

She had several romantic relationships but wasn’t married to all. Her beaus were often poets and playwrights, enhancing her own artistic performances at theatres.

Isadora lost her young children in France through a car accident with their nanny driving into the Seine, so that they drowned. While struck with grief and sadness, she decided to incorporate these emotions too into her dancing, besides her seeking of joy, that she wanted to forward through her dance schools. Her first school, had six young women as students, that became her first dance company, called The Isadorables. These young women took it on them to continue her legacy, by continuing to teach Isadora’s original choreographies to new students. These students in turn became the next generation of teachers, and so her art is preserved and developed in a direct lineage. Isadora’s ambition was to teach her art worldwide and not only let her schools teach dance, but to teach a way to look at life.

She preferred to dance to music by classical composers like Chopin, Schubert and Brahms, and often created her choreographies with themes of love letters, picturing figurines, or delving into the underworld and its mysteries. Besides always dancing barefoot, she wore silk tunics, inspired by the Greek and often with a scarf to enhance her dances. Sadly, it was also a scarf that killed Isadora Duncan, when it got caught in the wheels of her car and broke her neck in 1927.

To me, Isadora offers an ethereal combination of expressing my soul and spirit with that of dance motions, enabling me to flutter around like a butterfly, or skip like a little girl, and finding joy. While her technique suggests high lifted legs and pirouettes in combination with jumps, there’s a femininity and relaxation coming with them, making them easier to practice than traditional ballet. She also uses the rhythm of the waltz for several of her pieces, and dance in dialogues with both other dancers, and the audience, fitting with my own love for the stage, I had when I grew up. Dancing Isadora Duncan enables me to enjoy the art for art’s own sake and feel more free. Something I hope, to continue doing. 

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