Isadora Duncan and her Dances and Printed Works - Article Example

It is believed that modern dance in the United s originates from its founders, who were contemporaries of Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis and TedShawn. It continues in the works of their students - Martha Graham, Charles Weidman and Doris Humphrey and the works of Graham’s students - choreographers such as Paul Butler, Merce Cunningham, Erick Hawkins and Jean Erdman, Yuriko, etc., as well as Weidman and Humphrey’s students (especially Jose Limon and his company). It’s clearly seen that some of these dancers developed the tendency established by Isadora in her dances and printed works. Graham used Greek mythology and contemporary social issues in her compositions. Doris Humphrey used slow movements, each of which continuously followed from the previous one and thin tunics, which prolonged the movements (Isadora herself copied it from Lou Fuller). Even St. Denis and Shawn were under the influence of Isadora in the use of Greek themes and symphonic music. They recognized that they tried to synchronize orchestra and chorus because Isadora did not try to do that. If she was not born on May 26, 1878, in San- Francisco, but somewhere in ancient Hellas, the priests would probably perceive her gift as an earthly incarnation of the muse Terpsichore. Live she not in agitated Europe at the beginning of the bloody XX century, today’s feminists would probably make her their tribune and role model. She was a real enigma. All her biographers were perplexed by a huge amount of mystical details, concentration of which in a life of a fictional literary protagonist could be the cause for critics to accuse a writer of propaganda of fatalism and artificiality of the plot. Are you the empty vessel or a fire flickering in the vessel? It was not said about her, but once a bright spark of divine fire illuminated her way in art, making famous American Isadora Duncan from a beginning ballerina. The fire that lit her way consumed her one day. On that day in May, when Isadora Angela Duncan was born, the mother of the future European star suffered two disappointments: the first sounds she heard recovering from childbirth were vehement cries of depositors of her husband’ bank. Joseph ran away with their savings God knows where. The first thing that the unhappy woman saw was her newborn daughter threshing air almost convulsively. “I knew that a monster is born, - she said to a midwife. The child can not be normal, she jumped and hopped in my womb and all this is the punishment for the sins of her villain father Joseph ...” She did not see dancing future and destiny in the first movements of the baby. However, despite the complete absence of the gift of foresight, she was able to bring up her daughter and three older children without any help of their phony dad and even gave them good education. Those efforts were not appreciated by little Isadora: being 13 years old, she left school and got addicted to music and dancing. Her first attempt to conquer Chicago ended with a complete failure, except for the first whirlwind romance with a fiery redhead seducer - Ivan Miroski, who burned her soul to such an extent that Isadora preferred to run away from the bitter happiness to Europe in a hold for transportation of livestock. Her perspective was uncertain. On the other side of the Channel her main rival, Mata Hari, was at the zenith of fame at that time. She has already found her creed in dance, undressing in front of the audience, mesmerizing it with Eastern pa. She was lucky enough to find a patroness in the person of the famous actress Campbell. Isadora spread her passion defending the idea that a dance should be a symbol of freedom, progress of natural grace, language of emotion, not a set of rehearsed gestures. Campbell, the queen of London salons, arranged her protégé’s debut at a private reception, where presented her as an “exotic hors-doeuvre.” And that was the right decision - bold Isadora, dancing barefoot in a tunic, instead of a pack, copying much of ancient Greek plastic, saw delight in spectators’ eyes. At first glance, her repertoire has been very simple and poor - it consisted of passages, jumping and running, upper body movements, but her plastic and sense of rhythm were always so subtle and skillful (today’s professionals virtuoso are far from it), that Duncan could create a whole world of the senses ... Clear, simple, well-composed dances of Duncan originate in a fundamental images, forces and dynamics that are lost in modern dance because of its thirst for virtuosity. Success was stunning. In 1903, Isadora was able to go on tour to beloved Greece, where she perfected her skills of plastic improvisation. In a year the best scenic areas of Europe applauded the new world star of dance. Newsmen like hounds rushed to investigate the details of personal life of the amazing woman. And they ran into a gold mine. Isadora was the one who chooses men. And she did, it must be admitted, with excellent taste. In Budapest it was a talented actor, a handsome Magyar Oscar Berezhi. Then was a talented writer and teacher Henrik Thode. Then in her life appeared a theatrical producer Gordon Craig, who was already engaged to another woman. The result of that unhappy love affair was her daughter, Deirdre (“sorrow” in Celtic). Isadora understood that love and marriage do not always go hand in hand. At the end of 1907 she gave several concerts in St. Petersburg, where she met a new candidate to the role of the only man in life. She was again out of luck - Constantine Stanislavski, too handsome, too genius, made it clear that he sees in Isadora no more than just a perfect embodiment of some of his ideas. World-famous “barefoot” remained lonely at her dance Olympus. She almost reached the realization of the eternal feminine dreams when she met handsome and wealthy Paris Eugene Singer. He did not only pay all her overdue bills, but was even ready to offer his hand and heart. But he was so jealous making Isadora quit her dancing career. Almost immediately after their son’s Patrick birth they broke up. New drama broke the actress: she heard funeral marches, saw two coffins of her children in snowdrifts... “Madness” was the anticipation of the real trouble. In January 1913, Isadora with children and their governess was traveling by car from Paris to Versailles. On the road, the engine suddenly stopped, the driver opened the hood and pulled something. The car with all passengers fell into the Seine. She never recovered after that loss. She had constant visions of her dead kids. Isadora began to drink. Newspapermen changed Duncan in reports for Drunken. In two years she managed to stage Ave Maria - one of her greatest dances. She created it in two ways: as a solo, which she danced herself and as a group dance in which her students played the role of worshiping angels. In the group dance every girl went forward, thrusting out chest. Hands widely spread at first and then came up over their heads like huge angel wings. These movements are so simple that when in the third act all dancers raise knees high in jump, it is perceived as a sudden release or the triumph of the spirit. Body and hands of the dancers express their worship and humility before the Virgin and Child, but the movements are so pronounced that humility is gentle, not self-deprecating. Fortunately, soon she was given the chance to start life anew. In 1921, Lunacharski, the Commissar of Education, formally proposed an aging ballerina to open a school dance in Moscow. In response, she, the first of the Western artists, welcomed the new revolutionary order and state. She ran to Russia to meet her new fatal passion. At a reception organized at the mansion, given to her school of “experimental ballet”, she meets the talented poet Sergei Esenin. He was bewitched: not knowing a word in English, he took off his shoes and danced a wild dance with Isadora. She was 44, he was 26. That passion was the last for both. Wild, exhausting, deadly. To save her favorite from the permanent spree and disappointing poison of the literary beau monde of the new Russia, Isadora used cunning – married Esenin in 1922 and took him away to Europe. For the first time in her life she was married and happy. However, Paris made Esenin home sick and he started drinking again. Trying to save the marriage Isadora took him to her homeland. America treated both almost like a Trojan horse of the Bolsheviks in the cultural sphere. Duncan was not confused: “red Isadora” began to act in the proletarian quarters, adored by common people. But Esenin was still out his element. When the press called him “the young husband of Isadora Duncan” he literally exploded being deeply humiliated. He started drinking again. One day they broke up. Wild passion was dying, killing those in whom it lived, as a deadly disease. 2 years later the poet was taken out of the loop in the St. Petersburg hotel Angleterre. Duncan tried to forget herself in dance. Isadora danced all that other people talked, sang, wrote, drew and played. She danced Beethoven 7th Symphony and Moonlight Sonata; she danced Botticelli’s Primavera and poetry of Horace. But it was rather a run into the past than real life. Even a brief affair with the Russian pianist Victor Serov could not revive her. She tried to commit suicide ... In two days, September 14, 1927, in Nice, Isadora Duncan was driving a sports car. It was cold and she had a long red scarf around her neck. The car did not drive even a hundred yards. The end of the scarf was sucked into the arms of a wheel by a wind blow… She always analyzed her movements and reviewed them learning something new about art. She spent long hours at the mirror, trying to find proper gestures and natural turns. She came to the conclusion that the center of mass of a human is not at the base of the spine, as ballet teachers taught, but in the solar plexus. She avidly studied the archives of the Paris Opera, making endless notes. Only a very few dancers thought, as serious as Duncan, of the origins and embodiment of the lyrical movements. Her constant professional curiosity is more surprising taking into account how young she was. She was completely free of academic standards, but nevertheless wanted to know their origin. Impressed by Rodin and dramatic Japanese dancer Sada Yakko, she criticized contemporary dancing, calling it the mechanical exercises devoid of feeling and meaning. She wrote that such dance system can bring up only trained gymnasts like Dalcroze. She always asked her students to remember that their movements should arise from within. A desire to make a gesture comes first, followed by the gesture itself. She insisted that her young students rehearsing never turned into a set of physical exercises. A dancer must learn to move as if the movements never end. They always are an external result of internal reflections. A dancing movement can not simply be a series of set exercises aimed at muscles development. As soon as Isadora found the key movements, she was able to begin work on their development and translation into the language of dance. Often, she drew inspiration from music, trying to explain its meaning, i.e. introducing joy, sadness or other emotions that had been rooted in a creative work, rather than writing music for her own history. The method of her composition is not to do motions formal, generally accepted (for example, the traditional hand position on the heart as a symbol of love), and show her own sense experience, that is certainly a step to choreography in a modern style. And Isadora was the first on this way. References Bossy, Michel-André, et al. Artists, Writers, and Musicians: An Encyclopedia of People Who Changed the World. Westport, CT: Oryx Press, 2001. Bloch, Alice. “Isadora Is Everywhere.” Dance Magazine 82.9 (2008): 81. Fanger, Iris. “Isadora Duncan.” Dance Magazine 73. 5 (1999): 44 Jaeger, Katherine. “Isadora Lives: Dancers Continue the Legacy.” World and I 19.2 (2004): 96. Sanchez-Pardo, Esther. “The Truth of My Being in Gesture and Movement”: the Ego and the Body in Modernist Writing on Dance in Isadora Duncan’s My Life.” PSYART, 2006. Read More