Isadora Duncan, 1877-1927

Photo credit - Bain Collection @ Library of Congress

Mother of the Modern Dance and one of the first famous worldwide modern dancers.

Isadora Duncan was an avant-garde dancer with a novel freestyle which became today’s modern dance, who lived an extraordinary life in all aspects. She was born in 1887 in San Francisco, California, to a family with great appreciation and love of the arts. Her siblings became artists as well.

After her parents got divorced, her mother moved the family to Oakland and worked as a seamstress and piano teacher to support them. Since the family was very poor, Duncan began teaching dance lessons to children in the neighborhood throughout her teenage years. Her unique style was already evident in those early years teaching improvisation and freestyle dance.

At 19, she started her career as a professional dancer but quickly found that her vision of the art of dance collided with the strict rules of formal dance. From her point of view, the movements of the classical ballet were unnatural, with their exact, pre-written, none fluid, rigid moves. That’s in addition to the uncomfortable corsets and point shoes which were even less natural to the body and its nature. In her vision, each step and movement must be born from the other in an organic succession.

Her dancing defined the force of progress, change, abstraction and liberation. The concept of the natural movement of the body was the main key of her unique style, a concept she was willing to take to the edge, and which earned her the fortune and fame she is remembered for to this day.

In 1898 she moved to London, where she began performing privately for the wealthy. Her earnings enabled her to rent a studio and develop a grander stage performance. From London, she moved to Paris, and there she attended the Louvre and the Exposition Universelle of 1900. Those experiences had inspired her greatly. The Louvre for its ancient Greek art exposition was a milestone in her vision, and the loosened Greek robe and bare feet became her most identifiable trademark and affected the future of dance.

From there on Duncan traveled across Europe and the Americas, performing in her innovative style and developing its technique. Though she became popular and successful, she sought to accomplish her true mission to educate the young. In 1904 she opened her first school in Berlin, and there she taught her vision of dance to young women. Six of her students became the “Isadorables” dance group and continued her legacy. She also adopted them, and they all took her last name. In 1914, Duncan returned to the US and established a school in NYC.

She died in 1927 in Nice, France in a strange accident when her scarf became entangled around the open-spoke wheels and rear axle, pulling her from the open car and breaking her neck.

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“The dancer’s body is simply the luminous manifestation of the soul.”

“The dancer’s body is simply the luminous manifestation of the soul.”

Fun Facts

  • Duncan’s charterer was portrayed in many books, films, ballets, theater stages, and music.
  • In medicine, the “Isadora Duncan Syndrome” refers to the exact injury she suffered from and which killed her.
  • She had relationships with both men and women.
  • She had three children, all out of wedlock. The first two died with their nanny when their car went into the River Seine; the third died shortly after birth.
  • San Francisco renamed an alley to Isadora Duncan Lane.

Creations By and About Her

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Category: Arts and Theater & Cinema
Tags: Dancer and SF Bay Area Women

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