Isadora Duncan

Duncan restored dance to a high place among the arts. Breaking with convention, she traced the art of dance back to its roots as a sacred art.^[12] She developed within this idea, free and natural movements inspired by the classical Greek arts, folk dances, social dances, nature and natural forces as well as an approach to the new American athleticism which included skipping, running, jumping, leaping and tossing. With free-flowing costumes, bare feet and loose hair, Duncan restored dancing to a new vitality using the solar plexus and the torso as the generating force for all movements to follow. Her celebrated simplicity was oceanic in depth and Duncan is credited with inventing what later came to be known as modern dance.
Duncan's work has been moved forward through Anna Duncan and Irma Duncan, two of her six adopted daughters. This coaching and repertory has been passed to third generation Duncan dancer Lori Belilove whose lineage and performing career have earned her an international reputation as the premier interpreter and ambassador of the dance of Isadora Duncan.^[15] She founded The Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation in 1979 and The Isadora Duncan Dance Company in 1989. The Company is the premier Duncan Company performing in the world today and has performed to national and international acclaim in dance festivals around the world and in such prestigious New York venues as the Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse, Whitney Museum of American Art's Equitable Series, 92nd Street Y, Carnegie Hall, Duke Theater on 42nd Street, Judson Dance Theater and Symphony Space.^[16] Photographs and articles of the Isadora Duncan Dance Company have appeared in numerous international dance publications and periodicals including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Dance Magazine, Time Out, Backstage, Ballet Internationale, Korean Times, Dancar Magazine (Brazil), Dance Magazine Australia, The Greek-American, and the book, Dance Photos, published by Dance Ink, as well as a photo layout in Fitness Magazine. The Foundation and Company's performances, master classes, workshops, and teacher training certifications enable children, college students and professional dancers to truly experience the purity, timelessness, authentic phrasing, and musicality that has been passed down to Lori Belilove and so to her dancers through the direct line of Isadora Duncan's legacy.
Duncan's insistence on more natural movement than that performed in ballet, along with the use of unrestricted costumes and utilization of emotional expression, were highly influential on other dancers. While her schools in Europe did not survive for long, her work had impact in the art and her style is still danced by a new generation of loyal followers based on the instruction of Maria-Theresa Duncan, the last of the Isadorables. Maria-Theresa co-founded the Isadora Duncan International Institute (IDII) in New York in 1977. She personally passed on the original choreography to one of her pupils, Jeanne Bresciani, who is now the artistic director and director of education of the Institute. Although Maria-Theresa died in 1987, IDII continues to educate and instruct in the original choreography, style and techniques of Isadora Duncan through the tutelage of Bresciani. Graduates of the IDII certification programs also perform Duncan's choreography and hold classes in the Duncan technique.^{[citation needed]}
The famous poet and writer Carl Sandburg in his poem Isadora Duncan wrote: "The wind? I am the wind. The sea and the moon? I am the sea and the moon. Tears, pain, love, bird-flights? I am all of them. I dance what I am. Sin, prayer, flight, the light that never was on land or sea? I dance what I am."^{[citation needed]}
Duncan was inducted into the National Museum of Dance C.V. Whitney Hall of Fame in 1987.
Isadora Duncan's life has been portrayed most notably in the 1968 film, Isadora, starring Vanessa Redgrave. Vivian Pickles played her in Ken Russell's 1966 biopic for the BBC, which was subtitled 'The Biggest Dancer in the World' and introduced by Duncan's biographer, Sewell Stokes.
Most notably, Duncan was the subject of a ballet, Isadora, written and choreographed in 1981 by the Royal Ballet's Kenneth MacMillan, and performed at Covent Garden.^[17] When She Danced, a stage play about Duncan's later years by Martin Sherman, won the 1991 Evening Standard Award (best actress) for Vanessa Redgrave. A Hungarian musical based on this play was produced in Budapest in 2008.
Robert Calvert recorded a song about Duncan on his Revenge LP. The song is called "Isadora". Salsa diva Celia Cruz sang a song titled "Isadora" in Duncan's honor. Finnish musician Juice Leskinen recorded a song called "Isadora Duncan". Russian singer Alexander Malinin recorded a song about the death of Isadora Duncan. Russian band Leningrad have a song about her on their Pulya (Bullet) album. American post-hardcore group Burden of a Day has a song titled, "Isadora Duncan" on their 2009 album OneOneThousand.