Isadora Duncan, Isadora Duncan, born Dora Angela Duncan. Born May 27, 1877 in San Francisco (USA) - died September 14, 1927 in Nice (France). American dancer-innovator and founder of free dance.
She developed a dance system and plasticity, which she herself associated with ancient Greek dance. Wife in 1922-1924.
Born May 27, 1877 in San Francisco in the family of Joseph Duncan, who soon went bankrupt, left his wife with four children.
Isadora, hiding her age, was sent to school at the age of 5. At the age of 13, Duncan left school, which she considered useless, and took up music and dance seriously, continuing her self-education.
At the age of 18, Duncan moved to Chicago, where she began to perform dance numbers in nightclubs, where the dancer was presented as an exotic curiosity: she danced barefoot in a Greek tunic, which pretty much shocked the audience.
In 1903, Duncan and his family made an artistic pilgrimage to Greece. Here Duncan initiated the construction of a temple on Kopanos Hill for dance classes (now the Isadora and Raymond Duncan Center for the Study of Dance). Duncan's performances in the temple were accompanied by a choir of ten boy singers she selected, with whom, since 1904, she gave concerts in Vienna, Munich, and Berlin.
In 1904, Duncan met modernist theater director Edward Gordon Craig, became his mistress, and had a daughter by him. In late 1904 - early 1905, she gave several concerts in St. Petersburg and Moscow, where, in particular, she met with. In January 1913, Duncan again went on tour to Russia. Here she found many admirers and followers who founded their own studios of free, or plastic, dance.
In 1921, Lunacharsky, People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR, officially invited Duncan to open a dance school in Moscow, promising financial support. She said: “While the ship was sailing north, I looked back with contempt and pity at all the old institutions and customs of bourgeois Europe that I left. From now on, I will be only a comrade among comrades, I will work out an extensive plan of work for this generation of mankind. Farewell to inequality, injustice and animal rudeness of the old world, which made my school unrealizable!"
But she believed in the promises of the Bolsheviks, and speaking on the Moscow platform, she realized that Soviet reality bears little resemblance to El Dorado. And, of course, the promises were not kept: Duncan had to raise most of the money for the school on his own. But again, like many intellectuals, she will consider this temporary difficulties, the price for entering paradise.
In October 1921, Duncan met Sergei Yesenin. In 1922, they formalize the marriage, which was dissolved in 1924. Usually, when describing this union, the authors note its love-scandalous side, however, these two artists, undoubtedly, were brought together by the relationship of creativity.
Duncan raised both her own and her adopted children. Daughter Derdry (1906-1913) from director G. Craig and son Patrick (1910-1913) from businessman Paris Singer died in a car accident. In 1914 she gave birth to a boy, but he died a few hours after birth. Isadora adopted six of her students, among whom was Irma Erich-Grimm. Girls-"isadorable" became continuers of the traditions of free dance and promoters of Duncan's creativity.
Isadora Duncan tragically died in Nice, suffocating herself with her own scarf, which fell into the axle of the wheel of the car in which she took a walk. It was alleged that her last words before getting into the car were: “Goodbye, friends! I'm going to glory" (French Adieu, mes amis. Je vais à la gloire!); according to other sources, however, Duncan said "I'm going to love" (Je vais à l'amour), meaning a handsome driver, and Duncan's friend Mary Desty, to whom these words were addressed, invented a version with fame out of shame. Her ashes rest in a columbarium in the Père Lachaise cemetery.
And Isadora Duncan in her work neglected the established rules and canons and created her own style and plasticity. Her "sandal dances" became the basis of the modernist trend in dance art.
Dancing Beethoven and Horace
Angela Isadora Duncan was born in San Francisco in 1877 to Joseph Duncan, a banker. The father soon left the family, and the mother, Mary Isadora Gray, had to work hard to support four children. However, she often said: "You can do without bread, but not without art." Music always sounded in their house, the family read a lot, played ancient tragedies. Little Isadora started dancing at the age of two. And at the age of six, she opened the first "dance school" for neighborhood children: she taught them the movements that she herself invented. At the age of 12, giving lessons, the young dancer could already earn extra money. A year later, she left school and devoted all her time to dancing, studying music, literature and philosophy.
In 1895 the family moved to Chicago. Duncan worked in the theater, performed in nightclubs. Her vision of dance was different from classical ideas. Ballet, according to the dancer, was only a complex of mechanical movements of the body that did not convey emotional experiences. In her dance, the body was supposed to become a conductor of sensations.
“There is no such posture, such movement or gesture that would be beautiful in itself. Any movement will be beautiful only when it truly and sincerely expresses feelings and thoughts.
Isadora Duncan
Isadora was inspired by antiquity. Her ideal was the dancing Hetera, depicted on a Greek vase. Duncan borrowed her image: she performed barefoot, in a translucent tunic, with her hair loose. Then it was new and unusual, many admired both the style of the dancer and the originality of her plasticity. Duncan's movements were fairly simple. But she aspired to dance everything - music, paintings and poems.
"Isadora dances everything that others say, sing, write, play and draw, she dances Beethoven's Seventh Symphony and Moonlight Sonata, she dances Botticelli's Primavera and Horace's poems."
Maximilian Voloshin
Dance of the future
At the beginning of the 20th century, the family moved first to London, then to Paris. In 1902, the actress and dancer Loie Fuller suggested that Isadora go on a tour of Europe. Together they created new compositions: “Serpentine Dance”, “Dance of Fire”. "Divine sandal" - Duncan became very famous in the European cultural environment.
Isadora Duncan. Photo: biography-life.ru
Isadora Duncan. Photo: aif.ru
Isadora Duncan. Photo: litmir.net
In 1903, she traveled to Greece, where she studied ancient Greek plastic art, and then moved to live in Germany. In Grunewald, Duncan bought a villa and recruited pupils, whom she taught to dance and actually supported. This school operated until the First World War.
“I'm not going to teach you how to dance. I just want to teach you to fly like birds, to bend like young trees in the wind, to rejoice, as a butterfly rejoices under a May morning, to breathe freely, like clouds, to jump easily and silently, like a gray cat.
Isadora Duncan
Duncan developed his own philosophical views. She believed that everyone should be taught to dance, so that it would become a “natural state” for people. Influenced by the philosophy of Nietzsche, Duncan wrote the book The Dance of the Future.
In 1907, Isadora performed in St. Petersburg. Her concerts were attended by members of the imperial family, Mikhail Fokin, Sergei Diaghilev, Alexandre Benois, Lev Bakst, ballet dancers, writers. Then the dancer met Konstantin Stanislavsky. Later in his book, he recalled her words: “Before I go on stage, I must put some kind of motor in my soul; it will begin to work inside, and then the legs themselves, and the arms, and the body, against my will, will move.
Isadora Duncan. Photo: livejournal.com
Isadora Duncan. Photo: lichnosti.net
Isadora Duncan. Photo: amateur.media
Isadora Duncan inspired many of her contemporaries: artists Antoine Bourdelle, Auguste Rodin, Arnold Ronnebeck. She posed for Edward Muybridge, who took a series of dynamic photographs of Duncan dancing. The famous ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaya said that this dancer would not have followers, but her dance would become part of modern ballet. With regard to classical dances, she was right: the movements of the hands in ballet soon became freer under the influence of "Duncanism".
Duncan-Yesenins
Remembering the failed family life of her parents, Duncan did not seek to get married. The dancer had a brief affair with director Gordon Craig, who became the father of her daughter Deirdre. Then she gave birth to a son, Patrick, from Paris Eugene Singer (heir to Isaac Singer, a manufacturer of sewing machines). In early 1913, Duncan's young children died tragically. Pupils of her school in Germany kept the dancer from suicide: “Isadora, live for us. Are we not your children?
In 1921, Isadora Duncan was invited to Moscow, where she organized a dance school for children from proletarian families. Then the dancer first met with Sergei Yesenin. “He read his poems to me,” Isadora later said. “I didn’t understand anything, but I hear that this is music and that these poems were written by a genius!” At first they communicated through translators: she did not know Russian, he did not speak English. The novel that broke out developed rapidly. They called each other "Izadora" and "Ezenin".
Irma Duncan (the dancer's adopted daughter), Isadora Duncan and Sergei Yesenin. Photo: aif.ru
Isadora Duncan and Sergei Yesenin. Photo: aif.ru
Soon, Yesenin moved to the Duncan house, on Prechistenka. Their relationship was stormy: the quick-tempered Yesenin was jealous of Isadora, he could insult her or hit her, he left, but then returned - he repented and swore love. Duncan's friends resented the fact that she allows herself to be humiliated. And the dancer believed that Yesenin had a temporary nervous breakdown and the situation would improve sooner or later.
“Yesenin subsequently became her master, her master. She, like a dog, kissed the hand that he raised to strike, and her eyes, in which hatred for her burned more often than love. And yet he was only a partner, he was like a piece of pink matter - weak-willed and tragic. She danced. She led the dance."
Anatoly Mariengof
In 1922, Duncan and Yesenin got married so that they could travel abroad together. They both began to bear a double surname: Duncan-Yesenin. After spending some time in Europe, the couple went to America, where Isadora took up Yesenin's poetic career: she organized the translation and publication of his poems, arranged poetry readings. But in America, Yesenin suffered from depression, more and more often he made scandals, getting on the front pages of newspapers. The couple returned to the USSR, soon Isadora left for Paris. There she received a telegram: "I love another woman, married, happy."
Two years later, the poet's life was tragically cut short at the Angleterre Hotel. A year and a half later, Isadora Duncan died in Nice: she was strangled with her own scarf, which got into the wheel of a car. The ashes of Isadora Duncan were buried at the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.
Name: Isadora Duncan
Age: 50 years
Place of Birth: San Francisco, California, USA
A place of death: Nice
Activity: American dancer
Family status: was married
Isadora Duncan - Biography
The name of the American dancer is known to everyone in Russia. First of all, because she was a wife. But the life of this outstanding personality is interesting in itself. No wonder she attracted writers and directors at different times.
Isadora Duncan - early years
Isadora's childhood was unhappy. Her father went bankrupt and left the family before the birth of the future dancer. Joseph Duncan left his wife and four children without any means of subsistence. Little Isadora was sent to school at the age of five. From an early age, she felt like a stranger among her peers. Her classmates lived in prosperous families, while Isadora's mother believed that material values did not matter.
And although, in a sense, the woman in whose life art played an important role was partly right, she made her daughter's life unbearable by giving her complete freedom and independence too early. Isadora was thirteen years old when she decided not to go to school anymore, because she was sure that classes there were nothing but a useless pastime.
Isadora and Aphrodite
Leaving school, Isadora began self-education. She was seriously engaged in music and choreography, but she did it exclusively according to her own system. Later, when she became a famous dancer, when asked who her teacher was, Duncan answered: “Aphrodite!”, which brought reporters to no small surprise. In fact, Isadora was fond of ancient Greek culture all her life, although this did not prevent her from being interested in modern art.
Chicago
At the age of eighteen, Isadora decided to conquer the American public, and therefore went to Chicago. In this city, she began an affair with one of her admirers. Her chosen one was a poor married Pole named Ivan Miroski. The romantic story ended very sadly, which marked the beginning of a series of hopeless failures in his personal life. There has never been happiness in her life. Duncan's biography includes such sad facts that it seems surprising the memories of eyewitnesses who spoke of this woman as a very cheerful and extremely enthusiastic person.
Dance of Isadora
Duncan has always insisted that the art of dance should be based on naturalness, reflecting the feelings and emotions of the performer. Her ideas were not only innovative, but came into sharp conflict with the classical ballet school. Although, it is worth saying that during Duncan's first trip to Russia, the outstanding ballet dancer Anna Pavlova reacted very favorably to the manner of performing the American dancer.
The first performances of Isadora Duncan took place during secular parties. The rising star was popular among members of American high society. She was a kind of addition to sophisticated amusements, a fashionable curiosity. Isadora, as you know, danced exclusively barefoot, not recognizing pointe shoes.
Greece
Due to her popularity, Isadora significantly improved her financial situation. And soon, together with her family, she was able to fulfill an old dream, namely, to make a pilgrimage to Greece. The Duncans walked the streets of modern Athens in sandals and tunics, perplexing the local population. In Greece, Isadora began the construction of a temple and selected boys, whose singing later accompanied her performances.
Isadora Duncan - biography of personal life
Isadora Duncan and Oscar
After an unsuccessful story with a married Pole, a bright and handsome artist appeared in Duncan's life. His Isadora first saw on the theater stage, performed by Romeo. And therefore, in the future, she called Oscar Berezhi (that was the name of the new lover) exclusively by the name of Shakespeare's hero. But Duncan could not connect his life with him either: the actor preferred a career. Then in the life of an outstanding dancer there was a little-known writer. However, these relationships were platonic in nature and could not develop into something serious.
Craig and Isadora Duncan
Isadora called him Teddy. This man was a talented theater director, and he played an important role in Duncan's life. Their happiness was not unconditional. Craig had to constantly solve the financial problems of Duncan, who not only did not like to save money, but from her youth until the last days of her life scattered money. Even when she was on the verge of poverty. The actor, moreover, had other women, which Isadora tried to look at with understanding, as she believed that freedom was above all. From Craig, Isadora had a daughter, whom she had long dreamed of. However, Craig's wife was, nevertheless, his longtime lover Elena.
Isadora Duncan in Russia
During her first trip to St. Petersburg, Duncan gave several concerts. In Russia, she made friends with prominent personalities in the art world. First of all, they were Anna Pavlova and Konstantin Stanislavsky. The famous theatrical figure openly admired Duncan's talent, and an affair almost began between them. However, Stanislavsky's views on the relationship between a man and a woman differed significantly from Isadora's ideas. He did not recognize unlimited freedom and did not understand Duncan's frivolity.
Isadora Duncan and Eugene Singer
Isadora called this man Lohengrin. He was a millionaire, the son of the founder of a huge sewing machine business. Singer until the end of his days Duncan supported her financially and always remained her true friend. From him the dancer gave birth to a son.
Isadora Duncan - Children
In 1913, a tragedy occurred in Duncan's life that her mother can hardly survive. Shortly before this, she was disturbed by terrible visions. During her stay in Russia, she seemed to constantly hear the funeral march. After returning from St. Petersburg, she went to Paris with her children. Singer was waiting for them in the French capital. Once, after a festive evening in a restaurant, Isadora sent the children home with a governess in a taxi. During the trip, the engine stalled, and the driver went out to check the car. Suddenly the car started working... They were passing a bridge. The car with the governess and children went straight to the Seine.
Isadora never recovered from this grief. Much later, when she became the wife of a Russian poet, a close friend wondered why she forgave her young husband for so many scandalous, unjustifiable antics. One day Duncan said to her, “Can't you see? He looks so much like Patrick." Patrick was the name of the dead son Duncan, a boy with golden curly curls.
Isadora Duncan - a person of art, an American dancer, one of the founders (together with Loie Fuller) of the modern dance style, or free dance. This woman was also the wife of the outstanding Russian poet Sergei Yesenin. Here is a biography of Isadora Duncan, summarized briefly.
short biography
Who is this strange woman? So, Dora Angela Duncan was born in May 1877 in San Francisco, California. Her family was intelligent and creative.
There were four children in total in the family. Young Dora went to school early, but also left it early - at the age of 13, because, in her opinion, the American education system was useless for life. According to another version, this happened due to the extreme poverty of the family, and the girl was forced to earn her living by dancing lessons.
It was at this age that Isadora became seriously interested in music and dancing. Not only she - all her brothers and sisters also sang and danced well.
At the age of 18, Duncan made a bold act that predetermined her future fate. She moved to Chicago where she met dancer Loi Fuller. They performed together, and their style - a free, plastic dance - immediately fell in love with the audience. The image of Isadora was really extravagant: for example, she performed in a Greek tunic and barefoot (or in light sandals).
Isadora Duncan knew such prominent Russian figures of art and politics as:
- Konstantin Stanislavsky (theater director and teacher).
- Anatoly Lunacharsky (People's Commissar of Education).
- Sergei Yesenin (poet)
The fate of Isadora Duncan is inextricably linked with the fate of Russia. When she came here for the first time, she met Konstantin Sergeevich Stanislavsky, the great Russian theater director and teacher.
Then the young dancer met Sergei Yesenin and soon became his wife - in the same year they got married. Their love story is incredibly romantic, but the marriage was not easy and lasted only three years. Yesenin and Isadora Duncan were unable to build a happy family: in 1924, two creative natures parted due to the accumulated contradictions in their views.
The dancer was not destined to become a happy wife and mother. A few years after the divorce, Isadora's ex-husband and the love of her life died, and some time after his tragic death, she followed him into Eternity. As it turned out, nationality is not important in love ...
Isadora Duncan had three children by different men, but they all died at an early age. But six students of the great dancer grew up and continued her work of improving dance art. Wikipedia has articles on several of them.
Isadora Duncan died in Nice in 1927 under rather tragic circumstances. She was driving a car, and her long beautiful scarf got caught in the axle of the wheel. The great dancer died from suffocation with her own beautiful accessory. She was then only fifty years old. The death of this woman was an irreparable loss for the entire dance world.
Isadora Duncan was buried in a cemetery in Paris.
Contribution to art
The work of this great dancer preached freedom from conventions and far-fetched beauty. According to Isadora, dance is absolutely not a true art, if it does not bring heartache, dreams and spirituality. The line is not beautiful in itself - it must have a deep meaning, otherwise it is just a line.
A significant place in the life of Duncan was occupied by the struggle for the rights of women, for the freedom of a woman to be herself.
The dance of Isadora Duncan largely inherits the traditions of the Greek classical school. Antique dances attracted her from an early age. In the work of this dancer, the following can be considered the main features:
- Improvisation and freedom of movement.
- Sincere expression of thoughts and feelings.
- Lack of artificiality, coquetry, falsity.
To consolidate her ideas in the history of dance art, Isadora Duncan wrote a book, which was published under the title "Dance of the Future".
In 2016, the film Dancer about Duncan was released, starring Lily Rose-Depp and Louis Garrel.
Like any great person, Isadora Duncan had something for which she was called strange, even crazy. The reader will be interested to know that the famous dancer was:
- Bisexual orientation.
- Atheist.
- Innovator.
She wholeheartedly supported the Great October Revolution, not being afraid to go to post-war Petrograd to organize a dance school. We must pay tribute to the courage that Isadora Duncan showed every day.
Some people called Isadora crazy, others - great. Both those and those were right, because every genius is a little crazy ... But with her death, the world lost a person who was ready to throw everything on the altar of art.
Isadora Duncan can rightfully be called a great dance artist. Her contribution to contemporary art is difficult to overestimate. Exclusively thanks to such dedicated masters, creative thought continues to develop, gradually bringing humanity to new and new stages of development. Author: Irina Shumilova
Isadora Duncan is an exceptional phenomenon in the history of culture. After it, only legends and an army of imitators remained. Descendants can only believe that she was brilliant. Her dance was a reflection of her nature, which surprisingly combined the thirst for love and the desire for freedom, loyalty to herself and the need for renewal. Her personal life was the brightest firework of passions, and bitterness and pain from irreparable loss constantly lived in her heart.
Childhood, adolescence, youth
“This child cannot be ordinary. Even in my womb, she jumped and jumped, ”- these were the words Mary Duncan uttered on May 27, 1878, as soon as Isadora was born. Indeed, the girl turned out to be very mobile. At the age of 13, she decided to leave school, saying that it was a worthless occupation, and made a choice in favor of music and dance. At 18, the young American went to conquer Chicago. Her dance style was light, graceful, free. She danced barefoot, in a light and shortened tunic, reminiscent of ancient Greek. Once Stanislavsky asked Duncan "Who taught you to dance like that?", smiling, Isadora proudly answered "Terpsichore".Deirdre's daughter
The graceful dancer could not but attract men, she had many admirers. The meeting with Gordon Kreg, a theater director from Germany, turned out to be fateful. Having become pregnant, Isadora continued to dance in order to have a livelihood. In 1906, Duncan's daughter Deirdre was born. As soon as possible, Isadora returns to the stage.
During the next performance, she faints, which deprives Gordon of financing his next project. They soon divorce.
Son Patrick
After one performance in Paris, Paris Singer, the heir to the inventor of the sewing machine, knocked on the dancer's door. The man gave her valuable gifts, surrounded her with care and attention, but was very jealous. In 1910, Isadora's son Patrick was born.
Duncan categorically refused to marry Singer, because she valued her independence very much. "You can't buy me," she declared and continued to flirt with other men.
Tragedy
However, there is a price to be paid for talent and popularity. Diva was tormented by terrible forebodings and visions of death. She imagined a funeral march, before her eyes stood two children's coffins in the snow. The same sensations did not leave her in a dream.
Isadora moved with her children to a quiet place in Versailles, not far from Paris. One day, while she was with her children in the capital, she had urgent business. Duncan had to send the children and the governess to Versailles with a chauffeur. On the way, the car broke down - the engine stalled. The driver left the car to inspect it and find out the cause of the breakdown. The car moved abruptly, the doors jammed. The car fell into the Seine. Children fell victim to a car accident along with a nanny.
Life after loss
Despite the heartbreaking tragedy, Isadora Duncan found the strength to speak at the court on the side of the driver, because he also had children. However, she could not recover from the loss: she was constantly haunted by hallucinations. One day she thought she saw her children in the river. The dancer threw herself on the ground and sobbed, the young man bending over her offered help. “Save me, give me a child!” she pleaded. The young man was engaged, their relationship did not last long. The born child lived only a few days.
Irma Duncan
One of the 6 adopted girls, Irma Duncan, continued the activities of her guardian, the fate of the rest is unknown. Irma was from a poor and large family. Her mother brought her to Isadora at the age of 8, during the enrollment of students in the first dance school near Berlin. The girl always accompanied Duncan during her tour, she came to Moscow with her.
After Isadora left for Europe in 1924, Irma continued to lead a dance school in Russia. She became the wife of journalist I.I. Schneider. After the death of Isadora, Irma divorced her husband. In 1929, she opened a dance school in New York, which she directed for many years. The Moscow dance school ceased to exist in 1949. Irma became engaged in painting and literature, became the wife of the lawyer Sherman Rogers. She wrote books on Isadora's dance technique and teaching methods. In 1977 Irma Duncan died in California at the age of 80.
The biographers of the dancer are still arguing today - but
