#irma duncan

[visionsofour-past]

• Irma Duncan, Isadora Duncan Dancer.

Artist/Photographer: Arnold Genthe (United States, 1869-1942)

Date: ca. 1915-1916

Medium: Gelatin silver print

[grusinskayas-archive]

Irma Duncan with Isadora in Neuilly, 1908.

From "Duncan Dancer: An Autobiography by Irma Duncan".

[kecobe]

Isadora Duncan dancing La Marseillaise, 1917 Arnold Genthe (American, born Germany; 1869–1942) Photographic print mounted on paper The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Jerome Robbins Dance Division

Inscribed on mount by Isadora Duncan to her foster daughter, Irma Duncan: “Liberté Liberté Cherie – Isadora"

Irma Duncan “was one of six German children who gained fame by touring as the ‘Isadorables,’ or the Duncan Dancers, shortly before and after World War I.” (New York Times, September 22, 1977)

[earlymoderndance]

Isadora Duncan Dancers.  Souvenir Program (1928-1930)

Four pages from a 12-page souvenir program for the 1928-1930 US tour of the Isadora Duncan Dancers, who had been trained at Isadora’s school in Russia.  The actual training was largely accomplished by Irma Duncan, since Isadora was so frequently absent from the school on tour or business.

[grusinskayas-archive]

Deirdre Craig (Isadora Duncan's daughter) and Irma Duncan aboard a ship to Egypt, 1912. Photo taken by Isadora.

From "Duncan Dancer: An Autobiography by Irma Duncan".

[earlymoderndance]

Julia Levien (1911-2006).  Images Drawn from the Dances of Isadora Duncan, 1997

Here are a few scans from Julia Levien's book, Images Drawn from the Dances of Isadora Duncan.  Obviously, a labor of love, it is a sketchbook of "images" of the dances she learned from Anna and Irma Duncan.  In the introduction, she states "When I first started to dance Isadora's dances I received as part of the passage from generation to generation a responsibility for the authenticity of the imagery and gestures that gives this art a special identity."

Note:  Unfortunately, the book was a bit larger than my scan bed, so I apologize for the resultant cropping.

Scan 1.  Dedication page.

Scan 2.  Bacchanal, from Gluck’s Iphigenia

Scan 3.  Musette, from Gluck's Armide

Scan 4.  Waltz No. 11, by Brahms

 Dancer, teacher, and choreographer Julia Levien studied with both Anna and Irma Duncan, two of the Isadorables - pupils of, and performers with, Isadora.

[cosechadehuellas]

Etienne Chambaud Dance, 2009. Photographic collage: reduplication of an anonymous b&w print of Irma Duncan at Grünwald, c. 1910.

[saisonciel]

Irma Duncan by Apeda, 1910s