Isadora Duncan

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Some people view her as a ballerina. Ironically, Duncan wasn’t the biggest fun of traditionally ballet. She viewed ballet as a form that restrain of female’s natural beauty, body and movements. She said, ‘The ballet school taught the students that this spring was found in the center of the back at the base of the spine. From this axis, says the ballet master, arms, legs and trunk MUST move freely, giving the result of an articulated puppet. This method produces an artificial mechanical movement, not worthy of the soul.’ She refused to wear point shoes or corsets. And this starts a new chapter of dance 

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Duncan’s parents broke up when she was an infant. Her mother raised her up. Duncan’s mother was a piano teacher. Duncan was a very independent woman. Unlike stories in traditional ballet, which normally includes a romantic relationship, she was a soloist and the statue of the liberty. For Duncan, dance is a language that’s better than words. She once said, ‘If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it”. From here, unlike transitional ballet’s form of romantic story. Duncan started her solo. Dance started to be about the inner world of the dancer. You can see her personality, her beliefs, and her life from Duncan’s dance.

In the autobiography that was published after her death, she mentioned stories of her and fortunetellers. 

In 1912 in Paris, she met a fortuneteller. And the fortuneteller said to her:

"You are going to awaken the nations to a new religion and found great temples all over the world. You have most extraordinary protection, and whenever an accident is going to happen to you, great angels guard you. You will live to be a great age. You will live for ever."

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She lost her 2 children. Her beloved children both drowned in the river by a car accident. She later baby was a stillborn. She did adopt 6 international dance students.

Duncan was born in the Bay Area. She was very connected with natural especially with the sea. A lot of her movements looked like a sea weave. But it is a sad fate that both of her kids drown.

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The second time she visited the fortuneteller with her friend Penelope.

The book My Life wrote about this conversation:

"She greets you as the daughter of the Sun. You have been sent on earth to give great joy to all people. From this joy will be founded a religion. After many wanderings, at the end of your life, you will build temples all over the world. In the course of time you will return to this city where, too, you will build a temple. All these temples will be dedicated to Beauty and Joy because you are the daughter of the Sun."

At the time, this poetical prophecy seemed curious to me, considering my then condition of sorrow and despair.

Then Penelope asked: "What will be my future?"

She spoke to Penelope, and I noticed that the latter turned pale and seemed terribly frightened.

"What has she said to you?" I asked.

"What she says is very disquieting," Penelope answered. "She says I have a little lamb, she means my boy Menalkas. She says, 'You wish for another little lamb,' that must be the daughter I am always hoping for. But she says this wish will never be realised. She also says that I shall soon receive a telegram telling me that one I love is very ill and another I love is near death. And after this," continued Penelope, "she says that my life will not be of long duration, but, in a high place, overlooking the world, I shall have my last meditation and leave this sphere."

Penelope was very much upset. She gave the old woman some money and, bidding her farewell, she took my hand and fairly ran along the passages, down the stairs and into the narrow street until we found a cab which took us back to the hotel.

As we entered, the porter came forward with a telegram. Penelope leaned upon my arm almost fainting. I had to lead her up to her room, where I opened the telegram. It read: "Menalkas very ill, Raymond very ill. Return at once."

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 I am not aware of any religion that Duncan started. In my mind, her style of dancing is the ‘religion’ and that was being spread in the world.

Apollo: God of music, poetry, art, oracles, archery, plague, medicine, sun, light and knowledge

Duncan’s mom was a piano teacher and her dad was a poet. 

"Sun, light and knowledge" does sound like Isadora Duncan. 

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The third time she went to visit the foreteller was before she left for Russia. 

And here is the conversation:

Before leaving London I went to a fortune-teller, who said, "You are bound on a long journey. You will have many strange experiences, you will have troubles, you will marry—"

But at the word "marry," I cut her short with laughter. I, who was always against marriage? I would never marry. The fortune-teller said "Wait and see."

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Duncan isn’t a marriage believer. She probably just read that as a joke. She publically took lovers. She said, “Any intelligent woman who reads the marriage contract and then goes into it, deserves all the consequences.’’ Very funny and sarcastic.

However, she did get married to the famous Russian poet Sergei Yesenin. He was 18 years younger than her. She admired him.

They don’t speak each other’s language. And their marriage didn’t last long. They got married in 1922. And they got a divorce in 1923

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Yesenin commited suicide in 1925.

Duncan died 2 years after in France, killed by her own long flowing scarf that entrangled in the car wheel and throw her forcibly from the vehicle and strangled her. Her last word before the accident happened, according to what her friend Mary Desti reported was in French, translated as ‘Farewell my friends. I go to glory/love’.

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An interesting conversation Duncan had with Yesenin was written in an article by Carolyn Sinsky published at The Modernism Lab at Yale University. 

Quote as following:

“A dancer can never become very great because her fame doesn’t last.  It is gone the moment she dies.”

    “No,” said Isadora, “for a dancer if she is great, can give to the people something that they will carry with them forever.  They can never forget it, and it has changed them, though they may not know it.”

    “You are just a dancer.  People may come and admire you—even cry.  But after you are dead, no one will remember.  Within a few years all your great fame will be gone… . No Isadora!”

    All this he said in Russian, for me to translate, but the last two words he said in the English intonation, straight into Isadora’s face, with a very expressive, mocking motion of his hands, as if he had waved the remnants of the mortal Isadora to the four winds. “But poets live,” he continued, still smiling.  “I, Esenin, shall leave my poems behind me.  And poems live.  Poems like mine live forever.”

    Beneath the obvious mockery and teasing tone there was something extraordinarily cruel.  A shadow passed over Isadora’s face as I translated what he said. Suddenly she turned to me, her voice very serious:

    “Tell him he is wrong, tell him he is wrong.  I have given people beauty.  I have given them my very soul when I danced. And this beauty did not die.  It exists somewhere… .” Suddenly she had tears in her eyes, and she added in her pitiful, childish Russian: “Krasota nie umiray” (Beauty not dies).

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He sure is wrong. I don't complete think Duncan was right about beauty doesn't die. Beauty of a person dies. However, the beauty of her spirits lasts forever. She was not only a dancer; her dance wasn't only a dance. She was the connection between our inner world and nature. She dances for her inner world and for the nature of this world. 

Duncan was independent, strong, beautiful and bright. Her beauty was there because she was who she was and she was herself. It wasn't for pleasing anyone. She was happy. She chose to do what makes herself happy. And she brought her happiness to the world as well.

She admired Yesenin. She married him. Isadora , who didn't believe in marriage, who mocked at it, married to Yesenin. We can see how much she loved him. Yet, she still stood for herself. She spoke for herself. She argued with him to defend her dignity and dance. 

She was a girl in love. A girl in love that still stays independent, strong and a  a little bit stubborn. She is always Isadora Duncan. 

She married one, but never changed herself for one. 

The qualities of Duncan's ---- the courage she had many years ago, can still be looked up to nowadays. She is still the model for a lot of females nowadays. 

Beauty doesn't die. 

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“The dancer will not belong to a nation but to all humanity. She will dance not in the form of nymph, nor fairy, nor coquette, but in the form of woman in her greatest and purest expression.”

By Isadora Duncan.