ANGELA ISADORA DUNCAN

Ballet itself is not a competitive sport ,but a form of art. For years , the dabate of art versus sport
has angered balerinas anfd has taken a way the focus of the true artistry of danse. It cannot be
ignored that ballet is an exceptionally physical performance.

Angela Isadora Duncan

Isadora Duncan was born in San Francisco in May 26 th 1877 , the youngest of the foir children
of Joseph Charles Duncan , a banker and minning engineer and Mary Isadora Great . After her
parents divorce her mother moved with her family in California . From ages 6 to 10 , Isadora
attended school but she dropped out finding it constricting. As her family was very poor she
and her three sibilings earned money by teaching danse to local children.In 1896 Isadora
became part of Augustine Daly’s theatre company in New York but she soon became
desillusioned with the form and craved a different environment with less of a hierarchy .
Feeling unhappy in New York and unapreciated in America, Duncan moved to London in 1898
She performed in the drawing rooms of the wealthy taking inspiration from the Greek vases and
bas-reliefs in the British museum. Soon after this she was able to rent a studio to develop her
work and create larger performances for the stage. From London she traveled to Paris where she
was inspired by the Louvre and the Exposition Universelle of 1900.
Duncan's philosophy of dance moved away from rigid ballet technique and towards what she
perceived as natural movement. To restore dance to a high art form instead of merely
entertainment, she strove to connect emotions and movement: "I spent long days and nights in
the studio seeking that dance which might be the divine expression of the human spirit through
the medium of the body's movement. She believed dance was meant to encircle all that life had
to offer—joy and sadness. Duncan took inspiration from ancient Greece and combined it with an
American love of freedom. Her movement was feminine and arose from the pest fdeeeelings in
her body. This is exemplified in her revolutionary costume of a white Greek tunic and bare feet.
Inspired by Greek forms, her tunics also allowed a freedom of movement that corseted ballet
costumes and pointe shoes did not. Costumes were not the only inspiration Duncan took from
Greece: she was also inspired by ancient Greek art, and utilized some of its forms in her
movement.
Duncan wrote of American dancing: "let them come forth with great strides, leaps and bounds,
with lifted forehead and far-spread arms, to dance.Her focus on natural movement emphasized
steps, such as skipping, outside of codified ballet technique. Duncan also cited the sea as an early
inspiration for her movement. Also, she believed movement originated from the solar plexus,
which she thought was the source of all movement. It is this philosophy and new dance
technique that garnered Duncan the title of the creator of modern dance.
Isadora Duncan made two lasting contributions to dance. She liberated herself and those who
succeeded her from the constricting paraphernalia of corsets, petticoats, long sleeves, high
collars and heavy skirts worn by the women of her day. Her second, equally important
innovation, was to insist that her art merited concomitantly great music. She danced to Gluck,
Wagner and Bach and even Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. The music critics were almost as
scandalised by her temerity as the ballet aficionados were by her bare feet.
Western theatrical dance was at one of its lowest ebbs when Isadora first appeared in Europe.
Tightrope walkers and contortionists shared the music hall stages with ‘toe dancers’, Vaslav
Nijinsky was still an unknown student and neither Frederick Ashton nor George Balanchine had
been born. Another American ex-patriot, Loie Fuller, was a star attraction at the 1900 World Fair
in Paris, but her performances were more illusionist gimmickry than dancing. Fuller, one of the
first dancers to use electricity creatively, achieved her stage effects by manipulating gigantic
veils of silk into fluid patterns enhanced by changing coloured lights to lose window.

Isadora wanted to make dancing her life’s work. And she wanted to live by her own rules,
not by what other people thought was right or wrong. The kind of dancing Isadora wanted to do
was new and different from other dances at the time. She thought dancing should be an art, not
just entertainment. Isadora Duncan did not like ballet. She said that ballet dancers had too many
rules to follow about how they should stand and bend and move. She said ballet was “ugly and
against nature.” She wanted her “modern” dance style to be free and natural. Isadora liked to
move her arms and legs in very smooth motions. She said this was like waves in the ocean, or
trees swaying in the wind.
When she danced, Isadora Duncan wore very thin clothing. Sometimes she dressed in long white
tunics, the kind of clothing worn by ancient Greek women. She wanted people to see her body as
she skipped, jumped and ran barefoot across the stage. Some people criticized her for doing this.
They thought it was not moral to dress this way. At the time, most women wore dresses that
covered as much of the body as possible, especially the arms and legs.

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