Isadora Duncan: Done Into Dance

3 Pages 869 Words

“Some choreographers are masters of structure, others of symbolism or the innovative step. In Duncan’s case, she reinvented the fundamental of her art: the body.” (Daly) In the leap from the nineteen-century to the twentieth century, the dancing body was looked at only as a social distraction. The world was then introduced to Isadora Duncan, whose dancing body became a member of America’s political, cultural, and social life.
A child of her divorced parents, Duncan spent some of her childhood unsupervised. Freedom of expression, she had enjoyed the nature of the San Francisco Bay and the poetry of Walt Whitman. Duncan said that Nature was inspiration for which she admired its imposing simplicity. She spent her childhood with both of her parents separately. To support her children, Duncan’s mother sends Duncan to the local bakery. Her job was to charm credit from the baker, an early lesson in her first role, expression. Duncan ran an auction house, became an art dealer, and traveled to Europe were Duncan’s days spent with her father. She was already exposed to different faces, dealing with the many different personalities, experiencing what was known to adults, not children. Duncan became well aware of the world that she was living in from the early days of her life.
Perhaps it was Duncan’s influences that shaped her beliefs. From evolutionary theory, Hellenism, to the readings of Auguste Rodin, Robert Henri, and John Collier to the books that inspired her, from the Bible to Walt Whitman. “Out of these scientific, intellectual, social, aesthetic, and political discourses Duncan constructed various

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bodies.”(Daly) There are five different bodies that Duncan formed as ways of expression. The Dancing Body, the Natural Body, the Expressive Body, the Female Body, and the
Political Body. Duncan performed in only concert halls and opera houses. Her audience was mostly consisted of upper-class women who had h...