Isadora Duncan

“It became about the driving spirit of contemporary dance… to reinvent itself as a language for the expression of new ideas. ”  [1]

Isadora Duncan was a early form of a feminist. At the time, dance was usually about the males being the main roles and the women just being a damsel in distress that is looking for a hero to come and save her from the villain. Isadora Duncan’s view for the future dancer is as followed –  “She is coming, the dancer of the future. The free spirit will inhabit the body of all women she will dance not in the form of a nymph nor fairy nor coquette, but in the form of women in its greatest and purest expression. from all parts of her body shall shine radiant intelligence, bringing to the world the thoughts and aspirations of thousands of women. This is the mission of the dancer of the future” [1]

She broke free of the typical conventions of ballet to show “a natural expressive style of the body.” But also she didn’t just throw away the typical conventions of movement, it was also about the costumes. With her dances, she is always in a free flowing dresses that did not restrict herself, dancing with nothing on her feet, where usually you would be wearing some type of ballet shoes. This would have been seen as a political notion as “she’s a woman saying I can move freely through space. I don’t have too restrict myself and appear in a very polite manner.”[1] 

In 1905, she toured in Russia. While she was touring, Serge Diaghilev saw her performance. Later on he would found the Ballet Russe. Where Diaghilev and Vaslav Nijinsky would create “The Rite of Spring” which was a violent ballet styled piece that used turned in toes and showed violent shakes that would not of been seen in a typical ballet, but also the story line isn’t a typical fairy-tale.

She was the first person to create an impact too the contemporary dance, as she broke away from the typical dance style that would have been key in her years of dance. Her Ideas went on too inspire every dancer who dances in the contemporary style, mainly of the likes of Rudolf Laban who would go and develop the contemporary dance further.

Information gained from Bibliography:

[1]