Isadora Duncan: Dancer, Feminist, Woman for Our Times

by Carolyn Lee Boyd

Recently, Isadora Duncan has been featured in a 92nd Street Y series, “Isadora Duncan and the Revelation of Beauty” and an art exhibit, “Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis: The Dawn of Modern Dance” at the National Museum of Dance running through May 20, 2008.

What does this free-spirited, outspoken originator of modern dance who lived 100 years ago have to say to us now? Her messages about the inner power of women and the sacred beauty of the female body are as relevant to women today as they were in her lifetime.

Duncan’s passion was to nurture into being through dance a “new woman.” “Oh, she is coming, the dancer of the future; the free spirit, who will inhabit the body of new women; more glorious than any woman that has yet been… the highest intelligence in the freest body!” (Cheney, 29)

What woman still would not benefit from believing that her body – no matter its shape or size — is worthy, sacred and inviolable? “The body is beautiful; it is real, true, untrammeled. It should arouse not horror, but reverence.” (Rosemont, 48-49)

Duncan’s dance students also learned another essential message for today’s women about their unique worth. “I say to the child, ‘Put your hands here on your breast, then lift them high and higher to the stars, to the planets. Embrace the whole world with your arms. Reach out to the universe! You are only a small child, but you stand here on the earth. There is a place for you in the universe.” (Rosemont, 82-83)

Duncan’s “new woman” looks within for guidance. “Let the peoples place their hands … on their hearts, and in listening to their souls they will know how to conduct themselves,” she said. (Rosemont, 54) We can all still aspire to this self-confidence in our intuition and understanding.

Yet, Duncan’s life is inspirational as much for her courage in staying true to herself in the face of tragedy as in her envisioning. She suffered from dire poverty and was vilified by the US government, critics, and the press. Her two children died in an accident which caused her to say, years later, that since then “all life has been to me but as a phantom ship upon a phantom ocean” (Duncan, 267).

Even in the midst of this agony, she was determined to “create new life, to create Art.” (Duncan, 332) Her dancing came to express life’s sorrow as well as joy and beauty. The message of her later years is that, despite the tragedies that women of all times endure, we have the strength, power, and love to rise up dancing again.

Women of today have more opportunities than those of Duncan’s time to be “new women.” It is time for us to reclaim this legacy and make Duncan’s dreams reality. Though we cannot see her dance, we heed her words. “You were once wild here! Don’t let them tame you!” (Rosemont, 138)

For more information, visit the Isadora Duncan International Institute, Inc.

Bibliography

Cheney, Sheldon (ed.). Isadora Duncan: The Art of the Dance. New York, Theatre Arts Books, 1928, 1969.

Duncan, Isadora. My Life. New York, Liveright, 1927, 1955.

Rosemont, Franklin (ed.). Isadora Speaks. New York, City Lights Books, 1981.

Carolyn Lee Boyd writes stories,  poems, memoirs, and other pieces for feminist and women’s spirituality publications including SageWoman, The Beltane Papers, Matrifocus, The We’Moon Calendar, and Moondance.  Her novel, The Temple of the Subway Goddess, is scheduled for publication by Creatrix Books in the Spring of 2009.  You are invited to read more of her writings and keep up with what’s new with her at her blogsite, http://Goddessinateapot.wordpress.com.