(b San Francisco, 27 May 1878; d Nice, 14 Sept 1927). American solo dancer, the pioneer of modern dance. She had no formal training but evolved her own style of dancing, with bare feet and flowing draperies, and was the first dancer to appear on the stage without tights. Dancing was for her the expression of the mind and the soul, and she regarded classical ballet as unnatural. Drawing inspiration from ancient Greek arts, she attempted to express the emotions aroused in her by the music of great composers (including Beethoven, Chopin, Gluck, Schubert and Skryabin); in this she did great service to dance, for dancers had previously tended to use inferior music. At first she was censured by musicians, but eventually her good taste was admitted and even Cosima Wagner permitted her to dance to her husband’s music at the 1904 Bayreuth Festival. Duncan’s début in Chicago in 1899 was unsuccessful, but in Paris the following year she attracted respectful attention with her solo recitals. She subsequently performed throughout Europe, and in 1904 opened a school for children in Berlin; this was followed by others in Russia, Paris, Vienna and elsewhere, but none has survived. She visited Russia in 1905, 1908 and 1912 and returned there in 1921, when she married the young poet Essenin. In Paris she attracted famous artists, writers and sculptors (notably D’Annunzio, Rodin and Bourdelle) and in 1904 began a long affair with Gordon Craig. Tragedy dogged her personal life: her attempts to found schools to perpetuate her art all failed, her three children all died young, Essenin committed suicide, and she herself was killed when her scarf caught in the wheel of a car and broke her neck. However, her influence as an artist increased after her death; together with the work of Loïe Fuller and Ruth St Denis, her free style of dancing was the basis of modern dance as practised all over the world.
Isadora Duncan: My Life (New York, 1927)
Irma Duncan and A.R. Macdougall: Isadora Duncan’s Russian Days and her Last Years in France (London, 1929)
P.D. Magriel, ed.: Nijinsky, Pavlova, Duncan: Three Lives in Dance (New York, 1946–7/R)
E.G. Craig: Index to the Story of my Days (London, 1957)
A.R. Macdougall: Isadora: a Revolutionary in Art and Love (New York, 1960)
V. Seroff: The Real Isadora (New York, 1971)
F. Steegmuller: Your Isadora (New York, 1974)
For further bibliography see Ballet, §Bib, D(i).
G.B.L. WILSON