Isadora Duncan (1877–1927)—mother of modern dance—used the Greek statues and art at the British Museum as the inspiration for her choreography. Her free-flowing, barefoot and loose-haired style shocked the turn-of-the-century American audiences for which she performed, but her easy and natural movement took Europe by storm. She was even compared to a goddess by the German press. She incorporated nature, art and the sacred into her dance and added skipping, jumping and running into her routine. In a posthumous collection of her writings, Duncan gave the reason for basing her movements and costumes on the Greeks: They “understood the continuing beauty of a movement that mounted, that spread, that ended with a promise of rebirth.”
A pose from a Greek attic vase from the fifth century B.C. shows a man in repose at a symposium—a Dionysian celebration of dance and drink. Duncan incorporates a similar pose into her routine to Frederick Chopin’s “Opus 17” in 1915.
Isadora Duncan (1877–1927)—mother of modern dance—used the Greek statues and art at the British Museum as the inspiration for her choreography. Her free-flowing, barefoot and loose-haired style shocked the turn-of-the-century American audiences for which she performed, but her easy and natural movement took Europe by storm. She was even compared to a goddess by the German press. She incorporated nature, art and the sacred into her dance and added skipping, jumping and running into her routine. In a posthumous collection of her writings, Duncan gave the reason for basing her movements and costumes on the Greeks: They “understood the […]
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