Lisa Leizman, research associate, Center for the Advancement of Applied Ethics, Carnegie-Mellon University
The large plain phrases in which a single gesture is carried about the stage; the large, clear contrast between up and down, forward and back; and the way the body seems to yield to the music and still is not passively "carried" by it, but carries itself even when it yields. It seems to me the effect of these dances, technically speaking, comes from the kind of support the gesture has, rather than from the interest of each new gesture. The gesture in itself, in the softness with which it begins, in the shape it takes and its accentual rhythm, is monotonous enough; but the support it has is a kind of invention.
Edwin Denby, "Carmen Amaya; Isadora Reconsidered; Dance Photographs; Punch and Judy Revisited" in Dance Writings, p. 87
No films document the extraordinary work of Isadora Duncan. Born in San Francisco in 1877, Duncan developed a distinctive technique, a body of choreographic work, and a tradition of teaching which radically transformed the nature of dance in the modern period. Duncan established herself as a concert artist at a time when solo performance was virtually unknown for dancers. And when she died in 1927, Duncan left not only her choreographic and pedagogical legacy, but a wealth of drawings, paintings, photographs, and writing for which she was model, inspiration, and subject.
In her dances, Duncan drew on simple steps like walking, running, skipping, and leaping. Her works seemed to be spontaneous expressions, and many still confuse Duncan's choreography with improvisation. The freedom which Duncan expressed in her dancing was the result of structured compositions that bear clear relationship to the music, the performing space, and the audience. The visual effect of the works also depended on Duncan's technique and style.
If one seeks a point of physical beginning for the movements of the human body, there is a clue in the undulating motion of the wave. It is one of the elemental facts of nature, and out of such elementals, the child, the dancer, absorbs something basic to dancing.
Isadora Duncan, "The Dance of the Future"
Duncan created a dance technique which developed a highly dynamic and subtle relationship between the body and the physical forces of nature such as gravity. By emphasizing the origin of movement in the solar plexus, Duncan produced an extraordinarily supple and expressive use of the arms and upper body, and incorporated powerful but extremely light leaps and other forms of elevation into her technical repertory. With nature as a source of both technique and content, Duncan's dance offered a buoyancy, a resilience, and a clarity of physical articulation that could be used to embody the wide expressive range of her artistic vision.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in Duncan's use of gesture. In one sense, she incorporated gestures into her work as a communicative means. Borrowed from everyday life, these physical actions speak directly to the audience, as if part of the gestural vocabulary of ordinary discursive practice. However, gestures used in this theatrical context are part of a highly structured system, and audiences recognize them as instances not of everyday life, but of theatrical meaning.
But there is another sense of gesture in Duncan's work, perhaps the most compelling. In her dances, gesture not only conveys specific meanings but embodies expression itself. The dancer's body is animated by feeling and thought, and the kinesthetic result is an expressive experience for both performer and audience. In the drawings on view in the current exhibition, the artists likewise provide more than a depiction of a moving body -- they delineate the very essence of movement. This expression produces a kinesthetic resonance which evokes the living presence of the dance.
January 1995
Copyright 1995 by Lisa Leizman. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced or distributed without permission, in writing, of the author.
SUGGESTED READING
Edwin Denby. "Carmen Amaya; Isadora Reconsidered; Dance Photographs; Punch and Judy Revisited" in Dance Writings. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986.
Dorée Duncan, Carol Pratl, and Cynthia Splatt. Life into Art: Isadora Duncan and her World. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993.
Isadora Duncan. Isadora Speaks. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1981.
Isadora Duncan. My Life. New York: Liveright, 1927.
Elizabeth Kendall. Where She Danced: The Birth of American Art-Dance. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.
Deborah Jowitt. Time and the Dancing Image. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.
Sharon Arslanian, filmmaker. The Enduring Essence: The Technique and Choreography of Isadora Duncan Remembered and Reconstructed by Gemze de Lappe. Northampton, MA: Images Productions, 1990.