Isadora Duncan

“Dance is the movement of the universe concentrated in an individual.”

Isadora was a thinker as well as poet, gifted with a lively poetic imagination, a radical defiance of "Things as they are," and the ability to express her ideas with verve and humor. To best understand Isadora, she was a theorist of dance, a critic of modern society, culture, education and a champion of the struggles for women's rights, social revolution and the realization of poetry in everyday life.

“If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it.”

All with free-flowing costumes, bare feet and loose hair.

She used free and natural movements inspired by the classical Greek arts, folk dances, social dances, nature and natural forces as well as an approach to dance which included skipping, running, jumping, leaping, tossing.

Isadora is credited with inventing what later came to be known as Modern Dance.

Though not a believer in what she saw as the chains of marriage, Isadora did have two children, Deidre and Patrick, with two of her lovers, Gordon Craig and Paris Singer. Tragically the two children drowned with their governess in the Seine river in 1913.

Throughout her career, Isadora had a driving vision for the education of young children, grounding their learning in art, culture, movement and spirituality as well as as traditional academic lessons. She began her first school in Grunewald, Germany in 1904, selecting children from the poorer classes and providing completely for all their physical and materials need from her own pocket.

Tragically, Isadora's life was cut short in 1927 in a car accident along the Riveria. However, Isadora's spirit lives on through the tremendous influence she had, not only in dance, but on all art forms, in society and on cultural norms.