Isadora Duncan

Alexandra Carter (Suffolk University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.08: English Writing and Culture of the early Twentieth Century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: Chris Baldick (Goldsmiths College, University of London), Peter Childs (Birmingham Newman University), Louise McDonald (Birmingham Newman University), Andrew Radford (University of Glasgow)

Dates

Born 26 May 1877
Died 14 Sep 1927
Activity 1900-1927

Places

Born in England
Active in England

Activities

Primary

Autobiographer
Dancer
Teacher/ Professor

Resources

Duncan's Works

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Isadora Duncan is today remembered as much for her politically radical and scandalous life as she is for her pioneering contribution to the establishment of modern dance as a respected art form. She left no direct heritage in terms of an extant dance repertoire or a codified dance technique and such images as have come down to us are hazy, for the many representations of Duncan in movement are either in words or are in static visual form. Popular images of Duncan dancing tend to be drawn from secondary sources such as biographical films or from the ballet based on her life,

Isadora

, choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan in1980. Nevertheless, if the hyperbolic critical reception of her contemporaries and the romantic, self-constructed identity is cleared away, there is left a woman of…

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1996 words

Citation: Carter, Alexandra. "Isadora Duncan". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 January 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=6042, accessed 23 November 2024.]