Anyone who has had the slightest bit of dance training (except for Indigenous or ballet), owes American doyenne of dance Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) a debt of gratitude, as it was her pioneering in the art of movement that led to all the modern, jazz, Broadway show, and pop dances that have been created since the 1920s.
Duncan was the first to (literally) let her hair down and cast off the shackles of corsets and high-laced boots on dancing bodies. She danced barelegged and barefoot, wrapped in flowing diaphanous fabrics which prompted her style of freed movement (sometimes scandalous to American audiences), which led to dancing in leotards, tights, and naked skin.
Duncan also studied her own body in mirrors as it moved to the depths we know of today as physiology and kinesiology. What she discovered led her to ways of breaking from restrictive movement to organically developing a physical authenticity never seen before. Duncan’s style, however, stirred such criticism she decided to uproot to where she knew her groundbreaking approach would be better received—Europe, Russia, Scandinavia, South America, and Egypt.
Later anointed as the “Mother of Modern Dance,” Duncan gave birth to 20th- and 21st-century choreographers as varied in style as Merce Cunningham, Gene Kelly, Martha Graham, Bob Fosse, and Andy Blankenbuehler, whose styles never could have been created if she hadn’t broken the mold of dance.
Choreographers Paul Taylor, Jose Limon, and Bill T. Jones, among others have paid homage to her in various ways, the best known perhaps is Maurice Bejart’s solo “Isadora” for the Bolshoi’s Prima Ballerina Maya Plisetskaya.
As Duncan lived and performed throughout the world, she studied local historical art forms, incorporating some of their essences into her art.
She was accepted and feted by prominent people who enabled her financially to create schools of dance for children, who sometimes performed with her. Though not legally adopted, some of Duncan’s dance students took her name and relocated with her when she moved back to the US in 1914 at the onset of World War I, which affected her profoundly.
Duncan wove her anger, and resistance to what was happening politically (poor conditions in Russia, violence spreading in several of the countries she had lived in), into choreography and oral proclamations, ultimately giving away her school in France to be used as a hospital for the wounded, even urging Americans to stand up against the war and help “save Europe from itself.” Perhaps the best known among her acts of resistance was her fiery choreography set to “La Marseillaise.”
“Isadora Duncan in the Theater of Love and War,” created by Jeanne Bresciani, PhD, artist-in-residence and director of education at the Isadora Duncan International Institute (IDII), explores themes of exile, resilience, and sanctuary through nature-based coming-of-age journeys. The program includes a reconstruction of Duncan’s most celebrated choreography—set to excerpts from Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony—interwoven with original works by Bresciani inspired by Duncan’s style and set to classical and contemporary music. Archival photographs will be projected throughout the performance, evoking Duncan’s life and times. The cast includes both youth and adult graduates of the IDII, a company that has performed across the US and Europe. IDII was founded by “adopted” daughter Maria-Theresa Duncan and dance historian Kay Bardsley in 1977. The Institute also offers classes in Duncan’s technique in both New York City and the Hudson Valley, all taught by Bresciani.
The Woodstock Playhouse is a fitting venue for its premiere due to the years Duncan spent in the area after returning to the US.
Tickets to “Isadora Duncan in the Theater of Love and War” are $19 for adults and $14 for seniors and children under 12.
This article appears in September 2025.
A very well-written and informative article written by Maya Horowitz!