Even as she evoked a utopian vision of classicism, Isadora Duncan was creating a new image of the stage dancer as a noble-spirited woman, bold yet pliant, freely using her imagination and her body as she wished.
Duncan emphasized nature and the connectedness of body and soul, countering the effects of the Industrial Revolution and Victorian prudery; she championed simplicity and organic design in the face of the public’s taste for elaboration in both design and decorum; and she made herself into an emblem of freedom from conventions, particularly those of dance and femininity.
This according to “Images of Isadora: The search for motion” by Deborah Jowitt (Dance research journal XVII–XVIII [fall–spring 1985–86] pp. 21–29. Below, a reconstruction of one of Duncan’s dances.
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