Isadora Duncan's stage dance: a fashion revolution on stage. Coursework - isadora duncan - founder of modern dance isadora duncan character in literature

Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) - the famous American dancer-innovator, was the founder of free dance. She owned the development of a whole system and plastics associated with ancient Greek dances. Several times, as a result of polls, Duncan was recognized as the greatest dancer in the world.

Isadora is also known for being the wife of the great Russian poet Sergei Yesenin.

Childhood

Isadora was born on May 27, 1877. It happened in the US state of California, in the city of San Francisco on Geary Street. Her real name is Dora Angela Duncan.

Her father, Joseph Charles Duncan, turned a major banking scam, then took all the money and fled, leaving his pregnant wife with three children without a livelihood.

The mother of the future dancer, Mary Dora Gray Duncan, experienced this tragedy in her own way, she could not eat anything except oysters, which she washed down with cold champagne. Subsequently, when journalists asked Isadora the question at what age she first started dancing, the woman jokingly replied that, probably, still in the womb, champagne and oysters made themselves felt so.

The girl's childhood cannot be called happy. The mother could barely stretch her now four children on her shoulders and for a long time fought off the investors who had been deceived by their father, who now and then held meetings under their windows.

We must pay tribute to Isadora's mother, the woman was not broken by such troubles and troubles. She promised herself that she would bring up her children, provide everything necessary and grow good people out of them. My mother was a musician by profession, and in order to support her family, she had to work very hard, giving private lessons. Because of this, she simply physically could not pay due attention to her children, especially the smallest Dora.

In order not to leave the baby at home alone for a long time, she was sent to school at the age of five, while hiding the real age of the girl. Forever in the heart and in the memory of Isadora were those unpleasant memories and sensations from childhood, when she felt uncomfortable and lonely among her older, prosperous classmates.

But there were girls in childhood and good moments, albeit rare. Selfless mother in the evenings belonged only to her children, she played them the works of Beethoven and other great composers, read William Shakespeare, instilling a love of art from an early age. Children, like chickens around a chicken, united around their mother, forming a strong and close-knit clan of Duncan, which was ready to challenge the whole world if necessary.

Passion for dance

We can say that already at the age of six, Dora opened her first dance school. It was later that she created them all over the world, and then the little girl, together with her sister, simply taught the neighboring children to dance, move beautifully and plasticly. And by the age of ten, Duncan was already earning her first money dancing. She not only taught younger children, but also came up with new beautiful movements. These were her first steps in creating her own signature style in dancing.

Very early on, Isadora got interested in representatives of the opposite sex. No, she was not at all a licentious nymphet, just from a young age she was distinguished by her love. For the first time, she took a fancy to a young man, Vernon, who worked in a pharmacy warehouse. Dora was at that time only eleven years old, but she so persistently sought attention to herself that Vernon had to lie, allegedly he was engaged. And only when the young man assured Isadora that he would soon marry, she left him behind. The girl was still very young, falling in love turned out to be childishly naive, but even then it became clear that a persistent and eccentric person would grow out of her.

The school curriculum was difficult for Dora. And not because she did not understand something, on the contrary, Duncan was very capable. It's just that schoolwork made Isadora terribly bored. The girl ran away from lessons many times and wandered along the seashore, listening to the music of the surf and coming up with light air dance movements to the sound of the wave.

Isadora was thirteen years old when she dropped out of school, declaring that she did not see any point in learning, considered it a useless occupation, and in life she could achieve a lot even without school education. She began to pay serious attention to music and dancing. At first, the girl was engaged in self-education. But soon she was lucky and without anyone's patronage and recommendations, without cronyism and money: she got to the famous American dancer and actress Loie Fuller, who was the founder of modern dance.

Fuller took Isadora to her as a student, but soon young Duncan began performing with her mentor. This went on for several years, and by the age of eighteen the talented student went to conquer Chicago.

She showed her dance numbers in nightclubs, where she was presented to the public as an exotic curiosity, since Isadora performed barefoot and in a short ancient Greek tunic. The audience was shocked by the manner of Duncan's performance, she danced so sensually and tenderly that it was impossible to take your eyes off her movements and get up from the chairs after the dance was over. Such a dress length in those days was inconceivable even for progressive America, nevertheless, no one ever called Isadora's dances vulgar, they were so light, graceful and free.

Isadora's performances were successful, which allowed her to improve her financial condition and go to conquer Europe.

In 1903, she came with the entire Duncan family to Greece. Already in 1904, Isadora's deafening performances took place in Berlin, Munich, Vienna. She quickly became famous in Europe.

In 1904, Isadora took her first tour in St. Petersburg. Then she came to Russia more than once, where there were many admirers of her talent.
Despite this success, Duncan was not a wealthy woman, she spent all the money she earned on opening new dance schools. There were times when she had no money at all, then friends helped Isadora.

Personal life

After a chemist's warehouse clerk, Vernon, with whom Isadora fell in love at the age of eleven, for six years she was exclusively occupied with dancing, work and career. Her early years passed without love affairs.

And starting at the age of 17, Duncan experienced all the feelings that are subject to a woman on Earth - love, disappointment, happiness, grief, pain, tragedy. She, a principled opponent of marriage, had a too stormy personal life. Different men became her lovers: old and young, married and single, rich and poor, beautiful and talented, or none at all.

When she performed in Chicago nightclubs, a Polish emigrant artist Ivan Mirotsky fell in love with Isadora to unconsciousness. He was not a handsome man, he wore a beard, and his head of hair was a bright red color. Nevertheless, Duncan was imbued with sympathy for him, even though the man was almost thirty years older. Their romance with walks in the forest, kissing, courtship lasted a year and a half. The matter began to move towards the wedding, and its date had already been set, when Isadora's brother found out that Mirotsky was married, his wife lived in Europe. Duncan painfully experienced this break, he became for her the first serious tragedy in her life. To forget about everything, she decided to leave America.

Then the loser actor Oscar Berezhi appeared in her life. She was 25 years old, Oscar became Isadora's first man, despite the fact that she constantly moved in bohemian circles. The wedding did not work out again, since Berezhi was offered a lucrative contract, and he preferred Isadora a career, leaving for Spain.

Four years later, Duncan met the theater director Gordon Craig. Isadora gave birth to a daughter from him, but soon Craig left them and married his old friend.

The heir to the famous dynasty that invented sewing machines, Paris Eugene Singer is the next man in Duncan's life. He really wanted to get to know the dancer and one day after the performance he came to Isadora in the dressing room. She did not marry Singer, although she gave birth to a son from him.

Tragedy with children

She had a unique gift: Duncan had a presentiment when death walked nearby. In her life, it happened more than once that nature itself sent her some kind of sign, and soon after that one of Isadora's relatives, friends or acquaintances died.

Therefore, when in 1913, terrible visions began to torment her, the woman lost her peace. She constantly heard funeral marches and saw little coffins. She went crazy worrying about her children. Duncan tried to make the babies' lives completely safe. With their common-law husband and children, they moved to a quiet, cozy place of Versailles.

Once Isadora was with the children in Paris, she had urgent business there, and she sent the kids with a chauffeur and a governess home to Versailles. On the way, the car stalled, the driver got out to find out the reason. At that moment, the car drove off and fell into the Seine River, the children could not be saved.

Isadora's depression was terrible, nevertheless, she found the strength to speak out in defense of the driver, realizing that he also had small children.

She was like a stone, did not cry and never spoke to anyone about this tragedy. But one day, while walking by the river, I saw the ghost of my little children, they were holding hands. The woman screamed and became hysterical. A young man who was passing by rushed to her aid. Isadora looked into his eyes and whispered: "Save ... Give me a child!" From this fleeting connection, she gave birth to a baby, but he lived only a few days.

Duncan and Yesenin

In 1921, the greatest love came into her life. She met the Russian poet Sergei Yesenin.

A stormy romance began immediately on the day they met. She fell in love with him because Sergei reminded her of a little blond son with blue eyes. The difference of eighteen years did not prevent them from becoming spouses in 1922, in Duncan's life this was the first and only marriage.

Yesenin loved Isadora madly and admired her, they traveled around Europe and America, were happy, but not for long. He did not know English at all, and Isadora did not know Russian. But not only these difficulties in linguistic communication broke their idyll. Yesenin was depressed that everyone abroad perceived him only as the husband of the great Isadora Duncan. The passion passed, and an eternal love union did not work. Sergei returned to Russia two years after the wedding, and Isadora continued to love him.

He died in 1925, in the life of Duncan did not become another blonde, blue-eyed, most beloved.

Death

One close friend said about Isadora that for her to move quickly was as necessary as breathing. Duncan has been running like mad all her life, stopping only to eat and drink. She had all the prerequisites to crash in a car at least twenty times.

Cars became an obsession in Isadora's life and played a mystical role. Her children died in a car accident, the dancer herself was crashed more than once, cutting across Russia in cars. During the European trip with Yesenin, they changed four cars, because Duncan simply terrorized the drivers, demanding to go as fast as possible, and several times her demands ended in failure.

It was as if she had been playing with cars all her life: who wins? The cars brought her pain, disappointment and tragedy, and she again sat down and rushed. On September 14, 1927, the final came to Nice, Duncan lost. She had a date with another lover Benoit Falchetto. Isadora sat in the passenger seat of his two-seater sports car and did not notice how the edge of the long shawl was left overboard and caught on the rear wheel. Benoit turned on the gas, the car moved, the shawl tugged like a string, and in an instant broke Isadora's neck. At 9.30 pm at the Saint-Roche clinic, doctors recorded the death of the great dancer.

Introduction to the discipline

Modern dance is a dance that seeks to express spiritual needs

humanity, this is the language of feelings, expressing the most secret movements of the soul

shi. The naturalness and free expression of dancers serves this purpose.

the best way. Modern dance is always a dance on the edge, to the limit

full of emotions. With the emergence of modern dance, new

opportunities for dancers through the use of movements, expressing

unreasonable heaviness, as well as ugliness, as "ugly"

dance along with beautiful movements contribute to the expression

feelings and emotions.

"Improvement of body, mind and soul" remains relevant in

nowadays. Modern dance helps the physical development of a person and

breathes it spiritually. Ballet training is based on precise unchanging

movement program. Modern dance rejected this program, changing and proving

head that movement arises naturally and individually. Dance movements

modern are dictated by nature and are built according to the anatomical laws of motion

the human body. “True dance does not consist of different

new pas and poses. They are of no use to the dancer: he must only find

features of the movement, most truthfully expressing the movements of his mind

shi ". This is a method of movement subordinate to breathing and anatomically justified

body movements. This is a certain dance system with its own

principles and laws of technical execution, in which the body acquired

your full-blooded tongue. Education of a muscular apparatus free from

canons of classical dance, develops and liberates the human body.

It gives the ability to control oneself, to move easily and plastically, freely

hold on to life. This new kind of dance was born from the principles laid down

isadora Duncan, and was imbued with her psychological truth.

Section 1. From the history of the issue

Isadora Duncan's historical role in the development of dance

"The history of modern dance is the history of individuals ...", - said in one of the

interview A. Girshon. Undoubtedly, the new dance - the modern dance - began with

named Isadora Duncan. “The charm of the first will always be for her name

a light halo. " Her historical role bears comparison to those

of all the founders of new eras and styles: she was inspired by the enthusiasm

the spirit of denial, the spirit of magnificent rebellion, creative protest against

common art forms.

Francisco. At the age of 5, hiding her age, she was sent to school. Due to family relationships

because of this, she was very often left alone. Wandering by the sea, she betrays

indulged in my own fantasies. Everything danced around her: flowers, birds, waves

us, she danced too. At the age of 13, Isadora dropped out of school to seriously

singing with music and dancing. In 1895, 18-year-old Isadora Duncan was accompanied by

driving her mother went to Chicago. But an attempt to conquer this

her kind of art ended only in disappointment for her. Then, in

New York, she studied at the ballet school for a year, working in the theater, where she

pantomime performances were in full swing. Late 1896 with the Daly Isadora troupe

went on tour to England. Returning at the beginning of 1898, Aise-

dora Duncan parted ways with the troupe, concentrating her efforts on her own

military independent career. Among the first dances of her repertoire were

Ophelia and Narcissus - both to the music of E. Nevin; "Breath of Spring", "Dance

joy ”- both to music by Strauss; "Rubai Omar Khayyam" - three to music

Strauss and three to music by Mendelssohn. These lyrical dances were the basis

us on literary sources. In 1899 she with her mother, sister

and two brothers in the hold of a livestock ship, the only kind

transport, which was then affordable for them, is sent to conquer Euro-

poo. Here she meets influential people, finds her patrons.

lei. Her touring trips begin. 1900-1901 - Paris; 1902 - Ber-

lin and Vienna. Success rushed ahead of her. In 1903 Isadora

was able to go to the desired Greece. Greek dance was ideal for Aise-

doorways. Her dances have a spirit of Greek simplicity. Greek technique like

explains Ginner, - a contemporary of Duncan, begins with an assessment of the role that

ryu is performed by every part of the body. The ancient Greeks held such a high regard

the beauty of a man's foot that they would never have thought of covering it

while dancing. Each part of the body had its own emotional function.

“The meaning of the liberated body in dance is equal to the principle of pure colors im-

pressureists ... Isadora Duncan was the first to dance without shoes ... ". To her

applauded by the best stage venues in Europe, everywhere her performances

went with a full house. Its first appearance in Russia dates back to 1904.

1905 years. Her performances in Russia made a significant impression,

it was from this era that Russian ballet began to become familiar with Chopin and Schumann.

Duncan is recognized as the inspiration behind the dramatic

the revival of ballet in the 20th century.

In 1906, fate awarded A. Duncan the birth of his daughter Didra, and in

1910 son Patrick was born. Love took a big place in life

dancers. All of A. Duncan's novels ended dramatically, and the children

were the light in the line of her unhappy love. In January 1913, both children

Isadora and the governess were driving from Paris to Versailles, and

the car with the children fell into the Seine. From this loss A. Duncan did not justify

never curled.

At the beginning of her career, A. Duncan studied plastic arts

interpretation of music, the art of open improvisation (takes place in our

days). She had a rare gift for painting music, using it to

awakening your own emotions, visions and dreams. "About musical

especially much talked and argued about her dances. Duncan's dance defined

as a "mimic illustration of music", as "striving for the life of the spirit,

concentrated in music, rhythmically embodied in the selected fantasy

images. "In the sounds of a piece of music, she looked for the eternal

rhythms that led the hand of the creator. Not an illustration, but a translation into another language

would be the exact definition of her dance. " The motive basis was that

where a simple gymnastic complex. And living in London, on tour with

daly troupe, Isadora took ballet lessons from Ketty Lanner (prim-

ballerinas of the Royal Theater). Practicing classical dance, she is everything

more convinced herself of its failure. And the more she is in it

she became convinced, the stronger her resolve to go her own way.

She abandons the classical forms, becoming a "subversive" of the class

sic dance. Her dance is based on the principle of the naturalness of human life.

centuries in dance.

Isadora's dance was strongly influenced by the school of François Delsarte

(1811-1871), his theory of body movements. F. Delsarte's plastic system

contains analysis of many types of gesture and body positions. Stre-

trying to figure out how movement becomes material for artistic

imagery, he established an extremely accurate scale of

rationing each part of the body in its connection with emotions and was the first to scientifically substantiate

human gestures, giving each of them a name. Delsarte recognized the gesture

purposeful and organically related to the feeling experienced. is he

said that there is nothing more terrible and regrettable than a gesture that does not carry

it makes no sense that any feeling, experience or joy a person over-

gives through gestures, pos. And no matter what the words say, the movements are not

when they don't lie. His theory became widespread at the beginning of the 20th century. and lay in

basis of creative searches A. Duncan. Having determined for yourself that the human body is

ka can be divided into three main zones: head - mental zone, upper

torso - emotional and spiritual zone, lower torso - vital and physical

sky, Isadora was inclined to believe that the source of movement originates in

upper torso, so she was interested in the emotional and spiritual

sides. “Movement is motivated by emotion and the instrument of its expression

there must be a human body. " “With all the grace of their being, their

with pirouettes, yearning, trembling of nakedness under the veils, she created

a new language, an ensemble of metaphors capable of conveying musical

times, "wrote the composer Gustave Charpentier.

Isadora was the first to use ugly movements as an important element

dance cop. "Dance of the Furies", created by her in 1911, showed how

ugly dance movements can help express feelings and

emotions. For her, the only criterion for assessing movement was the answers to

questions: is it natural? Is it true? Is it expressive? “She reproduces

exhales in his dance the whole gamut of human emotions, - said Fokin, -

America's Greatest Gift to Art. "

With the outbreak of the First World War, Isadora began to create dances on

political and social themes such as "Marseillaise" and "Slavic

All American representatives of modern dance considered themselves after-

by A. Duncan, despite the fact that her creative path was formed in

mainly in Europe. Isadora had many followers, but became the main

the innovator did not give her a new direction in choreography.

. The first modern dance school in America

In America, the first modern dance school was opened in 1915 by Te-

house of Shawn and Ruth Saint Denis. The program of this dance school was "perfect

staggering body, mind and soul ”. Pupils learned Spanish,

greek as well as oriental dances. Use of Greek themes and symbols

phonic music - a clear influence of A. Duncan. At school, in addition to dancing, I studied

other types of art, philosophy were also in the making. Much attention was paid

costume, which was considered an integral part of the plastic expressive

sti. By the technical virtuosity and splendor of the Denishone performance

purely compared with the "Russian ballets". School emergence and creative

the search for its organizers suggests that modern dance is gradually

rotated into a certain dance system with its own principles and

the laws of technical execution. The appearance of the school was the first attempt

how to systematize the "new" dance and Ted Shawn with Ruth Saint-Denis became

the first professional teachers of modern dance.

Saint-Denis (1879-1968) was a dancer, choreographer, teacher.

She shared the views of F. Delsarte and was engaged in gymnastics according to his system

topic. She gained fame for performing theatrical cult

dances of the East. “Ruth Saint-Denis was undoubtedly one of the brightest

stars of the new dance. In it, some kind of, almost ideal, embodiment has been achieved.

nie. Along with her realism, Ruth Saint-Denis was intoxicating with an astounding sense of

the lens of her image. Her dance is spontaneous, extraordinary, insane, at the same time

deeply thought out, conscious ... Of all the options for dancing Ruth

Saint Denis alone has style. " Ruth Saint-Denis was passionate about oriental dance

cem, later, after parting with Ted Shawn, she organized in New York

school of oriental dance, where he spent yoga and meditation sessions. "Before 1963

performed with concerts, gave lectures, taught for a year.

Ted Shawn (1891-1972) was a dancer, teacher, ballet master

rum. He started dancing at the age of 17. In 1910 he organized a school and

a small troupe. In 1914 he became a partner of R. Saint-Denis. T. Shawn

led a male dance group. “He laid the foundation for the professional

nal American male dance. Using dance performances

real folklore of different peoples, including American Indians, T.

Shawn has enriched the vocabulary of contemporary dance. " Denis Shawn's school was

professional school and lasted until the 30s of the XX century, giving

birth of the first generation of American choreographers and performers

dance modern. Such famous teachers and choreographers came out of this school.

fs like Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, Martha Graham.

Martha Graham - the founder of the modern dance system.

Principles and laws of motion in her technique

In the history of modern dance, one name stands above all. That name is Martha Gre-

hem. She was born into the family of a psychiatrist in the city of Allegheny (Aleghsni),

pennsylvania May II, 1893. The ancestors of her family were the first American

settlers, Irish great-grandfather came to America from Scotland with

aim to make a career in Pittsburgh. Nanny, Catholic Lizzie, incredible you-

duma woman, knew many fairy tales. In childhood, the future famous dancer-

she was surrounded by servants in the house and gardeners - Japanese and Chinese. So about

at the same time, M. Graham was influenced by two religions: Presbyterian and Roma

but catholic. After going to college, in 1916, she began serious

a new dance class at Denishaun School in Los Angeles. Her teachers

were Ruth Saint Denis and Ted Shawn. T. Shawn drew attention to the swarthy ex-

high-end girl with long, strong legs and gave her a leading role in

the fantastic ballet "Xochitl" to the music of Grune. So the dance began

gallant career M. Graham.

“Small, with black hair, an elongated face and very, very

thin. She did whatever she wanted with her body. She had a little

the foot is flexible as well as strong. She was short, but in her

immense power lived. It was God's gift of strength and flexibility ... ", - recalls M.

Cunningham. She had lyrical qualities and well-learned

in "Denis-shoun" the oriental manner of performance.

Until 1923 M. Graham worked in the troupe of the school, performing the leading

roles in performances. She is attracted to finding her own path in choreography. "AT

our days, when people are opposed to hostile and threatening re-

balances, choreography can no longer be just an art - willful

by the whim of the imagination or the revival of a beautiful romantic dream.

A person wants not to forget himself, but to know himself. Dance must become an act

active participation in life, a necessity, ”said M. Graham. Since 1923

year she begins dancing in the Broadway revue "Greenwich Village Falls",

putting on dances for herself. Since 1926 - begins teaching at the theater

1926 M. Graham debuted in New York with great success as

choreographer, but while retaining the exotic style of dance taken from

schools "Denishone".

In 1927 M. Graham organized his own troupe from

students and begins to create his own style of dance and choreography.

This happened during the formation of the art of modern dance as

directions in choreography. It was at this time that M. Graham began to do

the first steps in creating your own unique technique.

A significant influence on the formation of M.

Graham rendered composer Louis Horst, with whom she was associated with deep

personal and creative relationships. L. Horst was for M. Graham her

supporting "pillar", a person who was initiated into her creative

searches. He introduced M. Graham to the ideas of Mary Wigman, the representative

german Expressionist School of Dance. Expressive plastic

m. Wigman considered dance a biologically natural reflection

certain moments of a person's psychological state,

opposing it to classical ballet. “She dances without music, and her

an impeccably developed body that allows all turns and poses, and its

dance against the background of yoda, heaven and earth is contrasted with all the most wonderful

pretentiousness of expressionism, as a magnificent promise of the future -

a nonsense dance that should not be confused with the old "natural

"Isadora's naturalism". Mary Wigman believed that space is the world

dancer, it is a reflection of infinity, a symbol of the ever-changing

around the dance environment. Movement fills the dancer's soul with delight

complete fusion with space, and these ideas were close to M. Graham.

The dancer must "peer, ponder through space", as

if it were impenetrable, moving - "listen to

space "and" carve "a place for yourself in it. Acquaintance with views

german dancer helped M. Graham to free herself from stylization

and the exoticism inherited from Saint Denis.

In her creative quest, she determined that the movement was

obeys three basic constants: time, space, energy. is he

believed that the inner energy of the performer is released and

"Splashes" into space during the dance. Like K.S. Stanislavsky,

M. Graham emphasized that emotion provokes movement.

Movement, she believed, should and can define emotion more precisely,

than words. “It doesn't matter what the words say - movements never lie ... dance

shouldn't do anything that you can say with words. He must

expressed by actions colored by deep feelings that can

be expressed only by movements. " Having created her own school and troupe, she

she also created her own language of movements, developing in detail its performance technique.

An important component of her technique was the so-called inner impulse:

“She used not only our bodies, she also used our soul,

our inner life ... ”, her students recall.

Technique Lessons M. Graham began with simple movements that

turned into long dance chains with the addition of various

positions of arms and legs and changes in directions, levels of movement This new

technique and was very daring and was not limited by conventional

traditions and stereotypes. She started with her own beautiful body

Graham and the extraordinary movements she performed. This technique

dance was and is an opportunity to find a way of self-expression through

movement of the body in a dance, the appearance of which is largely breathing. M.

Graham found the answer to her own questions by discovering new movement

body capabilities. She paved the dregs to create her own manner

dance using compression and release. Any movement must be

motivated by the inner life of the dancer. Martha said that when

inner life is not developed, "infertility" develops, and the lack

motivation will lead to meaningless movement, meaningless movement

To decline. This is a completely new approach to the physics of motion, subject

breathing and anatomical changes during the respiratory process. M.

Graham laid bare the mechanism of movement - effort and relaxation, carefully

hidden in classical dance. This became the most important elements of her

technique, its concept of movement based on "compression -

release ". It is an outpouring that fills the entire body. She said,

that motion should not be invented, but discovered in itself. Martha Graham

used all sorts of ways to awaken the imagination, including in

lessons work on hundreds of animal images. Martha taught in free

manner, fully concentrating on the subject. Every year in classes

new movements were added.

Eric Hawkins entered Martha's life in 1938. He became the first

a man in the troupe, and later - her husband. His UOI appearance was on

feminine Principle in Art M. Graham. It was a new stage in her life and

creativity. “With the arrival of men, the character of the company changed, and with

this changed the technique. What was smooth and strong is now

weightless and impetuous like mercury ", - recall the first performers

the Martha Graham troupe.

M. Graham introduces a classical dance lesson to the troupe, which

eric Hawkins began to teach. He had a classical training and before

joining the company he danced in the Balankha Ballet. The dancers were

shocked by the appearance of the machine in the studio. Ballet was an antagonist for them.

“I loved her old technique more. Yes, people had knee pain. But this

it was more inventive, it was more exciting. A lot of

parallel leg exercises disappeared, floor exercises too

have been changed ... ”, recalls John Butler. The technique has expanded and

enriched, but the basic technical principles remained unchanged. E.

Hawkins, dancing in The American Document (1938), added to the movement

weight, power and strength, which was not before him. In "Letter to the World" (1940)

the created men's group participated. M. Graham has changed a lot here

his technique to create "masculine" movements. Inside some

variations and parts of scenes, the main dance of men and women retained

gender relationship, but more emotionally than through

movement. Major changes were introduced by the introduction of the male

athleticism, which was a significant change in vocabulary. In the 40s. in

dancers began to come to the troupe with classical choreographic

preparation. M. Graham, taking into account and using classical dance, created

their own system of correlation between classical dance and their own technique. It

was interested in using classical dance for development

your technique.

M. Graham, interested in all types of art, created her own "theater

dance ". She approached the character creation process like a dramatic actor.

The dramatic training of the performers was essential in the troupe

Graham. The dramatic approach to dance was obvious, helped by

the inner depth of Graham's creativity, her superhuman strength and

a dramatic talent that was legendary. It would be appropriate here

recall the memoirs of John Butler, a member of the troupe from 1943 to 1953: “I

heard her sobbing. It was not just crying or even despair. it

there was something greater and deep, almost animal suffering. They were streams

tears. There was something extraordinary, something from gothic stories or

greek tragedies ”. It happened after breaking up with Eric Hawkins.

Throughout Graham's life, her technique grew steadily,

expanded and changed. But she always remained what “... from what we

depended not only for endurance training, but also for obtaining

source to motivate emotional satisfaction, ”says Peter

Sperling, dancer of the troupe from 1973 to 1987, assistant professor of dance at

University of Michigan. The troupe members helped M. Graham in creating

and conducting classes and experiments, calling her studio “the temple of the pelvic

truths ". In 1957, the film "The World of the Dancer" was shot, which reveals

the main ideas of Graham and her troupe is represented. Sophie Maslova and Gertrude

Schurr, being with Graham, made a practical Lesson Description and

created a detailed training program. In practice, this program has 4

training level and takes about three years. The program includes, in addition to

learning Graham technique, learning music, composition, teaching

seminars and performances.

In the Graham technique, the class begins on the ground. Followed by

kneeling exercises, knee bending exercises, which

developed into a series of movements in order to get up from the priest. Movement

the body and arms were performed in a standing position using various

jumping on the diagonals of the class and in a circle. New samples were introduced

counts: slow quarter, double count for percussion, or count

thirds for lyrical movements. Change of accent and score, mixing

rhythms and uneven dimension have become familiar to modern dance.

Samples of 10 or 5 accounts have also become common. Dancers must dance

barefoot. “They have to come to class and prepare their bodies for work.

School is a disciplined place because there is only one

freedom is a discipline "- said M. Graham -" I prefer to teach

their students from the age of nine. I'm biased to have

prior training and would prefer it to be ballet. there is

things that should be familiar: the fifth position, for example, next - pile,

the use of various poses of zela, but only ordered. "

In 1970, at the age of 76, being 49 years old on stage, M. Graham

left the troupe. "My body can no longer do what I want," said

it. She became depressed, having lost her desire for life. Revival

happened only in 1973: “My work must continue, even if I

i can’t dance myself anymore. ” M. Graham continued to live, rehearsing,

traveling, creating new dances for the troupe and observing classes at the School.

In 1984 she was awarded the Legion of Honor. Until the very last

day she remained elegant and fit. In 1991 M. Graham died.

Her book Martha Graham's Notebooks, published in 1973, sheds light on

sources of Graham's creativity as a dancer and choreographer.

Having traced the life path of M. Graham, we can confidently say that

her dance technique changed as her personality changed

a performer who has transformed in her aesthetic perception,

in an intuitive search for movements that would reflect social

problems. “You have so little time to prepare for being born in

a moment, for a moment, ”noted M. Graham.

"We Remember Martha" - this is the title of the series

interviews and memoirs edited by Joseph H. Mazo. The author creates

portrait of a purposeful, devoted to art artist, faithful

certain principles and values \u200b\u200bof evolutionary change. This is a portrait

a woman who, realizing her strength, is ready to admit mistakes and start

re-create: “She could mercilessly treat her

dancers and generously inspire them. She could be sharp and tactful

possessed a sharp mind and loved to laugh, adored "soda", counted sweat in

classroom "pure pretense" was practical. And those who worked with her

understood that they were communicating with a genius ”.

At the beginning of the XX century. she, in fact, became the oracle of the choreography of the new

time. Various ideas of European and American modern dance found

in her work the most integral and versatile implementation. At the same

time the art of M. Graham was a fruitful basis for a new stage

development of modern dance. Directly or indirectly, her work has influenced

almost all foreign choreographers who came to the stage at the beginning

fifties of the XX century. School of Contemporary Dance M. Graham,

established in 1927 in New York, is now the largest center

Historically, dance has been used by people as part of religious rituals and public holidays. Evidence for this is found in many documents from the prehistoric era. Court dances have probably existed as long as kings and queens. The variety of dance forms included folk, social, ballroom, religious and experimental and other forms. A major branch of this art was Theater Dance, which arose in the Western World. The roots of modern ballet, the dance we all know, go back to France in the sixteenth century - the Renaissance.

Most of the choreographers and dancers of the early 20th century were extremely negative about ballet. Isadora Duncan considered it an ugly, mindless gymnastics. Martha Graham (Graham) saw in him Europeanism and imperialism, which have nothing in common with the Americans. Meers Cunningham, despite the fact that he used some of the basics of ballet technique in teaching, approached choreography and performance from the positions directly opposite to traditional ballet.

The twentieth century has definitely become a time of separation from everything that ballet relied on. A time of unprecedented creative growth for dancers and choreographers. A time of shock, surprise and spectators who changed their idea of \u200b\u200bdance. The time of the revolution in the full sense of the word.

The sixties marked the development of postmodernism, which changed the course towards simplicity, the beauty of small things, untrained bodies and artless, simple movements. The famous "No" manifesto, which rejects all costumes, plots and "show" for the sake of raw, raw movement - this is probably the brightest extreme of this wave of new thought. Unfortunately, the lack of costumes, plots and props do not contribute to the success of the dance show - and after a short time, "scenery", "decoration" and "shock level" reappeared in the vocabulary of contemporary dance choreographers.

By the eighties, classical dance returned to its starting point, and contemporary dance (or, by this time, already contemporary dance) had become a highly technical weapon of professionals, not far from politics. The two forms of dance, contemporary dance and classical ballet, peacefully coexist side by side, experiencing only a tiny fraction of their former dislike for each other and almost never entering into competition. Today, the art of dance is imbued with creative competition and choreographers often strive to ensure that it is their work that is called the most shocking. However, there is still beauty in art, and modern dance amazes with such professionalism, strength and flexibility, which have never been there.

To understand what modern dance is today, it is necessary to turn to its history, starting from the reason for the emergence of a new direction.

So, at the beginning of the 20th century in America and Europe, a new dance direction appeared (called modern among Americans and contemporary dance among Europeans), as an alternative to the existing classical ballet, as one of the ways to express new feelings and thoughts characteristic of art of that time, boldly rejecting the conventions of ballet forms, differing from him in greater freedom and expressiveness of means.

Several large figures stood at the source. The ideas of the French teacher, composer F. Delsarte (1881-1971), who argued that only a natural gesture, freed from conventions and stylization, was able to convey human feelings, had a huge influence on the new vision of dance.

The Swiss educator, composer Jacques-Dalcroze (1865-1950) linked the teaching of music to the movement. Music must be "physically experienced". On the ideas of Dalcroze in the 1920s, the Institute of Rhythm worked in Leningrad, whose employees strove to create "dancing music".

If Delsarte and Jacques-Dalcroze are theorists, the authors of the concept of a new dance, then the famous American dancer Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) is considered the direct founder of modernity, who embodied the idea in movement. Accusing classical ballet of soullessness and artificiality, Duncan strove to reproduce the free plasticity, the plasticity of Ancient Greece, and danced barefoot in light transparent tunics. It is difficult to describe modern dance more accurately than Duncan herself did in her autobiography "My Confession": "Freedom of body and spirit gives rise to creative thought, body movements should be an expression of inner impulse. The dancer should get used to moving as if the movement never ends, it always is the result of internal comprehension. The body in the dance should be forgotten, it is just an instrument, well-tuned and harmonious. In gymnastics, only the body is expressed by movements, in the dance, feelings and thoughts through the body. " "Isadora made him consider the art of dance important and noble. She made him consider it an art" (Agnes de Mille).

It should be noted that time itself - the beginning of the 20th century - was a fertile ground for the emergence and development of ideas that reflected a new perception of man himself and the world. The language of ballet dance, so familiar and predictable, no longer responded to a changed life, as it was drawing a person whose faith in whom was lost. The ballet has remained a classic, while emerging art movements such as Expressionism and Surrealism have found expression in the productions of modernist choreographers in Europe and America.

Modern dance, one of the directions of modern foreign choreography, originated in the late 19th - early 20th centuries. in the USA and Germany. The term "modern dance" originated in the United States to denote stage choreography that rejected traditional ballet forms. Having come into use, he supplanted other terms (free dance, Duncanism, sandals dance, rhythmoplastic dance, expressive, expressionistic, absolute, new artistic) that arose in the development of this trend. The common thing for the representatives of modern dance, regardless of which trend they belonged to and in what period they proclaimed their aesthetic programs, was the intention to create a new choreography that, in their opinion, met the spiritual needs of a person of the 20th century. Its main principles are: rejection of canons, the embodiment of new themes and plots with original dance-plastic means.

In their quest for complete independence from traditions, representatives of modern dance came, in the end, to the adoption of certain techniques, in opposition to which a new direction was born. The attitude towards a complete departure from traditional ballet forms in practice could not be fully realized.

The ideas of modern dance were anticipated by the famous French teacher and theorist of stage movement F. Delsarte, who argued that only a gesture, freed from convention and stylization (including musical), is able to truthfully convey all the nuances of human experience. His ideas spread in the early 20th century after they were artistically realized by two American dancers who toured Europe. L. Fuller performed in Paris in 1892. Her dance "Serpentine" was based on a spectacular combination of free body movements spontaneously generated by music, and a costume - huge fluttering bedspreads illuminated by multi-colored spotlights.

Isadora Duncan - the founder of a new direction

However, A. Duncan became the founder of a new direction in choreography. Her preaching of a renewed antiquity, a "dance of the future", returned to natural forms, free not only from theatrical conventions, but also from historical and everyday life, had a great influence on many artists who sought to free themselves from academic dogmas.

Duncan believed that nature was her source of inspiration. Expressing personal feelings, her art had nothing in common with any choreographic system. It appealed to the heroic and romantic images generated by music of the same nature. The technique was not complicated, but with a relatively limited set of movements and postures, the dancer conveyed the subtlest shades of emotions, filling the simplest gestures with deep poetic content. Duncan did not create a complete school, although she opened the way for something new in the art of choreography. Improvisation, dancing barefoot, abandoning traditional ballet costume, turning to symphonic and chamber music - all these fundamental innovations of Duncan predetermined the path of modern dance

Faizulina Svetlana

Isadora Duncan's work - a man of a bright performing individuality - was born of Duncan's harmony and system, closed in Duncan's genius, her intuitive insights and improvisational impulses. Her work did not lend itself to analytical "translation" into a complete methodology, into the foundation of the pedagogical system. Isadora herself contained the method, style and direction of the dance.

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Municipal state educational institution

Podovinnovskaya secondary school

Isadora Duncan's Stage Dance:

fashion revolution on stage

Art Exam Paper

Completed by: Faizulina Svetlana.

Checked by: Yumadilova Nadezhda Vladimirovna.

C. Podovinnoe

year 2013

1. Introduction
2. Main part

1. Ballet as an art form

2. The life and work of Isadora Duncan

A) childhood and adolescence

B) the first meeting with Russia

C) the last dance

D) Isadora's dance - "excitement of the soul".

3 . Isadora. A fashionable revolution on the stage.

1. Conclusion
2. Literature.
3. Applications

Introduction

Ballet ( frballet, from italballo - dancing) -

This is a kind of stagearts; a performance, the content of which is embodied in musical and choreographic images. Most often, ballet is based on a certain plot,dramatic plan, libretto, but there are also plotless ballets. The main types of dance in ballet areclassical dance and a characteristic dance. An important role is played herepantomime, with the help of which the actors convey the feelings of the characters, their "conversation" among themselves, the essence of what is happening. Elements of gymnastics and acrobatics are also widely used in modern ballet.Isadora Duncan is one of the most talented ballerinas of her time. She is graceful and inimitable in dance. I admire her. The ballerina has created her own style. I study choreography at the School of Art. I love dancing, but would like to know more about the people of art and therefore the themes of my work Isadora Duncan's Stage Dance: A Fashion Revolution on the Stage.

PURPOSE: to consider ballet as a unique plastic art form

TASKS:

1. Get to know the history of Russian ballet
2. Get to know the life and work of Isadora Duncan
3. Create a computer presentation on the studied issue, as an aid for students in grades 8-9

Ballet as an art form

Ballet is a dance scene, an episode in a musical performance, an opera, united by a single action or mood. Bloomscourtier ballet as a magnificent solemn spectacle. The beginning of the ballet era in France and around the world should be considered15 october1581... The first ballet was called The Queen's Comedy Ballet (or Circe), staged by an ItalianBaltazarini... The musical basis of the first ballets was made up of folk and court dances, which were included inold suite. In the second half17th century new theatrical genres such ascomedy - ballet, opera- ballet, in which a significant place is given to ballet music, and attempts are made todramatize... But ballet becomes an independent form of stage art only in the second half.XVIII century thanks to the reforms carried out by the French ballet masterJean Georges Novers... Based on the aesthetics of the French enlighteners, he created performances in which the content is revealed in dramatically expressive images.

In its evolution, ballet is increasingly approachingsportslosing along the waydramatic the meaning of the role is sometimes ahead in technology, but lagging behind in content.

AT integrated learning professional artist knowledge neededmusical culture, history, literature andscenariodramaturgy... At the same time, from the age of seven, children passgymnastic preparation, because the ballets of the past, which have survived to this day, have been technically improved, and modern ballet on a classical basis, for example balletForesight, requires serious physical training, soballerinaSylvia Guillem she began her career with gymnastics.

Old ballets had a sublime aesthetics, sometimes they were staged onantique plots, such as stagingCharles Didlot « Marshmallow and Flora».

AT XVIII - XIX centuries the artist could be at the same timeactor and a dancer, since no special development of physical capabilities was required.

At the end 19th century and at the beginning XX century, the theater schools were divided. The repertoire of many theaters simultaneously includeddramasballet divertissement branches and operettas... So for example, in addition to performances inBig, Kasyan Yaroslavich Goleizovsky staged balletperformances in " Bat"And in" Mamontovsky Theater of Miniatures", Among which was the production of" Les Tableaux vivants ", meaning" come to life picture ", since Goleizovsky was primarilyartist... This phenomenon develops in modern ballet as a "revived painting", "revived photography" and "revived sculpture". In order toputyou first need to seedraw and blind.

"Musically revived" paintings were born from a series of "foreign" drawingsVictor Hartmannseen in 1874 year at the exhibition Modest Mussorgsky, which in memory of a friend wrote forpiano famous suite - a series of musical pictures - "Pictures at an Exhibition"Published in 1886 year, as amended N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov and many times orchestrated.

The famous ballet number "Baba Yaga", stagedLeonid Yakobson to the orchestrated musical number of M.P. Mussorgsky, became an integral aesthetic nuance of allconcert programs.

Pictures at an Exhibition "Dancing Come to Life" and1963 yearwhen F.V. Lopukhov put ballet on stagestanislavsky Theater... In this way, painting came to life first musicallythen plastically.

Ballet is a complex plastic art form, it develops thanks to a person, a person with natural unique choreographic data. Isidora Duncan is one of the brightest examples of creative ballet personalities. I will dwell on her life and work.

The amazing life of the "divine sandals", marked either by luxury or by poverty, was full of stormy passions and terrible tragedies.
She was respected for her skill and talent. They envied her - for the love of the public, independence of behavior, protection of the strong. Her last love with the fair-haired Russian poet played a strange role in the fate of the dancer. This love, closeness to Yesenin's entourage and admiration for the revolution in Russia is remembered more often than the bright creative life of the great dancer Isadora Duncan.Her real name is Dora Angela Duncan.

To an uncomplicated question from journalists, when she made the first steps, Isadora invariably answered: "In the womb. Probably under the influence of Aphrodite's food - oysters and champagne." The mother, abandoned by her husband, was in a state of constant irritation and depression. She cared little about the variety of the unborn baby's diet and strangely satisfied her gastronomic addictions - she ate only oysters, drinking them abundantly with ice-cold champagne. The child was born extremely agile and playful. A year later, a favorite family fun appeared - a tiny girl in a vest was put on the center of the table, and she amazingly moved to any melody that was played or hummed to her.

Years will fly by, and in the grown Isadora the rare gift of painting feelings with movements will grow stronger. She will never question the thought that is dear to her: the richness of human life depends on the depth of feelings. She trusted this postulate unconditionally, although she constantly became a victim of this "sensual" idea.

When emotions, unable to remain at the peak of passion, weakened, the cloudless and happy time ended almost suddenly. A new page of biography began

... The first vivid impression of life was a fire when two-year-old Isadora was thrown out of the window of a burning house into the hands of a policeman. The spontaneous movement of bright tongues of flame became a symbol of Duncan's fiery, irrepressible, unrestrained dance ...

1904 year. The first tour of Russia. Endless snowy plains, frosty air, long Russian feasts, the heat of the Russian bath ... "Snow, Russian food, and especially caviar, cured me from exhaustion caused by spiritual love to Toda, and my whole being longed for communication with a strong personality, which stood in front of me in Stanislavsky's face ". He is fascinated by the dance of Duncan, often comes to her backstage. He is amazed that "in different parts of the globe, due to conditions unknown to us, different people are looking for the same natural principles of creativity in different areas of art ...". In a strange American woman, he sensed an artist of the same blood. After Isadora's departure, the music of Chopin and Schumann sounded on the Russian ballet stage; the heroes of the ballets by Mikhail Fokine, Alexander Gorsky and, a little later, Kasyan Goleizovsky seemed to be leaving the frontal Greek bas-reliefs; ballerinas began to lighten their costumes, and sometimes even parted with steel pointe shoes ...

At the end of the first decade of the new century, Duncan created a delightful miniature "Musical Moment", which enjoyed continued success. On her second tour in Russia, she invariably encased this dance at least six times, each dancing differently.

Isadora was overwhelmed with a desire to create a dance school in order to educate children in the spirit of Hellenistic beauty, and later - the pupils themselves would introduce many others to the beautiful. And life on earth will be transformed beyond recognition - that's what the idealist Isadora thought. She opened a school, but there were not enough funds to support it. "I have to find a millionaire! I have to keep the school." The desire came true - the dancer met Paris Eugene Singer, the son of a famous sewing machine manufacturer, one of the richest people in Europe.

Singer offered to cover the cost of running Duncan's school so that she could safely create new dances. Singer presented magnificent gifts. Perhaps for the first time Isadora could not think about money. Receptions, masquerades, expensive dinners on wonderful travels. Son Patrick was the most expensive gift. She again held the baby in her arms. "Only instead of a white house shaking from the wind there was a luxurious palace, and instead of a gloomy restless North Sea - a blue Mediterranean one."

At one of the costume balls in the studio of the Parisian house, Singer was jealous of Isadora. A stormy showdown ended with his departure to Egypt and the refusal to build a theater for Isadora.

At the end of her career, one of Isadora's most popular dances was the Scarf Dance. She loved to perform this phantasmagoric dance in the presence of Yesenin. The poet's excited fantasy painted a strange picture: "She is holding a scarf by the tail, and she herself is dancing. And it seems, not a scarf, but a bully in her hands ... The bully hugs her, and shakes her, and strangles her ... And then suddenly - once! - and the scarf is under her feet. She tore it off, trampled it - and the lid! There is no bully, a crumpled rag lying on the floor ... My heart squeezes. As if I’m lying under her feet. As if it’s a lid for me. " ... she moved amazingly to whatever melody was played or hummed to her. Isadora often repeated the dance with the scarf for an encore. So it was at a concert in Nice on September 14, 1927. ... On the same day, having effectively thrown the fatal scarf around her neck, she freely stretched out on the car seat. Behind the wheel is a young Italian, the last hobby of fifty-year-old Isadora. Smiling, she said: "Goodbye friends, I'm on my way to glory!" These were her last words - her head jerked and hung like a broken puppet. The scarf hit the axle of the wheel of the speeding car and dug into the neck like a noose.

Those who have seen Isadora dancing at least once have never forgotten her. A subverter of the foundations of classical dance, she did not doubt that true dance should be born "from the spiritual need to express the inner experiences of a person." Dance and life were synonymous to her. Refusing classical dance education, she always exclaimed: "And how can you teach dancing?" In the American studio Stebbins, where Isadora took her first steps, they taught plastic interpretation of music, the art of open improvisation. An uncomplicated gymnastic complex served as a movement basis.

Duncan has created her own style, free from stereotypes and schools. Her dance expressed the "excitement of the soul" (Rodin). For her, beauty was important, simple and complex, like nature itself. Isadora's movements did not require the most severe, grueling preparation. Duncan's program included the technique of transformation into an image, the ability to make music a symbol for the movements of the soul, and to make expressive gestures picturesque. The artistic result is inherently improvisational; on stage it looks like an intuitive insight.

By asserting that the world of feelings is the only important thing, she, of course, was cunning. For she herself was fond of philosophy, studied foreign languages, comprehended German in order to read Schopenhauer and Kant in the original. She drew inspiration for her dance from Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Dance of watercolor purity, impressionistic understatement. The bodily harmony of her movements reached the spiritual content of the music.

At first, Duncan was inspired by antiquity - its harmony of forms, beauty of poses, respect for nature. Duncan's stage costume was, in fact, Greek too. She danced in light tunics, appearing on stage barefooted and almost naked: a transparent tunic did not hide the soft lines of her beautiful body. At a time when dancers were wrapped in matte silk leotards, this was an almost revolutionary step.

Duncan's body was delicious. Once Archduke Ferdinand, seeing Duncan on the beach in her loose bathing suit - also a tunic made of transparent crepe de Chine with a deep cut and with bare legs (insolence at that time unheard of), whispered: "Oh, how good this Duncan is! How wonderfully good! Spring is not as good as it is ... ".

The movements of her dance - a step, an easy run, low jumps, free batman with a leg lift not higher than 45 degrees, expressive poses and gestures, sometimes melodious, sometimes passionate, sometimes gentle, sometimes sharp - reminded of drawings of ancient frescoes and vase paintings. Emotional freedom triumphed in the dance. The movements did not obey any rules. I dance as I feel. The dance needed neither a dramatic plot, nor costumes, nor sets. Only music, light, tunic and performer.

Critics wrote enthusiastically about her: "Duncan dances naturally, just like she would dance in a meadow, and with all his dance he fights against the dilapidated forms of the old ballet." "These beautiful raised hands, imitating playing the flute, playing the strings, ... these hands splashing in the air, this long strong neck ... - I wanted to bow to all this with living classical worship!"

Portraits and photographs cannot convey the divine melody of Isadora's movements. The most reliable "document" is the reviews of ... poets. For Isadora's dance is associative and metaphorical. "Isadora Duncan dances everything that other people say, sing, write, play and paint. Music is transformed in her and comes from her" (Maximilian Voloshin). "In her dance, form finally overcomes the inertia of matter, and every movement of her body is the embodiment of a spiritual act" (Sergei Soloviev). "... She - about not said. In her smile was the dawn. In the movements of the body - the scent of a green meadow. The folds from the tunic, like a murmur, beat foamy streams when she gave herself up to the dance free and pure" (Andrey Bely). A portrait of Isadora was placed in the central place of Blok's study ...

Dance is the first and main passion of her life ... Love is the second, worthy rival of dance in terms of the power of passion. She was called the courtesan of the twentieth century. She painfully anticipated love, anticipated it, patiently waited. From the youngest, crystal-clear girlish years.

She danced in light tunics, appearing on stage barefooted and almost naked: a transparent tunic did not hide the soft lines of her beautiful body.
In my work, I want to focus on one of the most beautiful love stories. This is the love story of Isadora Duncan and Sergei Yesenin.

Everyone tried to dissuade her from going to Soviet Russia. Red Russia inspired terror and fear. She dreamed of visiting the world of the proletarian state. "I am convinced that the greatest miracle in the history of mankind is taking place in Russia, which has only taken place over the past two millennia ..."
What prompted the famous star, whose art was admired by outstanding artists, painters, musicians, to leave for hungry Russia? The main goal was to create a school in Moscow, where she tried to solve new problems, which she formulated as follows: "I want the working class for all its hardships that it has borne for years, would receive the highest award, seeing their children cheerful and beautiful."

She is 44 years old - the "divine sandal" looks almost older than her years. But the Moscow public is still loyal to her. Now she is doubly an innovator: she fights not only against the canonized forms of ballet academism, but also conveys the revolutionary spirit of the era. She dances heavily, heavily and languidly, but the applause does not stop, and Lenin himself greets her from the tsarist box.

Duncan lived in Soviet Russia for three years. The Isadora Duncan Moscow Studio has outlived its legendary founder for more than twenty years. The studio's first performance took place in 1921 at the Bolshoi Theater. Duncan's "revolutionary dances" repertoire consisted of "The Marseillaise", "Internationale". The composition "Slavic March" and "Varshavyanka", in which "the banner of the revolution was picked up from the hands of the fallen fighters by new and new fighters" had particular success ...

In Moscow, Isadora is experiencing a dramatic romance with Sergei Yesenin. Their first meetings are described in many memoirs. The evidence is different. Some portray the sublime romance of a sudden outbreak of feeling, others - passion in a drunken stupor. It is unlikely that the authors deserve reproaches for bad faith, rather there were several meetings. And they were just as stormy and contradictory as the short life of an American dancer and a Russian poet together. Seeing Isadora's dance at the concert, Yesenin dreamed of meeting. Their acquaintance took place at a literary evening with the artist of the Chamber Theater Yakulov: "... She arrived in a red silk tunic and, entering the hall, looked around the audience with her tired eyes. In the corner, on a low sofa, she saw the curly head of a blond, young man of striking beauty, looking at her strange, shining yellowish eyes. ... After a while she was lying on the sofa, and Yesenin was sitting at her feet. Isadora stroked his curls and whispered tenderly and admiringly. " So their love began. In 1922, Duncan married a golden-haired elf, the age of her son, and took Soviet citizenship.

At times Yesenin loved her almost maniacally, not leaving her alone for a minute. A caring and gentle lover, he caught her every look. But suddenly he was torn apart by fits of rage. He scolded Isadora with the last words, beat, hid from her. I came back again. Isadora forgave him everything, admired his talent, youth, beauty. She took care of him like a son. One of Isadora's biographers wrote: "She was a mother in all manifestations of love. Until the end, she could not be either a wife or a lover. ... She gave herself, not discriminating - like a mother, not discriminating, gives everything to children."

Europe, America, Europe again ... In America, Yesenin was terribly tormented that he was perceived as the last love, as an autumn whim of a genius dancer, and not as a poet. Everything comes to an end. The end of their dramatic relationship also came. Isadora was tired of Yesenin, besides, each time he behaved more and more dirty and cynical. In November 1923, upon returning to Russia, after another scandal, they finally parted.

Learning in Paris in 1925 about Yesenin's suicide at the Angleterre Hotel, in the same room where they lived during their first trip together, Isadora confessed: “I was shocked by Sergei's death, but I cried and suffered so much because of him that, it seems to me, he has exhausted all human possibilities for suffering. " FROM

A year later, in order to pay off the artist's debts, her dear house and studio in Nuilly were put up for sale. The day before the auction, Isadora received a notice from the Moscow court that, as Yesenin's official widow, she inherited royalties for all of his poems. Isadora refuses the inheritance in favor of the poet's mother and sisters. The next day, the property in Nuilly was sold. Had Isadora agreed to receive the Yesenin inheritance, the house could have been redeemed.

Duncan's true passion was not only dance, but also the desire to teach him to people. Of course, children are the most sensitive to the art of small creatures who have not yet gone far from nature, sincerely believing that running and jumping is much easier than just walking.
The craving for dance pedagogy has been living in Duncan since childhood. Anyway, a "thin and strange child" at the age of ten, she and her sister organized their own school, where the "teachers" "taught what was called" secular dances. "Secular dances are dances that were taught

Throughout her life, there will be a chain of studios brought to life by her "disgust" for the theater with its elves, dressed in long tunics "of white and gold gauze with two tinsel wings." The desire to create her own school was unrestrained, but the end of her beginnings was always predetermined - a complete financial ruin. She opened schools in Germany, France, America and, as a rule, they did not exist for long.

"My ideas of the dance were to depict the feelings and emotions of a person," the goal of the lesson was to "lead the child's soul to the source of light." The super task is to educate a new harmonious person, the future by means of dance and music. How can this be achieved? "Teach your child to raise his hands to the sky so that in this movement he comprehends the infinity of the Universe, its harmony and perfection." Instill in the kid faith in the miracles of the surrounding endless movement and then tell him: "Since you are the most perfect in the kingdom of nature, then your movements should include all the beauty of nature, but beyond that, the beauty of your human mind, and your understanding of the beautiful ...".

In the fall of 1921, an announcement was placed in "Workers' Moscow" for the opening of "Isadora Duncan's school for children of both sexes between the ages of 4 and 10". It was pointed out that "preference for admission is given to the children of workers." Children (initially there were more than a hundred) went to school every day for preliminary classes. Later their number was reduced to forty. This was the maximum that could be fed and warmed in the hungry and cold Moscow of the twenties. Duncan sent a telegram to her American impresario: "Can you organize my performances with the participation of my student Irma, twenty adorable Russian children and my husband, the famous Russian poet Sergei Yesenin." However, these first foreign tours of the Moscow studio did not take place due to the fact that the American authorities refused visas to students at the school, and subsequently deprived Duncan of American citizenship "for Soviet propaganda" and loyalty to revolutionary ideas.

After Duncan's departure, the school in an old mansion on Prechistenka was run by her adopted daughter and devoted student Irma Duncan and the studio's director-administrator Ilya Schneider.

Duncan's free plastic imitators were numerous. Under the influence of the triumphant performances of the dancer herself and the pupils of her school, rhythmoplastic studios multiplied like mushrooms after rain in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The most famous of them were Heptakhor in the northern capital, which existed until the early 30s, and the Moscow Plastics Classes studio under the direction of E. Rabenek (later the studio was headed by Lyudmila Alekseeva) in the Moscow House of Scientists, which still lives today. All studios were different, sometimes not like Duncan's. But they all took over the main goal - to teach children the beauty of free movement, born of music. Their organizers were eager to experiment and find new forms.

Conclusion.

Duncan failed to create a direction, a methodological basis for teaching. The creativity of Isadora herself - a man of a bright performing individuality - was born of Duncan's harmony and a system closed in Duncan's genius, her intuitive insights and improvisational impulses. Her work did not lend itself to analytical "translation" into a complete methodology, into the foundation of the pedagogical system. Isadora herself contained the method, style and direction of the dance.

Today, Isadora Duncan is dedicated to performances and concert miniatures, exhibitions and festivals. Her performing style is "visible" in all directions of modern dance. Her approach to creativity excites the imagination of heads of plastic and movement studios. The memory of her gives birth to new books and films. Great actresses, including Vanessa Redgrave and Maya Plisetskaya, are trying to unravel the mystery of her fate.

... In the largest Parisian cemetery, Père Lachaise, rests Isadora - the great woman of the world, the first star of the rising dance era of the twentieth century, whose rebellious spirit is still alive today ...

The element of dance, the element of love and just the natural elements conspired to determine the life of this woman! The element of water told her the nature of the dance, and the fire, which destroyed her wardrobe, forced Duncan to go out to the audience for the first time, wrapping himself in a piece of light fabric. "She is dancing naked!" - the ill-wishers were indignant. And few of those sitting in the hall guessed that this Bacchante, one of her looks that shook the foundations of Puritan morality, was, in fact, ... a naive girl who still had no idea what this "earthly love" was.

While working on the essay, I learned about the life and work of Isadora Duncan. Her human qualities, kindness, purposefulness, curiosity, merging with creative activity and dance flexibility, gave rise to virtuoso dance wonders on the stage. Love is the quality that is developed in her to the highest degree. Love for dance did not prevent her from showing love for her neighbors and relatives. In the course of my work, I created a computer presentation that can be used as a guide not only in secondary schools, but also in the School of Arts. I coped with the set goals and tasks.

Isadora Duncan, dance queen.

Perhaps one can say about this woman in the words of Pushkin: “All life. mine was the guarantee of the faithful meeting with you. " In the memory of many, she remained as the beloved of S. Yesenin. But she had her own, no less dramatic and difficult life. The father left the family when the children were still young, and although the Duncan sisters received a good education, they had to earn their own living early on.
Later, Isadora ironically said that her father got rich several times and went broke the same number of times. The family had four children, and they all devoted themselves to art. Elizabeth was the first to create her own school.Isadora got the idea of \u200b\u200bcreating her own dance gradually. At first, she just wanted to dance to the music. She is attracted by E. Novin's music, and she composes dances for his "Narcissus", "Ophelia" and "Water Nymphs". Later, Duncan will use the music of Beethoven, Gluck, Chopin, Tchaikovsky. She made her stage debut in 1899 but was never able to find a permanent job in America. Not wanting to waste her talent in cabarets and theaters in secondary roles, she moved with her mother and brother to Europe. Duncan tries to perform at the evenings of artists, artists, believing that only here he can prove himself as an artist. However, gradually the circle of her audience is expanding, and on the recommendation of some of her patrons, she begins to prepare large dance programs. Soon Duncan signed a contract and began performing with concerts in various cities of Europe. At the same time, she began teaching the art of dance in private schools, first in Germany and then in France.In l904, Duncan opened her own school near Berlin, and in 1914, with the outbreak of the First World War, she moved to Paris. She expressed her impressions of the art of dance in a special lecture. Duncan believed that the main quality of dance is the maximum emancipation of the performer. This is why she ditched traditional ballet shoes and danced only barefoot or in sandals. The main quality of a dancer, according to Duncan, is the ability to control his body. Only in this case will beauty and expressiveness come. Duncan's ideal was ancient Greek frescoes, vase painting and sculpture. The actress had a great talent for pantomime. and was an excellent improviser. She replaced the traditional ballet costume with a light Greek tunic and danced without shoes.This is where the name "sandals dance" originated. Duncan's plastics consisted of elements of walking, running on half-toes, light jumps, and expressive gestures. The dancer's creative credo is determined by two principles - life and love. Perceiving theater as an art of personal emancipation, she defends the woman's right to love and have children at will, without getting married. She has two children - Dardry and Patrick, the girl's father is the famous artist-designer Edward Gordon, with whom Isadora voluntarily parted, so that everyone could serve their cause. The second son was born from P.3inger, a famous millionaire, heir to the inventor of the sewing machine. In her notes, Duncan even called him Lohengrin, the hero of R. Wagner's opera.Both Duncan's children were tragically killed in a car accident in 1913. Some believed that they were killed on the orders of one of the competitors of Patrick's father, P. Zinger. Duncan's first meeting with Russia took place during the years of the first Russian revolution, then she came here several times, trying to organize a dance school at the Maly Art Theater and teach the art of her dance to the actors of the imperial theaters. Then she met with K. Stanislavsky and A. Pavlova, whose art excited and charmed her. It was then that the ideas of a revolutionary change in the style of dance seized her, and Isadora Duncan even prepared several dances, reflecting the revolutionary pathos of the time in them. Contemporaries recalled her dance "Marseillaise" for a long time. In 1921, at the invitation of the People's Commissar of Education A.V. Lunacharsky Duncan comes to Russia again to organize a school here, similar to those that she has already created in Europe. Duncan hoped that her Russian students would not dance just for the sake of enrichment, and dreamed of making her new dance popular with their help. While visiting one of the Moscow cafes, she met with Sergei Yesenin.Isadora was seized with a desire to love, as if with this feeling she wanted to shield herself from the world and forget about the tragic death of her children. It is interesting to compare the opinions of several people about her at once. One of Yesenin's poets and friends A. Mariengof assessed her very skeptically and unfriendly: “Yesenin was captivated not by Isadora Duncan, but by her world fame. He married her glory, and not this - an elderly, heavy, but still beautiful woman with skillfully dyed hair - in a dark crimson color. No less harsh and Gorky's response: in his opinion, it was a lady "elderly, heavy, with a red, ugly face." True, one can see Isadora in a purely feminine and somewhat different way, as A. Miklashevskaya remembered her; the actress of the Chamber Theater, to whom Yesenin dedicated his famous cycle of poems “The Love of a Bully” and who became Isadora's happy rival: “And for the first time I saw Duncan up close: she was a very large woman, well preserved; She impressed me with her unnaturally theatrical appearance.She wore a transparent chiton with gold lace, belted with a gold cord with gold leaves, and on her feet were gold sandals and lace stockings. Not a woman, but some theatrical king. " Probably, Duncan wanted to love not only herself, but also to find love and understanding on the part of Yesenin, to find with him a little personal happiness. In her attitude to Yesenin, one could already feel "the tragic greed of the last feeling," as the poet N. Krandievskaya, the second wife of A. Tolstoy, once remarked. But he and Yesenin were completely different. And the point is not only that Isidora - as Yesenin called her - spoke fluent English, French, German, and Yesenin spoke only Russian, and that they grew up in completely different social and cultural environments. Let us turn again to the words of Mariengof: “Yesenin was loved, Izadora - loving.Yesenin, as an actor, turned his cheek, and she kissed. They had been husband and wife for only a year and a half and parted. After Yesenin's death, Isadora even tried to commit suicide, but she was saved. In 1924 she left the USSR for good. After her departure, the school, which existed until 1949, was directed by the adopted daughter of the ballerina Irma. Many artists have tried to capture Duncan's extraordinary plasticity. Thanks to L. Bakst, the image of her magnificent neck has been preserved. In a dance with V. Nizhinsky, O. Roden tried to capture her, who made many sketches. The tragic death of Isadora in September 1927 is also covered with legends. She loved to wear long transparent shawls that she wrapped around her neck. One day, when she was about to get into the car, the end of the shawl got under the wheel and, tangled in the spokes, squeezed Duncan's throat. Strong tissue fractured the spine and severed the carotid artery. Death came instantly. Although Duncan did not create a professional dance "system, her searches have enriched not only female, but also male dance. The art of the great dancer has influenced contemporary choreographic art, the work of Russian choreographers M. Fokin, A. Gorsky, K. Goleizovsky. Duncan's ideas inspired Fokine to create the so-called “continuous dance.” Isadora Duncan's work is not forgotten in her homeland, America. Bow, the nicknames of the once famous ballerina, among whom were the famous dancers Ruth Saint-Denis Ted Sean, created in memory of Isadora improvisational dance technique.

Isadora Duncan crossed out all the conventions of the classical school, removing pointe shoes from the ballerina and inviting her to feel the energy of the scene with her bare feet. She refused the pack, put on a tunic: the body, not squeezed into a corset, breathes, lives, dances. Classical ballet generates mechanical, artificial movements, a learned combination of poses and movements, even very beautiful and well-adjusted ones, closes the soul. And one must dance with soul and soul. It is the human body that is capable of capturing and transmitting the breath of the wind, the mutiny of the sea waves, the rolling of thunder and the radiance of the sun. Man in dance is the continuation of the existence of nature, in all its grandeur and the smallest manifestations.

Isadora Duncan considered the art of dancing to be widely available. She promoted the development of mass schools, where children, while learning to dance, would learn the beauty of their body movements. She opened such schools in Berlin, Paris, Greece, America. Duncan's search for funds and a place for his life idea led to Russia. Researcher Gordon McVeigh in his work "Sergei Yesenin and Isadora Duncan" quotes from an article by the People's Commissar of Education A. V. Lunacharsky "Our Guest", published in 1921, a month after Isadora arrived in Moscow: "... Duncan's dreams She thinks about a large public school of 500 or 1,000 students, but for now she agrees to start with a small number of children who will receive education through our teachers, but develop physically and aesthetically under her leadership ... Duncan herself, for now that, imbued with a very militant communism, which sometimes causes an involuntary, of course, extremely kind and even, if you will, a tender smile ... Duncan was called the queen of the gesture, but of all her gestures, this last one, a trip to revolutionary Russia, in spite of her fears - the most beautiful and deserves the loudest applause. "Duncan's first performance in Moscow took place on November 7, 1921 on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater on the day of the celebration of the fourth anniversary of the October Revolution. The Duncan School in the USSR worked until 1929. Isadora herself tragically died in 1927, and left Russia in 1924.

The first international symposium dedicated to the work of Isadora Duncan was recently held in the American capital, at the George Washington University. It brought together more than fifty participants, including dancers, choreographers, dance researchers, psychologists and educators from various states of America, as well as specialists from Germany and Russia.It was attended by the Russian researcher of creativity Duncan Elena Yushkova, Ph.D. in art history, author of the book "The Plastic of Overcoming: Brief Notes on the History of Plastic Theater in Russia in the 20th Century".

- At the symposium, it was discussed, - says Elena Yushkova, - is there a dance of Isadora Duncan today, in the XXI century? And if so, what happens to him: has he frozen in some ossified forms or continues to develop? Since the dance was passed only from hand to hand - from female students to female students and only at the end of the 20th century was it recorded on paper using labanotation (a movement recording system invented by the German choreographer Rudolf Laban), what is left of it today? Why is Duncan's dance needed and to whom?

The main ideas of Isadora Duncan were expressed over a century ago and still live on today. First of all, this is the musicality of movement and sensitivity to the smallest nuances of music, movement from the center (which in the human body is located approximately in the solar plexus region), the harmony of all parts of the body in the process of movement, fluid smooth movements that at first glance seem very simple. Even now, there are many myths about the Duncan dance - they were analyzed by dancer and teacher Valerie Dernham, one of the organizers of the symposium. For example, it is believed that it is so simple that everyone can perform it practically without preparation, that Isadora's dances were not "staged", but simply improvised by her on stage, that when she died, her dance died with her ... All professional Duncanists are wonderful understand the absurdity of these statements, they know how difficult it is to master this technique and that the Duncan dance is not just a historical heritage that needs to be preserved, but also a living, modern and still very expressive art form.

Today, new possibilities of Duncan's choreography are opening up. The body and psyche are interconnected, and individual changes in the emotional or mental sphere cause changes in all these areas. Often people with a high degree of bodily stress are not aware of their feelings. Muscle clamp is an unreduced emotion that prevents a person (who often does not realize it) from feeling like a whole person. And if with the help of dance you activate the body, release tension, then they will be freed, which means that the senses will heighten. By improving coordination, achieving harmonious control of the body, it is possible to harmonize the inner emotional world of a person.

As Elena Yushkova noted, that is why the Isadora system is in demand - numerous studios in different US cities do not experience a shortage of students. There are even studios for the disabled, where people with disabilities comprehend Duncan's philosophical choreography in practice and, as one of the participants in the symposium demonstrated on video, they quite successfully practice certain elements of the dance, those that are able to perform for people with limited movement. Sadly, modern children are no less squeezed than they were in Puritan times, although they don't wear corsets today. Nowadays children spend most of their day at computers. This distorts their muscles, the rib cage cannot move normally, the person cannot breathe normally ... should this semi-medical chain continue?

In the process of training according to the Duncan system, children and adolescents gradually begin to release their breath, liberate the body and soon literally blossom. The main advantage of the method is that fluency in the musculoskeletal system becomes a tool for harmonizing the personality. Therefore, we can safely say that education through Duncan's dance is not only aesthetic in nature. " The school in Russia was closed for ideological reasons, as promoting "morbid, decadent art brought to our country from America." Time has corrected this formulation, revealing the truevalue Duncan's creativity - innovation, spiritual purification and the aesthetics of optimism through the harmonious development of personality. Therefore, her dance is in demand today, after a hundred years.

The amazing life of the "divine sandals", marked either by luxury or by poverty, was full of stormy passions and terrible tragedies. She was respected for her skill and talent. They envied her - for the love of the public, independence of behavior, protection of the strong. Her last love with the fair-haired Russian poet played a strange role in the fate of the dancer. This love, closeness to Yesenin's entourage and admiration for the revolution in Russia is remembered more often than the bright creative life of the great dancer Isadora Duncan.

First impressions

When she made the first steps to a simple question from journalists, Isadora invariably answered: "In the womb. Probably under the influence of Aphrodite's food - oysters and champagne." The mother, abandoned by her husband, was in a state of constant irritation and depression. She cared little about the variety of the future baby's diet and strangely quenched her gastronomic addictions - she ate only oysters, drinking them abundantly with ice-cold champagne. The child was born extremely agile and playful. A year later, a favorite family fun appeared - a tiny girl in a vest was put on the center of the table, and she amazingly moved to any melody that was played or hummed to her. Years will fly by, and in the grown Isadora the rare gift of painting feelings with movements will grow stronger. She will never question the thought that is dear to her: the richness of human life depends on the depth of feelings. She trusted this postulate unconditionally, although she constantly became a victim of this "sensual" idea.When emotions, unable to remain at the peak of passion, weakened, the cloudless and happy time ended almost suddenly. A new page of the biography began. All of them, these pages of fate, are filled with an almost mystical ritual meaning.... The first vivid impression of life was a fire when two-year-old Isadora was thrown out of the window of a burning house into the hands of a policeman. The spontaneous movement of bright tongues of flame became a symbol of Duncan's fiery, irrepressible, unrestrained dance ...

The last dance

At the end of her career, one of Isadora's most popular dances was the Scarf Dance. She loved to perform this phantasmagoric dance in the presence of Yesenin. The poet's excited fantasy painted a strange picture: "She is holding a scarf by the tail, and she herself is dancing. And it seems, not a scarf, but a bully in her hands ... The bully hugs her, and shakes her, and strangles her ... And then suddenly - once! - and the scarf is under her feet. She tore it off, trampled it - and the lid! There is no bully, a crumpled rag lying on the floor ... Her heart squeezes. As if I was lying under her feet. Isadora often repeated the dance with the scarf for an encore. So it was at a concert in Nice on September 14, 1927. : On the same day, effectively throwing a fatal scarf around her neck, she freely stretched out on the car seat. Behind the wheel is a young Italian, the last hobby of fifty-year-old Isadora. Smiling, she said: "Goodbye friends, I'm on my way to glory!" These were her last words - her head jerked and hung like a broken puppet. The scarf hit the axle of the wheel of the speeding car and dug into the neck like a noose.

"The dance is free and clean"

Those who have seen Isadora dancing at least once have never forgotten her. A subverter of the foundations of classical dance, she did not doubt that true dance should be born "from the spiritual need to express the inner experiences of a person." Dance and life were synonymous to her. Refusing classical dance education, she always exclaimed: "And how can you teach dancing?" In the American studio Stebbins, where Isadora took her first steps, they taught plastic interpretation of music, the art of open improvisation. An uncomplicated gymnastic complex served as a movement basis.

Duncan has created her own style, free from stereotypes and schools. Her dance expressed the "excitement of the soul" (Rodin). For her, beauty was important, simple and complex, like nature itself. Isadora's movements did not require the most severe, grueling preparation. Duncan's program included the technique of transformation into an image, the ability to make music a symbol for the movements of the soul, and to make expressive gestures picturesque. The artistic result is inherently improvisational; on stage it looks like an intuitive insight. By asserting that the world of feelings is the only important thing, she, of course, was cunning. For she herself was fond of philosophy, studied foreign languages, comprehended German in order to read Schopenhauer and Kant in the original. She drew inspiration for her dance from Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Dance of watercolor purity, impressionistic understatement. The bodily harmony of her movements reached the spiritual content of the music.At first, Duncan was inspired by antiquity - its harmony of forms, beauty of poses, respect for nature. Duncan's stage costume was, in fact, Greek too. She danced in light tunics, appearing on stage barefooted and almost naked: a transparent tunic did not hide the soft lines of her beautiful body. At a time when dancers were wrapped in matte silk leotards, this was an almost revolutionary step.Duncan's body was delicious. Once Archduke Ferdinand, seeing Duncan on the shore in her loose bathing suit - also a tunic made of transparent crepe de Chine with a deep cut and with bare legs (insolence at that time unheard of), whispered: "Oh, how good this Duncan! How wonderfully good!" Spring is not as good as it is ... ".The movements of her dance - a step, an easy run, low jumps, free batman with a leg lift not higher than 45 degrees, expressive poses and gestures, sometimes melodious, sometimes passionate, sometimes gentle, sometimes sharp - reminded of drawings of ancient frescoes and vase paintings. Emotional freedom triumphed in the dance. The movements did not obey any rules. I dance as I feel. The dance needed neither a dramatic plot, nor costumes, nor sets. Only music, light, tunic and performer.Critics wrote enthusiastically about her: "Duncan dances naturally, just like she would dance in a meadow, and with all his dance he fights against the dilapidated forms of the old ballet." "These beautiful raised hands, imitating playing the flute, playing the strings, ... these hands splashing in the air, this long strong neck ... - I wanted to bow to all this with living classical worship!"Portraits and photographs cannot convey the divine melody of Isadora's movements. The most reliable "document" is the reviews: poets. For Isadora's dance is associative and metaphorical. "Isadora Duncan dances everything that other people say, sing, write, play and paint. Music is transformed in her and comes from her" (Maximilian Voloshin). "In her dance, form finally overcomes the inertia of matter, and every movement of her body is the embodiment of a spiritual act" (Sergei Soloviev). ": She is about the unspeakable. There was dawn in her smile. The scent of a green meadow in her body movements. The folds from the tunic, like a murmur, beat in foamy streams when she gave herself up to a free and pure dance" (Andrey Bely). A portrait of Isadora was placed in the central place of Blok's study ...

"Dance and Love is my life"

Dance is the first and main passion of her life: Love is the second, worthy rival of dance in terms of the power of passion. She was called the courtesan of the twentieth century. She painfully anticipated love, anticipated it, patiently waited. From the youngest, crystal-clear girlish years. 1902 year. Budapest. One of the first concerts of Isadora. Early spring. The air is filled with fragrant aromas of blossoming flowers. Ovation after concerts, carefree people around, warm languor of awakened nature - "everything awakened the consciousness that my body is not only an instrument that expresses the sacred harmony of music." The young actor Oscar Berezhi felt this awakening passion of the young dancer. They escaped from the hotel into the world of her first passion.After going through this hobby, she will say that there is nothing higher than love and passion. And he will deliver a verdict - marriage is impossible, because it is an institution of "enslavement" of a woman. Only free love. She will change her conviction only once, registering her marriage with Yesenin in the Soviet registry office.After the Budapest novel that flashed like lightning, Isadora comprehended dance even more inspired, "reading" the music of Richard Wagner plastically. Another adventure is connected with Bayrett, the Wagner region, where she came at the invitation of the composer's widow. One night, looking out of the hotel window, she saw a short man under a tree. It was a German art historian, Heinrich Tode, who was passionately in love with a young dancer.Throwing on her coat, Isadora ran out into the street and brought Henry to her place. "Me: an unearthly gust enveloped me, as if I were floating on the clouds. Tode bent down to me, kissing my eyes and forehead. But these kisses were not kisses of earthly passion.: Neither this night, which he spent with me, nor in subsequent to me with earthly lust. He conquered me with one radiant gaze, from which everything seemed to blur, and my spirit rushed to the mountain heights on light wings. But I did not want anything earthly. My feelings, which had been dormant for two years, now poured into spiritual ecstasy ". To combine bodily joy and spiritual passion - so Duncan dreamed of earthly love - she never had to. Each novel ended in pain: This turned out to be the end of the relationship with Tode.

First meeting with Russia

1904 year. Tour of Russia. Endless snowy plains, frosty air, long Russian feasts, the heat of the Russian bath: "Snow, Russian food, and especially caviar, cured me of the exhaustion caused by spiritual love to Toda, and my whole being longed for communication with a strong personality that stood in front of me in Stanislavsky's face ". He is fascinated by the dance of Duncan, often comes to her backstage. He is amazed that "in different parts of the world, due to conditions unknown to us, different people are looking for the same natural principles of creativity in different spheres of art:" In a strange American woman, he sensed an artist of the same blood. The theater reformer, Konstantin Sergeevich turned out to be very conservative in the relationship of love. One evening, looking at his noble, handsome figure, broad shoulders, black hair slightly silvery at the temples, Isadora wrapped her arms around his strong neck, pulled her head and kissed him on the lips. He gently returned the kiss to her, but his face was filled with utter amazement. Then she tried to draw him closer to her, he staggered back and shouted: "But what are we going to do with the child ?!" "What kind of child?" Isadora asked. "Ours, of course. What will we do with him? I will never agree to have my child raised on the side ...".The child was still too far away, and Isadora laughed out loud. Stanislavsky turned away in confusion and hastened to leave. "All night, waking up, I could not help laughing, but, laughing, I was beside myself with anger." The novel did not take place.And after Isadora's departure, the music of Chopin and Schumann sounded on the Russian ballet stage; the heroes of the ballets by Mikhail Fokine, Alexander Gorsky and, a little later, Kasyan Goleizovsky seemed to be leaving the frontal Greek bas-reliefs; ballerinas began to lighten their costumes, and sometimes even parted with steel pointe shoes ...

Motherhood

Isadora, Deirdre and Patrick, 1913

Another great reformer filmmaker became the father of her beautiful and long-awaited daughter. Gordon Craig was the master of theatrical thoughts. His experiments with theatrical space were inspired by the mythopoetics of Shakespeare's space, and the idea of \u200b\u200bthe "superplasticity" of an actor dissolving himself in the theater space was a paraphrase of Isadora's own thoughts. In 1904, after one of the Berlin performances, an angry man burst into Isadora's dressing room. "You are amazing!" He exclaimed. "Unusual! But you stole my ideas. And where did you get my set?" "What are you talking about ?! These are my own blue curtains! I invented them at the age of five and have been dancing against their background ever since!" Isadora replied. "No! These are my decorations and my ideas. But you are the creature that I represented among them. You are the living embodiment of my dreams." So this romance began:"There weren't two of us, we merged into one whole, into two halves of one soul." But after the first weeks of intoxication with passion, the clarification of family functions began. Craig wanted to see Isadora at home, peacefully leading the household and helping her husband in his work. Is it worth writing that it was impossible? The union, undermined by "creative quarrels", a little later and jealousy, fell apart pretty quickly.Isadora gave birth to a girl whose father invented a poetic Irish name - Deirdre. "Oh, women, why do we need to learn to be lawyers, painters and sculptors when there is such a miracle? Finally I learned this tremendous love that exceeds the love of a man ... I felt like a god, higher than any artist."

Paris was shocked by Isadora's tragedy and her courage. No one saw her tears.

At the end of the first decade of the new century, Duncan created a delightful miniature "Musical Moment", which enjoyed continued success. On her second tour in Russia, she invariably encased this dance at least six times, each dancing differently. The "musical moment" absorbed the happiness of motherhood and another light love affair. Isadora was overwhelmed by the desire to create a dance school in order to educate children in the spirit of Hellenistic beauty, and later - the pupils themselves would introduce many others to the beautiful. And life on earth will be transformed beyond recognition - that's what the idealist Isadora thought. She opened a school, but there were not enough funds to support it. "I have to find a millionaire! I have to keep the school." The desire came true - the dancer met Paris Eugene Singer, the son of a famous sewing machine manufacturer, one of the richest people in Europe.Singer offered to cover the cost of running Duncan's school so that she could safely create new dances. Singer presented magnificent gifts. Perhaps for the first time Isadora could not think about money. Receptions, masquerades, expensive dinners on wonderful travels. Son Patrick was the most expensive gift. She again held the baby in her arms. "Only instead of a white house shaking from the wind there was a luxurious palace, and instead of the gloomy restless North Sea - a blue Mediterranean one."At one of the costume balls in the studio of the Parisian house, Singer was jealous of Isadora. A stormy showdown ended with his departure to Egypt and the refusal to build a theater for Isadora.

Tragedy

Another trip to Russia is fraught with a premonition of tragedy. She is haunted by mystical nightmares - in the outlines of snowdrifts she sees the outlines of two coffins, at night she clearly hears Chopin's "Funeral March". She hysterically improvises to the sounds of this march on stage, without preparation or rehearsal. Believing her intuition, she falls into a deep depression. Returning to Paris, she left with the children for Versailles on vacation. Singer, returning from his travels, invited her with the children to lunch in the city. Fears leave Isadora - she is happy again. They are happy to meet, full of dreams of a bright future. Nearby are children: three-year-old Patrick and six-year-old Deirdre - they look like angels. And life is approaching idyll. After lunch Singer went about his business, Deirdre, Patrick and the governess drove back to Versailles, and Isadora went to rehearsal in her atelier."Art, success, wealth, love and, most importantly, adorable children," Isadora thought to herself, smiling, preparing for the rehearsal, and suddenly she heard an inhuman cry. She turned around. Singer stood in the doorway, swaying like a drunk. Falling on his knees in front of her, he groaned: "Children ... children ... are dead!" The car with the governess and children stalled. The driver went out to check the engine. Suddenly the car began to roll backwards towards the Seine. The driver rushed to the door, but could not open it, the handle got jammed, the car tilted and slid into the river. When the car was finally pulled out of the river, the passengers were dead.Could there be more grief than the death of children? Upon learning of the tragedy, Isadora did not cry; she fell into prostration. A state of feverish excitement did not leave her in the crematorium, when three coffins were burned before her eyes. She supported Singer, who fell ill immediately after the tragedy, interceded for the driver, who was detained by the police. "He is a father and I need to know that he is back in the family."Paris was shocked by Isadora's tragedy and her courage. No one saw her tears. "When I was returning to my atelier, I firmly decided to end my life. How could I stay to live, having lost my children? And only the words of the little students surrounding me:" Isadora, live for us. Are we not your children? "Gave me back the desire to satisfy the sadness of these children, who wept over the loss of Deirdre and Patrick." Until the end of her life, she subconsciously believed that the students saved her, and the creation of schools, the upbringing of female students became almost an obsession.She tried not to talk to anyone about children. But their images haunted her constantly. Once she saw them in the waves of the sea, she rushed to meet them, but the children disappeared into the water spray. Frightened that she was going mad, Isadora fell to the ground and screamed loudly. And then someone touched her head. A young man bowed before her: "Can I help you with something?" - he asked. Desperate, Isadora replied, "Yes, save me. Give me a child." Their relationship was short-lived: the young Italian was engaged. She believed that the new child would be one of the lost children back in her arms.Hearing her son's cry, Isadora almost choked with happiness. She again holds her own child in her arms! This happiness was short-lived: a few hours later the boy died. "It seems to me that at that moment I experienced the greatest suffering that can be assigned to a person on earth, since in this death it was as if the death of the first two children was repeated, the old torments were repeated and new ones were added to them."

"... to the light source"

Duncan's true passion was not only dance, but also the desire to teach him to people. Of course, children are the most receptive to the art of small creatures who have not yet gone far from nature, sincerely believing that running and jumping is much easier than just walking. The craving for dance pedagogy has been living in Duncan since childhood. Anyway, as a "thin and strange child" at the age of ten, she and her sister organized their own school, where "teachers" "taught what was called" secular dances. "Throughout her life, there will be a chain of studios brought to life by her "disgust" for the theater with its elves, dressed in long tunics "of white and gold gauze with two tinsel wings." The desire to create her own school was unrestrained, but the end of her beginnings was always predetermined - a complete financial collapse. She opened schools in Germany, France, America and, as a rule, they did not exist for long."My ideas of the dance were to depict the feelings and emotions of a person," the goal of the lesson was to "lead the child's soul to the source of light." The super task is to educate a new harmonious person of the future by means of dance and music. How can this be achieved? "Teach your child to raise his hands to the sky so that in this movement he comprehends the infinity of the Universe, its harmony and perfection." Instill in the kid faith in the miracles of the surrounding endless movement and then tell him: "Since you are the most perfect in the kingdom of nature, then your movements should include all the beauty of nature, but beyond that, the beauty of your human mind and your understanding of the beautiful ...".In the fall of 1921, an announcement was placed in "Workers' Moscow" for the opening of "Isadora Duncan's school for children of both sexes between the ages of 4 and 10". It was pointed out that "preference for admission is given to the children of workers." Children (initially there were more than a hundred) went to school every day for preliminary classes. Later their number was reduced to forty. This was the maximum that could be fed and warmed in the hungry and cold Moscow of the twenties. Duncan sent a telegram to her American impresario: "Can you organize my performances with the participation of my student Irma, twenty adorable Russian children and my husband, the famous Russian poet Sergei Yesenin." However, these first foreign tours of the Moscow studio did not take place due to the fact that the American authorities refused visas to students at the school, and subsequently deprived Duncan of American citizenship "for Soviet propaganda" and loyalty to revolutionary ideas.After Duncan's departure, the school in an old mansion on Prechistenka was run by her adopted daughter and devoted student Irma Duncan and the studio's director-administrator Ilya Schneider.