Today I needed a little injection of beauty into my world. There’s no better excuse to share a Dance Quote from lovely Isadora Duncan:
“The dancer’s body is simply the luminous manifestation of the soul.
The true dance is an expression of serenity;
it is controlled by the profound rhythm of inner emotion.
Emotion does not reach the moment of frenzy out of a spurt of action;
it broods first, it sleeps like the life in the seed,
and it unfolds with a gentle slowness.
The Greeks understood the continuing beauty of a movement
that mounted, that spread, that ended with a promise of rebirth.” Isadora Duncan
To accompany the poetry (that’s always what her quotes sound like to me), I found a fantastic video of the Isadora Duncan Dance Group performing in Bologna in 1997. These are just snippets, but you get to see choreographed pieces from Isadora herself, including “The Butterfly”, “The Furies” and “The Revolutionary”.
I attempted to find the group’s website to no avail (even tried to find an archived page). If you know where this group’s webpage has gone to, let me know!
When I found the video I posted yesterday, I had no idea what it was an actual excerpt of. I did a bit more digging and found out that Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan was actually a ballet choreographed by Frederick Ashton (Founder Choreographer of The Royal Ballet in London). He saw Isadora perform himself when he was on holiday with his family. He was only 17 years old. She made such an impression on him (even at 44 and admittedly past her prime) that he knew he was witnessing something special and went back again and again to see her.
He carried his memories of Isadora with him until 1976 when he created Five Waltzes for the Rambert Dance Company and starred ballerina Lynn Seymour.
Since then it has been recreated in the 80′s and in 2004. I found an introduction to the first video, with interviews of Lynn Seymour as she rehearses the latest ballerina to recreate her role, Tamara Rojo. She speaks a lot about what Frederick saw in Isadora Duncan and what inspired both him and her. Really a lovely clip. Enjoy!
I found this fantastic video of an Isador Duncan style-dance and thought it would go perfectly with this luscious quote of hers:
“Every movement that can be danced on the seashore
without being in harmony with the rhythm of the waves,
every movement that can be danced in the forest
without being in harmony with the swaying of the branches,
every movement that one can dance… in the sunshine,
in the open country, without being in harmony with the life
and the solitude of the landscape – every such movement is false,
in that it is out of tune in the midst of nature’s harmonious lines.
That is why the dancer should above all else choose movements
that express the strength, health, nobility, ease and serenity of living things.” Isadora Duncan
I love the idea that to dance is to be in harmony with the land, the sea, the air and the fabric of life around us. Dance is living and dance is life.
Isn’t Tamara Rojo gorgeous? Just look at the expression on her face, her joy, her FEET!! More on her later…
More from my muse, the ever-lovely Miss Isadora Duncan:
If we seek the real source of the dance, if we go to nature,
we find that the dance of the future is the dance of the past,
the dance of eternity, and has been and always will be the same…
The movement of waves, of winds, of the earth
is ever the same lasting harmony.” Isadora Duncan
Reads like a poem, doesn’t it? I like the idea of dance being part of the earth, of the universe, like it has been and always will exist. Hmmm…very nice. ;o)
Doing some more studying the lovely Isadora Duncan, I discovered something new for myself. Isadora actually brought dance into the 20th century as true, pure, high-art form. Until that time, dance was either done in toe shoes, restricted in movement by technique, or on a vaudeville stage (or even possibly bar room).
“I have discovered the dance. I have discovered the art which has been lost for two thousand years.”Isadora Duncan
In 1909 Isadora moved to Paris and started a dance school where the mode was to dance barefoot with loose hair and dress in flowing scarves and Grecian-like tunics. She brought actual primitive, improvisational dance to the forefront–countering rigid ballet styles that she found to be “ugly and against nature.”
At the core of her technique was using the solar plexus and the torso (we would say “center” or “core” these days) as the point where all the body’s movements to come from. With this basic idea Isadora is said to have invented what is known as “Modern Dance.”
“Dance is the movement of the universe concentrated in an individual.” Isadora Duncan
Through her dance she demonstrated her defiance of the time and expressed her thought, opinions and feelings with poetic imagination and enthusiastic humor. Isadora sought not only to raise dance to a sacred art form, but to find poetry and beauty in everyday movement and life.
As a dancer who does a lot of improvisation and what I call “dancing from the heart,” I thank Isadora for her gift.
