<P><B>ISADORA: A Sensational Life</B> by Peter Kurth<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Always dazzling, always fabulous, Isadora Duncan was the personification of flair, and she was anything but ordinary. Her scandalous behavior, protofeminism, global celebrity, revolutionary politics, and artistic groundbreaking all feel quite modern, yet her public life was played out<BR>between the Mauve Decade and the Roaring Twenties. Never before has Isadora Duncan's life been so thoroughly explored. Acclaimed biographer Peter Kurth recounts this sensational life filled with lavish love affairs, artistic zeal, marvelous performances, and personal tragedies.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>More about <A HREF="http://www.twbookmark.com/books/30/0316507261/index.html" TARGET=_blank><B>ISADORA</B></A> <P>Read the <A HREF="http://www.twbookmark.com/books/30/0316507261/chapter_excerpt13693.html" TARGET=_blank><B>first chapter</B></A><P>

Peter Kurth in Salon.com:<P><A HREF="http://www.salon.com/people/conv/2001/11/12/kurth/" TARGET=_blank>A conversation with Peter Kurth</A><BR>The author of the new biography of Isadora Duncan discusses the legendary dancer whose short life was a whirlwind of art, stormy love affairs and tragedy. <BR>By Amy Standen<P><A HREF="http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2001/11/12/dancing/" TARGET=_blank>Dancing in the dark</A><BR>I was racing against death when I signed up to write Isadora Duncan's biography -- and winning wouldn't even be my strangest adventure along the way. <BR>By Peter Kurth

A review from the NY Times:<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Art in Earnest: The (Self) Importance of Being Isadora<P>TERRY TEACHOUT, NY Times<P>WHATEVER her other virtues, Isadora Duncan was not exactly the sort of person to whom one would have relished telling a joke. Peter Kurth's new biography, "Isadora: A Sensational Life" (Little, Brown), leaves little doubt that the mother of modern dance found few things amusing, least of all herself. "You must all forgive me if I seem somewhat egotistical," she once proclaimed, presumably with a straight face, "but my Life is so tightly bound up with my Art, it is so much one and the same, that I must always refer to it."<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><a href=http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/16/arts/dance/16TEAC.html target=_blank>More</a>

Another review:<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Author reveals the uncommon 'Isadora'<P>Anita Amirrezvani, SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS<P>Isadora Duncan, the great early pioneer of modern dance, was one of those fortunate people who live their lives doing exactly as they wish. A half-century before the sexual revolution of the 1970s, Duncan enjoyed dozens of lovers, bore three children without being married and rejected conventional ideas about the female body and the nature of movement. Through her rebellions, she helped pave the way for a new art form: modern dance.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><a href=http://www.contracostatimes.com/timeout/perform/stories/x30isadora_20011230.htm target=_blank>More</a>

Another review in the NY Times:<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Details From the Life of a Revered Dancer<P>JENNIFER DUNNING, NY Times<P>Does the world need another biography of Isadora Duncan? More tales of drunken promiscuity, blowsy dancing and melodramatic catastrophes? The unpromising title of Peter Kurth's new biography feeds into that Isadora fatigue. And that is a pity. Mr. Kurth has done exhaustive research, some of it in previously little-known archives. But he has absorbed the material, like a dancer lodging choreography in muscle memory, and distilled the considerable detail into an immensely readable and poignant evocation of Duncan's tumultuous life.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><a href=http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/01/books/review/01DUNN.html target=_blank>More</a>

<B>Modern Muse</B><BR>'Isadora: A Sensational Life' by Peter Kurth, Little, Brown. 652 pp. $29.95. Reviewed by Tim Page for the Washington Post.<P><BR>The lives of certain artists inspire popular legends that have little or no relation to any concomitant general understanding of their work. How many of Arthur Rimbaud's admirers never crack A Season in Hell yet are drawn to the tale of the rude, brilliant boy who lived on absinthe and opium, scandalized Paris with his amours and -- oh, by the way -- revolutionized French poetry, all before disappearing into a mysterious Abyssinian limbo? How many people watch the films of Alla Nazimova, read the novels of Gertrude Stein or listen to the music of John Cage nowadays? And yet these figures continue to fascinate, for their personal mystique is very much alive.<P>Isadora Duncan is an ideal example of the Artist as Legend, for she can be almost anything we want her to be. <P><A HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59660-2002Jan3.html" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A><P><BR>Here is the link to a <A HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/isadora.htm" TARGET=_blank><B>section from the book</B></A>.

<B>ISADORA: A Sensational Life</B><BR>Peter Kurth, Little, Brown & Company, Biography, ISBN: 0316507261<BR>Reviewed by Rob Cline for bookreporter.com<BR> <P>The early 20th century saw a flurry of revolutionary changes across the arts. Seminal figures arose, for example, in painting (Picasso), sculpture (Rodin), literature (Proust), and music (Stravinsky). In the world of dance, the leader of the revolution was Isadora Duncan.<P>Eschewing the techniques and constraints of classical ballet, Isadora almost single–handedly ushered in a new method of dancing, drawing her inspiration from deep inside herself as she sought a dance based in natural movement and grounded in her conception of Greek performances. <P><A HREF="http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/0316507261.asp" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A>

Deirdre Kelly - Globe & Mail, 01.12.02:<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><B>Delicious dance tales</B><P>Peter Kurth's Isadora: A Sensational Life,the first definitive biography written of the woman who did for movement what Picasso did for visual art, presents an image of her as a kind of forgiving, albeit earthy, Madonna. Meticulously researched, exhaustively detailed, intelligently and bouncingly written, with an eye to the larger social and historical trends that enabled a genius like Isadora to make such an explosive impact on the development of 20th-century art, Kurth quotes source after source who saw her as the reincarnation of the Great Mother figure.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>To read more search <B>Deirdre Kelly</B> on the <A HREF="http://www.globeandmail.com" TARGET=_blank>Globe & Mail's</A> 7 Day Search

<font size=1>Originally posted by Joanne on 01-27-2002 01:55 AM</font><P>Review of a new book on Isadora Duncan in The Observer.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>'Isadora Duncan is the greatest woman I have ever known,' Auguste Rodin declared. 'Sometimes I think she is the greatest woman the world has ever known.' Artists, writers and otherwise perfectly sane people have shared his enthusiasm. Yet anyone who has seen a grossly self-indulgent performer persist beyond her (or his) prime would be more inclined to trust George Balanchine's youthful memory of Duncan as a 'drunk fat woman who for hours was rolling around like a pig'.<P><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.observer.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,639897,00.html" TARGET=_blank> <B> MORE </B> </A>

Six members received a copy of ISADORA in celebration of our 1000 registered member. I have yet to read the book myself, but maybe some of you will share your impressions with us when you have a minute?