CriticalDance Forum

<B>A life less ordinary</B> <BR>Louisa Young in The Guardian salutes the fabulous Isadora Duncan - dancer, mother and voracious lover<P><BR>Isadora Duncan said that if she could describe what she was doing, she wouldn't need to do it: "One explains the dance better by dancing." She also refused to be filmed, saying that she preferred to be remembered as a legend. "My art is an expression of life," she said. "My dancing is of the imagination and spirit, not of the body." <P>Which is all very well, but it makes it mighty hard, a hundred years after she first reduced Europe and the world to tears of adoration with her dancing, to understand what it was all about. This was a woman who, wearing a little tunic, would dance to Chopin played on a piano and earn herself standing ovations, stages awash with flowers, and the devotion of millionaires who would fight to buy her champagne, dinner or a small theatre of her own. <P><A HREF="http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4349098,00.html" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A><P>Here's the link to our main topic about the new biography:<BR> <A HREF="http://216.97.99.198/ubb/Forum11/HTML/000782.html" TARGET=_blank>http://216.97.99.198/ubb/Forum11/HTML/000782.html</A>

<B> Face the music and dance Step beyond the legend of a female Casanova, and you stumble into a vale of sorrows. Susanna Rustin considers the astonishing life and legacy of a barefoot pioneer </B><BR>Financial Times<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>ISADORA: The Sensational Life Isadora Duncan by Peter Kurth Little, Brown Pounds 25 / Dollars 29.95 652 pages<P>Step beyond the legend of a female Casanova, and you stumble into a vale of sorrows. Susanna Rustin considers the astonishing life and legacy of a barefoot pioneer<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/article.html?id=020209001877&query=dance" TARGET=_blank><B>more...</B></A><BR>

<B>ISADORA: THE SENSATIONAL LIFE OF ISADORA DUNCAN</B><BR> Peter Kurth Little, Brown, pounds 25, 652pp <BR>The Independent - United Kingdom; Feb 16, 2002<BR>BY RICHARD CANNING<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Born in 1877 in San Francisco, Isadora Duncan led an uncharmed but exemplary life. In 50 years, she saw and did as much as any of her artistic peers. Her triumphs and discontents resonated across four continents, and she settled in New York, Athens, Paris, London, Berlin and Moscow.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/article.html?id=020216001383&query=dance" TARGET=_blank><B>more...</B></A>

<B>ISADORA</B><BR>By Peter Kurth for Little Brown, £25 **** <BR> <P>AT the start of the 20th century Isadora Duncan was the most famous dancer on earth. Legends even arose about the healing power of her performances, and audiences were thronged with people in wheelchairs and lying on stretchers. But at the start of the 21st century, if she’s remembered at all, it’s for her gruesomely dramatic death. What’s lost is any record of Isadora in motion. If, like myself, you’ve seen Karel Reisz’s 1968 film Isodora, starring Vanessa Redgrave, you have a vague notion. Mostly I remember Redgrave baring her breasts to the punters. <P><A HREF="http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=233562002&rware=MVSDQNEERYJW&CQ_CUR_DOCUMENT=1" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A>

Living Istria
The Croatian resort of Opatija once played host to the likes of Isadora Duncan. Now, it's back in fashion as an affordable summer retreat. Bob Maddams reports for The Guardian

Isadora Duncan's performances on stage were legendary. So, too, was the dancer's reputation for taking young lovers, and one of the places where she used to entertain them was the resort of Opatija (pronounced Oh-pat-ee-ya), which lies on the northern coast of Croatia, on the Istrian peninsular.

At the turn of the century, Opatija established itself as the high-class retreat of numerous crowned heads of Europe, plus the likes of Mahler and Chekov. But even in such dazzling company, no-one's star shone brighter than Isadora's. She was the undisputed It girl of her day.

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