American Dancer and Teacher
1877 – 1927 A.D.
Isadora Duncan, an American dancer and teacher, born in San Francisco. She revived Greek dances in New York, later in Paris and other European capitals, and was the first to introduce the barefoot dance in simple free draperies – the antithesis of ballet and toe dancing. Her dances interpretative of Beethoven, Gluck and Chopin, were greatly admired, and brought back a beautiful spirit of the dance that had been forgotten. Her temporary retirement in 1913 was caused by a sad accident – her two children were carried by a runaway motor car over the Seine embankment in Paris, and drowned.
She then devoted herself to training young girls in her art, and in 1918 – 1919 the Isadora Dancers, composed of six maidens, appeared at Carnegie Hall in New York. The purity, grace, and poetic charm of these young dancers, were a fitting tribute to the genius of their teacher.
Reference: Famous Women; An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women By Joseph Adelman. Copyright, 1926 by Ellis M. Lonow Company.