The Legacy of Isadora Duncan Through Her Schools
By Lori Belilove

Isadora Duncan founded her first school of the dance in 1904 in Grunwald, Germany. There she developed her principle of using motions familiar to all races and all cultures, such as walking, running, skipping, jumping, kneeling, reclining and rising. Teaching with the inspiration of the Greek ideal, Isadora expressed a theory of continuous movement that mounted, that spread, and that ended in a promise of rebirth.

From the initial group of students from her school, six young dancers (fondly called "The Isadorables") were chosen to tour under the leadership of Isadora.

Isadora Duncan with her six adopted daughters, who toured and performed with her throughout the world.

The existence of Isadora's dances lies in the transmission of the choreographies from one dancer to another in an unbroken line of generations of Duncan dancers.

Within her dream of unfettered, wide-ranging expressionism, Isadora say America dancing "standing with one foot poised on the highest point of the Rockies, her two hands stretched out from the Atlantic to the Pacific, her fine head tossed to the sky, her forehead shining with a crown of a million stars." (re Walt Whitman)

As a pioneer of American modern dance, Isadora created a cultural phenonemon which not only changed the character of traditional ballet but focused attention to poignant political and social statements insisting that the role of the Arts be a reflection of our times.