NJ Star-Ledger
January 24, 2003

Isadora... No Apologies
By ROBERT JOHNSON


What: Isadora...No Apologies
Where: The Duke on 42nd Street, 229 West 42nd Street, New York
When: 8 p.m. January 29 through February 1; with matinees at 2 p.m. February 2
How Much: Tickets are $25. Call (212) 239-6200

NEW YORK—The dances of Isadora Duncan are fleeting things. They look so delicate and spontaneous that it seems a miracle they have endured for a hundred years.

Duncan lived a life of exceptional substance, however. She preached free love, and the liberation of the female body in an era of grinding constraint; wrote inspirational tracts; and is credited with inventing modern dance. She chose to inhabit a lofty plane, where philosophy, art, and a spiritual approach to sex all came together; and she experienced exaltation, and tragedy.

“Isadora...No Apologies,” a wondrous piece of dance-theater that opened Wednesday at the Duke on 42nd Street, pays homage to the Duncan legend, and shows the dances into which she poured her thought, and energy. Yet paradoxically this show reconciles mind and body by dividing the choreographer in two.

Lori Belilove, a renowned interpreter of Duncan’s repertoire, performs her dances, matching their moods to episodes from the dancer's life. Trading places with Belilove, actress Hope Garland recalls Duncan's lapidary pronouncements amid text by Andrew Frank, who also directs the show. While Belilove flutters, reclines voluptuously, and emotes, Garland stakes out the moral high ground.

Actor Daryl Boling serves as a prop, impersonating a series of men from an incredulous director who ejects Duncan from vaudeville to the dancer’s three, principle lovers: stage designer Edward Gordon Craig, millionaire Paris Singer, and the Russian poet Sergei Esenin. Voice-overs deliver news reports, and supply additional characters as needed. Women and children from the Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation, which Belilove directs, help fill out the story.

A longtime student of Duncan’s method, Belilove has become increasingly refined, to the point where she is now practically transparent. In this regard, she does not resemble the fleshier Isadora, as much as she captures her spirit.

Each of Belilove’s gestures is exquisite, yet appears casual. In the dance “Narcissus,” to Chopin, her hands move so softly that they seem hardly able to displace the air; her steps appear too light to leave an imprint. Her expression is ravishing. Belilove’s emotional vitality makes hefty dances, like “Marche Heroique,” almost as convincing.

Meanwhile, Garland intones Duncan’s ringing principles: “The dance of the future is the measure of our personal freedom,” she declares. “I am against marriage, and for the emancipation of women!”

The play is sketchy, of necessity, presenting only the highlights. We hear of Duncan’s triumph in Budapest; her passion for Craig; and her grief over the death of her children. At times it seems “Isadora...No Apologies” is too slight a vehicle to embrace Duncan’s magnificence. Yet Belilove’s gorgeous dancing, and even a sample of Duncan's generous idealism ensure that audience members will emerge from the theater feeling uplifted, as this courageous dancer would have wished.