The Body Speaks- Part III
There are two classes of dancing, sacred and the profane. By profane, I do not mean sinful, but simply that dancing which expresses the physical being and the joy of the senses, whereas sacred dancing expresses the aspiration of the spirit to transform itself into a higher sphere than the terrestrial. Very little is known of the magic which resides in movement, and the potency of certain gestures. —Isadora Duncan
Isadora’s mother spoke of her fourth child’s entrance into the world as “furiously agitating her arms and legs.” With that kind of energy at birth she was certainly destined for revolutionary work. Isadora Duncan’s (1877-1927) poverty was her strength. Her disdain for just about everything around her that was conventional from dance training and public education to religion and economics made her unstoppable— rooted as she was in a vision of freedom from the norm.
At six she gathered the neighborhood children in her house teaching them rhythmic movements with their arms and legs. Her mother joined in her daughter’s explorations by playing the piano. The lack of structure through following physical natural movement created the plasticity and naturalness that were emblematic of her unique style and which numerous archival photos exhibit of her gentle, flowing style. She was not fond of the structures of theatres, “but dreamed of a more complete dance expression on the part of the audience, at a theatre in the form of an amphitheater, where there would be no reason why, at certain times, the public should not arise and by different gestures of dance, participate in my invocation.”
Duncan describes the truly innovative and creative dancers as those
who convert the body into a luminous fluidity, surrendering it to the inspiration of the soul, who understands that the body by the force of the soul, can be converted to a luminous liquid. When, in its divine power, it completely possesses the body, it converts that into a luminous moving cloud, and thus can manifest itself in the whole of its divinity…
One of the many things I appreciated about Isadora Duncan in my early years of dance training was her attire. In fact as her schools evolved the dancers were often clad in loose fitting tunics and seen practicing with colorful scarves floating behind them at a beach or other places in nature. I remember a brief time when at my dance studio, we wore tunics to class. It was probably a protest against leotards and tights, but, it may have been that the soft material of tunics flowed and moved as we did, and that those beautiful pastel colors of blues, pinks, and soft shades of yellow appealed to our childlike spirits and were reminders of a piece of choreography we really enjoyed—minus the pointe shoes.
Anyway, as a collective those tunics became our official dance uniform to the amusement of our teacher. We had a collection of them, in colors unique to our personalities and even participated in Saturday afternoon sewing sessions. Yes, they were handmade! Ah, those were the days.
With all of her creative expression, Duncan’s life was not without tragedy. And perhaps the deaths of her two children Diedre and Patrick, who died in a freak accident and drowned with their nurse while she was rehearsing in France left her the most bereaved. Not surprisingly she dropped into a deep morass and immersed in her grief, she would spend hours staring at the walls of her home; all the more haunting because of a premonition of the deaths two months earlier. Nearly a year passed before she was able to dance and choreograph again. From there until her death, her creative works expressed a profound, mystical, and even more deeply soulful searching for the divine feminine. Three works arose from the tragedy, “Mother,” “Cherubim”, and “Ave Maria.”
The latter piece performed to Franz Schubert’s “Ave Maria” was also the hymn sung during the funeral procession where Duncan writes of walking with stately elegance though deeply wounded and broken -hearted. She was more concerned about the those following her and wondered of the tearful outpourings of her friends and colleagues, while she carried her sadness in her heart. In a letter to her students after that sorrowful event she spoke of the solace that dance eventually provided her and encouraged them to—
]D]ance only that music which goes from the soul in mounting circles.
Isadora Duncan was an avid reader, student of philosophy, metaphysics, Eastern mysticism and yoga. She was also an afficionado of fine music and must have surely known the impact of Franz Schubert’s “Ave Maria” on her viewers. The significance in her selection of Schubert’s music for her dance cannot be underestimated. The musical structure of Franz Schubert’s “Ave Maria” is set in the key of B-flat minor in a slow and lyrical tempo evoking utter awe and enduring reverence. The melody at the beginning of the piece consists of descending tones creating a sense of melancholy and accentuated by a “flattened supertonic chord,” adding a sense of tension.
With Duncan’s acute perception of musicality and innate alignment of body and soul, she would have also been aware of the emotional intensity of the music for inspiring beauty, awe, and mystery. As she rehearsed the piece over and over, allowing the music to settle into the very cells of her being—in preparation for performances—Duncan was not only the recipient of the healing qualities of Schubert’s music but, became an agent of healing for her audiences.
I would have liked to have known Isadora Duncan. For she rose against the status quo of her time that relegated women to certain roles, behaviors, and prescribed definitions. All of which she resisted with courage and pure artistic genius. From birth, a rebel at heart, Isadora Duncan was definitely her own person and ignored those resistant to her causes whether it was a new vision for dance training or presenting the spirituality of dance on stage.
So, it is no surprise that nearly 100 years after her bodily presence on this planet I find inspiration for my own work in her writings and archival photographs. And perhaps, in what ever way it is possible she is my guiding light along with Higher sources for my own artistic endeavors, for I believe as she did—
I am seeking that dance which might be the divine expression of the human spirit through the medium of the body’s movement.