Modern dance is the term used for the 20th-century theatrical dance movement. The movement was started by American dancer Isadora Duncan in a rebellion against ballet, which she felt was too constricting. Duncan based her dance technique and style on the Greeks. She identified with their ideals of human form and beauty. Although her way of dance was originally met with strong opposition, her ideas later came into wide favor. In the video https://www. youtube. com/watch? v=mKtQWU2ifOs time 26 to 35 seconds you see her dance so wide and freely.
In between those times you see her act so reely and at all time her chest is lifted, the weighted power of her arms and legs, the precise and expressive use of music. Her face and movements shows that it is almost childlike. When she dances as you see in the video, she reminds me of a young free child dancing in joy. Through her movements in my thoughts it is as if she is saying “I am free and I can do and be whatever I desire”. You can tell that her movements are not what you expect from a ballet. From Isadora, you do not know her next moves for she moves her arms and legs from the soul.
She shows passion and her heart warming moves that show that ou do not have to practice consistent on a dance. She shows through her body language that it can be anything that dance is not a routine. Isadora’s aim was to strip ballet of all rules and regulations to express in movement the essence of life rather than to tell a story through character or situation. “Isadora Duncan did not like ballet. She said that ballet dancers had too many rules to follow about how they should stand and bend and move. She said ballet was “ugly and against nature.
She wanted her “modern” dance style to be free and natural. Isadora liked to move her arms and legs in very smooth otions. She said this was like waves in the ocean, or trees swaying in the wind (VOA)”. Duncan decided she was going to break the rules and decided to make all changes in dance from set choreography to even the clothing they would wear. She made huge changes and even impacted the world by not using ballet vocabulary. A young woman who stepped out from her comfort zone to stepping out to the world to inspiring millions.
This shows how the smallest changes make the biggest impacts in today’s societies. One of Duncan’s major themes in her choreography is nature and almost like spiritually. Throughout er technique each gesture has a neutralize or cancelation by exerting an opposite influence of the great deal of endurance or effort in her tough lines. She also has unyielding articulations and conceptual general emotion that is formally introduced contemporary dance and art.
In the book, Appreciating Dance, Isadora quoted “ the dance is love, it is only love, it alone, and that is enough… ow, I would like to no longer dance to anything but the rhythm of my soul”. In one of Isadora’s blog it says that she used “general movements of humanity like walking, skipping, leaping, running, sliding, hopping in the onstruction of her dances. Not only did they present the oneness of human movement, these movements provided that steady rhythm of the lower body against the more deep emotion of the melody in the upper body. In Duncan technique she is hopeful, inspiring, and optimistic which is something that is applicable and desirable in every age, for all cultures, and all people (Art of the Blog)”.
This shows how free will she was and how no rules or negativity was going to stop her from striving who she wanted to be. She change dance in a way that no one else really did. Duncan being a woman who would of faced shut oor in her face had let no obstacle get in her way. Her dance was to show and tell people that dance does not have to be a certain steps from back and forth but a way to express your feeling and just go with the flow of your soul even so the music. You never knew or could guess the next step in her dance routine.
She just did and that is what made her so amazing. Isadora was an extravagant woman who was considered the Mother of Modern Dance. She shocked millions around the world with her beautiful art piece of being free and dance loose to the music. Not only did she astonish her audience but she effortlessly so inspired many famous. Isadora stood out as a strong inspirational woman who even broke barriers to what dances were suppose to wear during a dance technique for example in one of the articles it said that “when she danced, Isadora Duncan wore very thin clothing.
Sometimes she dressed in long white tunics, the kind of clothing worn by ancient Greek women. She wanted people to see her body as she skipped, jumped and ran barefoot across the stage. Some people criticized her for doing this. They thought it was not moral to dress this way. At the time, most women wore dresses that covered as much of the body as possible, especially the arms nd legs (VOA)”. Isadora was a champion in the struggle for women’s rights. Many saw a glorious vision for the future in Isadora’s choreography.
Her influence upon the development of progressive ideas and culture from her time influenced her to help children around the world. Isadora was greatly taken with the social and political revolution that led to the creation of the Soviet Union. Believing that she could contribute to the development of a free and heroic society, Duncan followed her conviction and passion to Moscow in 1921 to make arrangements with to give her art in exchange for a free school nd to teach a thousand children. Isadora made a major impact towards the dance world.
For example, in an article she mentions her visit to Russia in 1904 was a “coalescing, catalyzing effect on the formation of the Ballet Russes. Isadora’s use of music, flow of movements, staging and costuming propelled Fokine to bring together his mounting ideas to create the Great Russian ballet (Art of the Blog)”. Isadora Duncan was a woman who showed people that they can be and do anything they want no matter what size, height or background. For her anyone can dance because dance to her was a form to express what you ere feeling with no needs of rules or special technique.
In one of her interviews she says, “The dancer of the future will be one whose body and soul have grown so harmoniously together that the natural language of that soul will have become the movement of the body. This is the mission of the dancer of the future. She is coming, the dancer of the future: the free spirit, who will inhabit the body of new women; more glorious than any woman that has yet been; more beautiful than all women in past centuries: The highest intelligence in the freest body (VOA)”. She showed that with hard work and dedication anything was possible.
