Isadora Duncan Dance: The Soul Moving in Nature - Reflections on the Dance of Isadora Duncan as an Expression Gerard Manley Hopkins Imagery
Alice Bloch
Isadora Duncan, the revolutionary dancer/choreographer whose work influenced all subsequent Western concert dance, lived from 1877-1927, and would never have known Hopkins' poetry. Yet the primary inspirations for her dance-nature and the essential expressions of the human spirit, and the language she used to describe it, imply that the sensibilities which influenced Hopkins remained pervasive in the late 19 th century. While Duncan rejected religious affiliation, she said, "For art which is not religious is not art, is mere merchandise." (Duncan, 1928, 62). One of her primary goals as a dancer was to create: "A dance that would be a subtle translation of the light and the whiteness. So pure, so strong, that people would say: it is a soul we see moving, a soul that has reached the light and the whiteness." (Duncan, 56-57) Further, movement inspired by nature was at the core of her technique. She wrote: "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 become the movement of the body.She will dance the changing life of nature, showing how each part is transformed into the other. " (Duncan, 62, 63) Finally, the solar plexus, the wellspring and center of her movement, is located in the body between the heart and lungs, at the locus of emotion and breath.
The lecture-performance will explore how some of Hopkins' imagery is realized in the dance of Isadora Duncan. It will include examples of Duncan's technique, performance of her "Water Study," (Schubert), and "Blessed Spirits," (Gluck), and a new choreography to one of Hopkins' poems.
Duncan, Isadora. The Art of the Dance . Theatre Arts Books, New York. 1977.
