Isadora Duncan

I was listening to one of many French cds i have today, whilst making cookies*. This happened to be a Putumayo-made lotsandlotsofrealguaranteedfrenchartistssosuckit kinda cds. Among relative unknowns like Sandrine Kiberlain and Pascal Lejeune and JP Nataf, there was the relative {unknown only in America***}, Carla Bruni. And let me tell you, she has an amazing voice! Nicholas Sarkozy ought to count his blessings! *WOOOOSH!****

Anyway, title of this blog. In english these days, we've just started our research project. My goal was to do someone i actually care about, but who's so obscure that no one has heard of them. After rejecting Edith Piaf {not enough resources}, Martha Graham {too many, plus kinda boring}, and Katharine Dunham, i settled on Isadora Duncan. And am i glad i did! There are enough books in the library about her, but NO ONE in my english class of heard of her. And she's such a great woman! She was totally eccentric and borderline-insane***** and SO DRIVEN. Absolutely nothing held her back. She started out her life fatherless, poor, and switching houses fifteen times a year. At six, she told off her school teacher for encouraging her classmates to believe in Santa Claus. At twelve, she taught dancing lessons. And it all goes up from there. She is known as the Mother of Modern Dance. As much as we now look up to titles like that nowadays, at the turn of the century, she was considered revolutionary [in a non-complimentary way] and had to go to Europe to find Real Appreciation for her art (i.e. NOT old stuffed society ladies in New York). And there? Critics put up major fusses over her personal life, near-naked costumes and lack of ballet-osity. And what did she do to respond? Isadora Duncan, hero to all, opened up a serious can of W.A. She made connections with the most powerful people in the European art scene, verbally pique-arabesque-kicked the critics, and sold out recitals all over the world. She opened many schools, each one closed for money-related complaints, because she did not want to charge her pupils for a Duncan-ized education. She had 3 illegitamate children {all died, tragically} and did not believe in marriage. She wanted an equal partnership with equal respect to HER career. This woman did everything. Even her death was dramatic- her neck cracked when an especially long scarf got caught in the spokes of a fancy car******.

And with THAT note... :)


*They turned into wannabe-souffles**. let that be a lesson.
**Souffle means "blow" in French. YOU LEARN SOMETHING EVERYDAY.
***Because we are ignorant and full of ourselves. Duhh.
****You hear that? That was the sound of that [grantedly, not very funny] joke going over the head of million Americans.
*****Alyssa: Haha, you and her are like two peas in a pod maddi! Verrrry funny lyss...
****** If/when i die, i would like to die in a scarf-related fashion. Keep this in mind, all you would-be murderers.