Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis were the first generation of female American dancers to break away from classical ballet. Although their styles differed, Duncan and St. Denis's unconventional approaches opened the door to a new era in dance history beginning in 1902.

Isadora Duncan

Isadora Duncan was born in San Francisco in 1877, the youngest of the four children of Joseph Charles Duncan (1819–1898), a banker, mining engineer and connoisseur of the arts, and Mary Isadora Gray (1849–1922). Soon after Isadora was born, the family went bankrupt and lived in extreme poverty for some time. Isadora started dancing at the age of two, and at six, she opened her first “school of dance” for neighboring children: teaching them movements she had invented herself. By the age of 12, the young Isadora was already earning a part-time wage. A year later she left school and devoted all of her time to dancing, studying music, literature, and philosophy.

Duncan is known for her contemptuous attitude towards classical ballet. Ballet, according to her, was nothing more than a complex series of meaningless mechanical body movements that did not convey spiritual experiences. So, disappointed in classical choreography, Isadora first moved to London in 1898, and then to Paris to explore her own movement ideas. She became a widely popular and revered dancer around the world, but believed that touring distracted her from her true calling: educating young dancers to be creative artists.

Duncan’s personal life was filled with tragic events. In 1913, both of her children drowned when the car in which they were riding veered off a bridge and into the Seine River. She herself was killed in 1927 when the long red scarf she was wearing draped around her neck became entangled in the spokes of the rear wheel of a sports car she was riding in.

In 2007, Tamara Rojo of The Royal Ballet, performed Five Brahms Waltzes, choreographed by Isadora Duncan. Ironically, trained as a ballet dancer, she fuses ballet technique with Duncan’s technique of modern dance to perform this piece exquisitely.

Ruth St. Denis

Ruth St. Denis was born in 1879. She debuted as a "skirt dancer," which at that time was a rather risqué form of dance because of the woman's legs being briefly visible. The impresario David Belasco recognized her potential and had her touring vaudeville theatres, where she became a major attraction.

While doing research on the culture and dance of Egypt, Ruth discovered the dances of India. With the help of Indian friends, Miss St. Denis danced the Radha, a freestyle Indian dance. She was the first in the Western world to introduce to a legitimate audience Eastern cultural dances. American audiences were hostile to her experiments, labeling her the "Jersey Hindoo" and comparing her with the belly dancers at the local burlesque houses.

Despite local opposition, St. Denis' new style of dancing was a hit, particularly in Europe. She continued to incorporate non-Western techniques into her dance, presenting Egyptian dances and a Japanese ballet based on Noh theater. In 1915, she and her dance partner Ted Shawn, founded the Denishawn School of Dancing. Though she and Shawn had a stormy relationship, both on and offstage, what they accomplished together has had a lasting impact. 

St. Denis' interests, as this interview illustrates, began to transcend "mere" dance. This path took her beyond the realm of culture and into something resembling more of a religious quest. However, the touchstone of her artistic journey was always dance. She continued to dance well into her eighties, characterizing her later performances with an unusually modest self-assessment: "I move with remembered beauty." Ruth St. Denis died in 1968.

We dedicate this Sunday Edition to

the original Mavericks of American Dance.

Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis.

See you next Sunday!