*
ТАНЦОВЩИЦА ДУНКАН, как Автобиография ИРМЫ ДУНКАН
(Duncan Dancer an
Autobiography by IRMA DUNCAN)
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[01], DUNCAN DANCER
Wesleyan University
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1966
Duncan Dancer, an Autobiography
Irma Duncan
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[02], Cover
DUNCAN DANCER
ALSO BY IRMA DUNCAN
The Technique of Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan's
Russian Days
(with Allan Ross Macdougall)
[05], Cover
DUNCAN DANCER
An Autobiography by
IRMA DUNCAN
Wesleyan University Pre.rs
MIDDLETOWN, CONNECTICUT
36834000067439
[06]
Copyright© 1965, 1966 by Irma Duncan Rogers
This work appeared in condensed form in Dance Perspectives, numbers 21
and 22, 1965. The courtesy of the publisher in assigning the copyright is
gratefully acknowledged.
Grateful acknowledgment is also made to the
proprietors of the rights for their gracious permission to reprint the following
!Daterials under their control:
"The Child-Dancers," by Percy MacKaye,
copyright © 1914, 194~ Arvia MacKaye Ege and Christy MacKaye Barnes; reprinted
by their permission.
"Delight," by John Galsworthy, reprinted by permission
of the author, of Charles Scribner's Sons, and of William Heinemann Ltd. United
States copyright © 1910 Charles Scribner's Sons, renewal copyright © 1938
Ada Galsworthy; British copyright © 1910 John Galsworthy.
Excerpt
from Isadora, by Allan Ross Macdougall, copyright © 1960 Thomas Nelson &
Sons; reprinted by their permission.
Excerpts from My Life, by Isadora
Duncan, copyright © 1928, 1955 Live-right Publishing Corporation (Black and Gold
Library); reprinted by their permission.
Excerpts from The Art of the
Dance, by Isadora Duncan, are published by the courtesy of Theatre Arts Books,
New York, as successors to the book publishing department of Theatre Arts, .Inc.
Copyright © 1928 Helen Hackett, Inc.; renewal copyright © 1956 Helen Hackett.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 66-14664
First edition
Duncan Dancer, by Irma Duncan, is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial4.0 International License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode
Publication of this title is funded by the Humanities Open Book program, a joint initiative of The National Endowment for the Humanities and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
[07]
FOR
Sherman, my husband.
"and a book of remembrance was written."
Malachi 3,3.
[09], p. vii-viii * DUNCAN DANCER *
Contents
Foreword xi
Note on Sources xiii
PART I. 1905-1913
Prelude 3
1. Follow Me 10
2. Dancer of the Future 20
3· The
Greatest Thing in Life 37
4· European Tour 62
5· Sojourn at Chateau
Villegenis 86
6. Elizabeth Takes Over 101
7· Lesson in the Temple 113
8. You Must Be My Children 124
PART II. 1913-1921
9· Dionysion 137
10. Growing Up 148
11. Isadora Duncan Dancers
163
12. Demeter and Persephone 187
13· The School Is Dead, Long Live the
School 198
PART III. 1921-1933
14. Exile 217
I5. Little Dividend 232
16. A Last Visit 240
17·
Plough the Ground, Sow the Seed 249
18. If You Will Be Faithful 259
19.
To China and Back 273
20. Return to Moscow 300
21. Finale 309
22.
Curtain 315
23. The End and a New Beginning 326
Index of Names 343
[11], p. ix-x * DUNCAN DANCER *
Illustrations
facing
page
Isadora Duncan at the Theatre of Dionysus, Athens, 1904.
18
(upper) Isadora in her own equipage, Berlin, 1905.
(lower)
Marta, Lisa, and Gerda before a statuette of Isadora, Grunewald, 1905. 19
Isadora with Grunewald students, 1905 ; Irma at right, fifth couple from top. 50
Pupils of the Isadora Duncan School, 1906-1908.
(upper I.) Erica. (upper r.) Irma.
(lower I.) Theresa. (lower r.) Anna.
51
(upper) Irma and Isadora, N euilly, 1908.
(lower) Gordon Craig and
Isadora, Berlin, I904. 82
Pillbox hats and Polish coats, Chateau Villegenis, October I908. Irma on running board, center; Preston Sturges behind shoulder of girl at wheel. 83
(upper) Elizabeth Duncan's school, Darmstadt. Irma at left among her little
pupils; Elizabeth and Max Merz at right.
(lower) Deirdre and Irma aboard
ship to Egypt, 1912: snapshot by Isadora Duncan. 114
Isadora with Deirdre and Patrick. 115
(upper) Dionysian, 1914·
(lower) Dionysian: the six Duncan girls with
statue of dancing
maenad. 146
(upper) Walter Rummel and Isadora, 1919.
(lower) Duncan Dancers, 1920:
Lisa, Irma, Margot. 147
Irma Duncan: dance photo by Arnold Genthe, 1917. 178
Irma Duncan dancing outdoors, Greece, 1920. 179
Isadora to Irma, October I, 1920: "Your letter has made me Happy-"
210
Irma Duncan: portrait photo by Edward Steichen; Versailles,
1920. Inscribed: "Gay dancing eyes of the eager dancing faun girl. With a
vivat-Edward Steichen." 211
(upper) Irma Duncan in Moscow, ca.
1925.
(lower) The Isadora Duncan School, Moscow. 306
"The young woman I never knew." Irma's mother, photographed years before her marriage. 307
[13], p. xi-xiii
Foreword
My life with Isadora Duncan dates from 1905, until her untimely end in 1927.
This period covers most of my own career as a dancer. During all these vital,
creative years of working together, neither of us was able to leave some
tangible result of our transient art. This book must therefore remain the sole,
abiding record of my work in the world of the dance.
I.D. [Irma
Duncan]
Longway, 1966.
..
Моя жизнь с Айседорой Дункан
датируется 1905 годом, до ее несвоевременного завершения в 1927 году. Этот
период охватывает большую часть моей собственной карьеры как танцовщицы. В
течение всех этих жизненно важных творческих лет совместной работы ни один из
нас не смог оставить ощутимый результат нашего преходящего искусства. Поэтому
эта книга должна оставаться единственным, постоянным свидетельством моей работы
в мире танца.
[15]
Note on Sources: Many of the quotations in this book come from papers in the
personal collection of Irma Duncan. These materials have been given by Miss
Duncan to the Dance Division of the New York Public Library. In some cases,
similar statements may be found in published works, but Miss Duncan has used the
original sources whenever possible. All translations have been made by the
author. References to works frequently cited have been abbreviated: Life-Isadora
Duncan, My Life (New York, 1928); Art-Isadora Duncan, The Art of the Dance (New
York, 1928). Other works cited are acknowledged elsewhere in this volume.
..
Примечание по источникам. Многие цитаты из этой книги взяты из
документов в личной коллекции Ирмы Дункан. Эти материалы были предоставлены мисс
Дункан танцевальному отделу Нью-йоркской публичной библиотеки. В некоторых
случаях подобные заявления можно найти в опубликованных работах, но мисс Дункан
использовала исходные источники, когда это было возможно. Все переводы сделаны
автором. Ссылки на часто цитируемые работы были сокращены: Life-Isadora Duncan,
«Моя жизнь» (Нью-Йорк, 1928); Art-Isadora Duncan, «Искусство танца» (Нью-Йорк,
1928). Другие упомянутые работы признаны в другом месте этого тома.
** PART I. 1905-1913 **
[17], p. 3-9 * DUNCAN DANCER * Prelude
Prelude
THE most fateful day of my life, the one destined to make the greatest
changes in it, occurred at the end of January, 1905. The sky was dark, for a
heavy fog had rolled in from the North Sea during the night, obscuring the
streets of Hamburg. I had been born near there in a small town in
Schleswig-Holstein, but my mother now lived on the outskirts of this city.
..
Самый судьбоносный день в моей жизни тот, который был предназначен для
внесения в него больших изменений, произошел в конце января 1905 года. Небо было
темным, потому что ночью из Северного моря катился тяжелый туман, затеняя улицы
Гамбурга. Я родилась там, в маленьком городке Шлезвиг-Гольштейн, но моя мать
теперь жила на окраине этого города.
I can see the child I was then, bundled up warm against the damp weather,
wearing a velvet bonnet and wool mittens, sitting beside my mother in the
electric tramcar that carried me, not only from the quiet suburbs to the busy
center of town, but also out of one kind of world into an entirely different
one.
..
Я могу видеть ребенка, которым я тогда была, упакованного тепло
из-за влажной погоды, в бархатной шляпе и ватных варежках, сидящей рядом с моей
матерью в электрическом трамвае, который нес меня не только из тихих пригородов
в оживленный центр города, но и из одного мира, в совершенно другой.
As we clanged along the Steindam leading to the more elegant section of
Hamburg, I felt a mounting excitement. I was also somewhat frightened at what
was about to happen, for I was to audition for a famous dancer to see if I could
become a pupil in her school. This had come about because mother had seen an
announcement in the newspaper saying that Isadora Duncan, the young American
dancer who was then creating a furor in Germany, wanted pupils for her newly
founded school in Berlin.
..
Когда мы стучали по улице Стейндам, ведущей
к более изящной части Гамбурга, я почувствовала сильное волнение. Также я
несколько испугалась того, что должно было произойти, потому что я должна была
прослушиваться у знаменитой танцовщицы, чтобы посмотреть, смогу ли я стать
учеником в ее школе. Это произошло потому, что мама увидела объявление в газете,
в котором говорилось, что молодая американская танцовщица Айседора Дункан,
которая тогда создавала фурор в Германии, хотела учеников для своей недавно
основанной школы в Берлине.
Mother had been dreaming of a stage career for me ever since a neighbor of
ours, a music teacher, discovered that I had a good singing voice. This
immediately reminded her of Ernestine Schumann-Heink, prima donna of the Hamburg
Opera, for mother had come in contact with the glamorous world of the theatre
when she acted as governess for the singer's little boy.
..
Мать мечтала
о сценической карьере для меня с тех пор, как мой сосед, учитель музыки,
обнаружил, что у меня хороший голос. Это сразу напомнило ей Эрнестину
Шуманн-Хейнк, примадонну Гамбургской оперы, потому что мать вступила в контакт с
гламурным миром театра, когда она выступала в роли гувернантки для маленького
мальчика певицы.
The curtain actually rose on my dance career the day before, when mother
tried unsuccessfully to enroll me at the Municipal Theatre School. The
directress, a dour-looking woman in a tight black dress, poked her head out of
the door. When she saw me, she immediately pronounced me too young. "Bring your
daughter back when she is twelve years old," she said.
..
Занавес на
самом деле поднялся на мою танцевальную карьеру накануне, когда мать безуспешно
пыталась зачислить меня в Муниципальную театральную школу. Директриса, суровая
женщина в узком черном платье, высунула голову из двери. Когда она увидела меня,
то сразу же объявила меня слишком молодой. «Приведи свою дочь, когда ей
исполнилнится двенадцать лет», - сказала она.
Mother tried hopefully to describe my acting and singing talents, but she cut
her short with, "Those are the rules, Madam, goodbye," and shut the door on us.
..
Мать с надеждой пыталась описать мои актерские и певческие таланты, но
та коротко отрезала ей: «Это правила, мадам, до свидания», и закрыл нам
дверь.
It was just as well she did, as otherwise I might never have met Isadora
Duncan. However, the fates were even then busy weaving the threads that would
bring us together.
..
Это было тоже хорошо, поскольку иначе я, возможно,
тогда никогда бы не встретил Айседору Дункан. Тем не менее, наши судьбы были
даже тогда заняты плетением нитей, которые сведут нас вместе.
That same evening mother put me to bed earlier than usual, perhaps to sleep
off my supposed disappointment, although the rejection at the Theatre School had
actually left no impression on me. She then cleared away the supper dishes from
the kitchen table and retired to the front parlour, or gute Stube, as they say
in Hamburg. She sat down on the mahogany sofa covered with black damask above
which hung a picture of my late father with his curly red hair and bristling
mustache. On the round mahog - any table in front of her, covered with a fringed
cloth, she spread the evening newspaper. An old-fashioned oil lamp provided the
only illumination. Electricity was a fairly recent convenience that had not as
yet penetrated the outskirts of our city to light up the uniformly gloomy row of
houses where we lived.
..
В тот же вечер мать уложила меня спать раньше
обычного, возможно, чтобы заснуть от моего предполагаемого разочарования, хотя
отказ в Театральной школе на самом деле не произвел на меня никакого
впечатления. Затем она очистила блюда после ужина с кухонного стола и ушла в
гостиную перед домом или погладила Комнату, как говорят в Гамбурге. Она села на
диван из красного дерева, покрытый черным дамастом, над которым висела
фотография моего покойного отца с кудрявыми рыжими волосами и ощетинившимися
усами. На круглом махохе - любой стол перед ней, покрытый бахромой тряпкой, она
расправила вечернюю газету. Единственная подсветка - старомодная масляная лампа.
Электричество было довольно недавним удобством, которое еще не проникло в
окраину нашего города, чтобы осветить равномерно мрачный ряд домов, в которых мы
жили.
My mother looked old and careworn. Her smooth dark hair was streaked with
gray, for she was past fifty. She had worked hard most of her life and didn't
really know what leisure meant. My father's death had left us in somewhat
straitened circum-stances. A Hanoverian by birth, at a time when the elector of
that province was also a British royal duke, he owned a small foodstore in
Wandsbeck. When mother met him he was a widower with five children, the youngest
being a mere infant. Mother took on the job of caring for them all. I was born
when my parents were in their late forties. Thus I have no remembrance of mother
as a young woman. Of my father I have practically no recollection at all, since
I was only four years old when he died. His image is therefore just faintly
imprinted in my memory.
..
Моя мать выглядела старой и озабоченной. Ее
гладкие темные волосы были седыми, потому что ей было лет пятьдесят. Она много
работала большую часть своей жизни и не знала, что такое досуг. Смерть моего
отца оставила нас в несколько стесненных обстоятельствах. Ганновер по рождению,
в то время, когда избирателем этой провинции также был британский королевский
герцог, он владел небольшим продовольственным магазином в Вандсбеке. Когда мать
встретила его, он был вдовцом с пятью детьми, а младший был просто младенцем.
Мать взяла на себя заботу о них. Я родилась, когда моим родителям было лет
сорок. Таким образом, я не вспоминаю о матери как о молодой женщине. От моего
отца у меня практически нет воспоминаний, так как мне было всего четыре года,
когда он умер. Поэтому его образ только слегка запечатлен в моей памяти.
Instead of sending her stepchildren to an orphanage as she was advised to do,
mother preferred to struggle along as best she could in order to provide a
decent home for them, seeing to it that they obtained work when they finished
school. By the time I too had reached school age they had all left; only I,
mother's one child of her own, remained at home.
..
Вместо того, чтобы
отправить своих пасынкв в детский дом, как ей советовали сделать, мать предпочла
бороться, как могла, чтобы обеспечить им достойный дом, убедившись, что они
получили работу, когда закончили школу. К тому времени, когда я тоже достигла
школьного возраста, они все ушли; только я, единственный её ребенок, осталась
дома.
Though small of stature and frail in appearance, mother possessed enormous
energy and a vast fund of human kindness; always cheerful, she managed to eke
out a living.
..
Несмотря на небольшой рост и хрупкость, мать обладала
огромной энергией и огромным запасом человеческой доброты; всегда веселая, - так
ей и удалось выжить.
Perusing the paper now, she came across a startling announcement. It seemed
almost miraculous that such a wonderful chance for the advancement of my stage
career should present itself so opportunely. The more she read, the more excited
she became. A nervous woman and highly emotional, she suddenly jumped up and
rushed into the bedroom where I lay fast asleep.
..
Перечитывая газету,
она натолкнулась на поразительное объявление. Казалось почти чудесным, что такой
замечательный шанс для продвижения моей сценической карьеры должен проявиться
так кстати. Чем больше она читала, тем больше она возбуждалась. Нервная женщина
и очень эмоциональная, она внезапно вскочила и ворвалась в спальню, где я крепко
спала.
"Irma! Irma dear!" she called. "Wake up, wake up, my child!" I could not
immediately figure out what had happened; her voice sounded so urgent.
Impatiently she lifted me out of bed. "Come along, I want to read you something
wonderful," she said, and carried me into the next room.
..
«Ирма! Ирма,
дорогая!» позвала она. «Проснись, проснись, дитя мое!» Я не могла сразу понять,
что случилось; её голос звучал так пронзительно. Она нетерпеливо подняла меня с
кровати. «Пойдем, я хочу прочитать тебе что-то замечательное», - сказала она и
отвела меня в соседнюю комнату.
Holding me on her lap, mother sat down again. She moved the lamp a little
closer, smoothed out the rumpled pages of the newspaper, adjusted the
gold-rimmed pince-nez hanging from a black ribbon around her neck, and jerked me
into an upright position, all apparently at one and the same time.
..
Подняв меня на колени, мать снова села. Она приблизила лампу ближе,
сгладила смятые страницы газеты, поправила пенсне с золотой окантовкой,
свисающей с черной ленты на шее, и вытолкнула меня в вертикальное положение, все
это, видимо, в одно и то же время.
"Sit up and listen," she said briskly. Pointing a forefinger at some inky
black print, totally indecipherable to me, she began to read aloud.
..
«Садись и слушай, - сказала она бойко. Направив указательный палец на
чернильный отпечаток, совершенно неразборчивый для меня, она начала читать
вслух.
I sat up and forced myself to listen to the article about a famous "barefoot
dancer named Isadora Duncan," of whom I had never heard. It appeared she was
then performing with considerable eclat at the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg. She
was described as "a slender creature like a Greek goddess come to life."
..
Я села и заставила себя послушать статью о знаменитой «босоногой
танцовщице по имени Айседора Дункан», о которой я никогда не слышала. Оказалось,
что она выступала со значительным великолепием в театре Талия в Гамбурге. Она
была описана как «стройное существо, как греческая богиня, которая ожила».
Pronouncing each word slowly so I could understand, mother read that Isadora
Duncan had, only two weeks before, opened a dance school for little girls in
Grunewald, near Berlin. And stressing the next words, she said, "Only children
aged six to ten are acceptable."
..
Произнося каждое слово медленно,
чтобы я поняла, мать читала, что Айседора Дункан, всего за две недели до этого,
открыла школу танцев для девочек в Грюневальде, недалеко от Берлина. Подчеркивая
следующие слова, она сказала: «Только дети в возрасте от шести до десяти
приемлемы».
Mother looked at me over her pince-nez. "Did you understand, dear? That means
you won't have to wait till you are twelve! Now listen to the description of the
school."
..
Мать посмотрела на меня через пенсне. «Ты поняла, дорогая?
Это значит, что тебе не придется ждать, пока тебе не исполнится двенадцать!
Теперь послушай описание школы».
The building is a three-story structure with a large basement and top floor.
All the rooms are spacious and airy and the many windows allow free access of
sunlight and fresh air. On the walls in every room are representations of
antique art, and in the dormitories hang Donatello's terra cottas depecting
children at play as well as Della Robbia's colorful Madonnas. There are large
copies of dancing figures on friezes in the schoolroom, and on a long shelf in
the music room is a lovely collection of Tanagra figurines. All these works of
art are supposed to give the children a sense and appreciation of beauty, which
in turn will influence their dancing, according to Miss Duncan.
..
Здание
представляет собой трехэтажное здание с большим подвалом и верхним этажем. Все
номера просторны и полны воздуха, а многие окна обеспечивают свободный доступ к
солнечному свету и свежему воздуху. На стенах в каждой комнате представлены
изображения античного искусства, а в общежитиях висят терракоты Донателло,
которые изображают детей в игре, а также красочных Мадонн от Деллы Роббиа. В
школьной комнате есть большие экземпляры танцующих фигур, а на длинной полке в
музыкальной комнате - прекрасная коллекция фигурок Танагры. По словам мисс
Дункан, все эти произведения искусства должны дать детям чувство и
признательность за красоту, которая, в свою очередь, повлияет на их танцы.
The children are boarded and educated free of charge; this includes clothes
and other necessities. Besides their dance training personally conducted by
Isadora Duncan, the pupils will also receive academic instruction from a
competent public school teacher and in addition, in order to stimulate their
artistic sensibilities, there will be regular visits to museums with lectures on
art. Two governesses are in charge, and the management of the school is in the
hands of Miss Isadora's sister, Elizabeth Duncan.
..
Дети расселяются и
получают образование бесплатно; это включает одежду и другие предметы первой
необходимости. Помимо обучения танцам, лично проводимого Айседорой Дункан,
ученики также получат академическое обучение от компетентного преподавателя
общеобразовательной школы и, кроме того, в целях стимулирования их
художественной чувствительности будут регулярно посещать музеи с лекциями по
искусству. Заведуют две гувернантки, а руководство школы находится в руках
сестры мисс Айседоры, Элизабет Дункан.
This free, non-profit dance school, founded by Isadora Duncan and entirely
supported by her financially, is not a philanthropic institution in the ordinary
sense but an enterprise dedicated to the promotion of health and beauty in
mankind. Both physically and spiritually the children will here receive an
education providing them with the highest intelligence in the healthiest body.
..
Эта бесплатная некоммерческая школа танцев, основанная Айседорой
Дункан и полностью поддерживаемая ею в финансовом отношении, не является
филантропическим учреждением в обычном смысле, а предприятием, занимающимся
поощрением здоровья и красоты в человечестве. И физически, и духовно дети
получат здесь образование, обеспечивающее им высший интеллект в здоровом
теле.
"How wonderful!" mother exclaimed. "Irma, how would you like to be a dancer?"
..
«Как замечательно!» воскликнула мать. «Ирма, как ты хочешь быть
танцовщицей?»
I did not know what to say. The only dancing I had done was at Hallowe'en.
After dark, with the other children in our block, I would skip joyfully along
the street with a colored paper lantern on a stick. Holding it high up in the
air I would sing a little German rhyme:
Lanterne! Lanterne!
Sonne, Mond
und Sterne
Macht aus euer Licht,
Macht aus euer Licht,
Aber loescht
mir meine Lanterne nicht!
..
Я не знала, что сказать. Единственный танец,
который я сделала, был на Хэллоуин. После наступления темноты, с другими детьми
в нашем квартале, я с радостью проскакала улицу с цветным бумажным фонарем на
палочке. Держа его высоко в воздухе, я спела небольшую немецкую
рифму:
Лэнтерн! Лэнтерн!
Солнце, Луна и звезды
Выключите
свет,
Выключите свет,
Но не забывай мой Лэнтерн!
Little did I then realize how extraordinarily symbolic that simple gesture of
holding high the torch while dancing would be for me in the future.
..
Мало ли я тогда понимал, как необычайно символично, что простой жест
держал факел во время танца для меня в будущем.
When mother asked if I wanted to be a dancer, my answer could not have been
too enthusiastic. She tried to arouse my interest by sounding very enthusiastic
herself.
..
Когда мать спросила, хочу ли я быть танцовщицей, мой ответ не
мог быть слишком восторженным. Она попыталась возбудить мой интерес, проявив
больший энтузиазм.
"Here, Irma, listen to this! 'In the summertime the pupils will take their
lessons out of doors. Clad only in a light, short tunic and with bare feet, they
will be taught to move freely in harmony with nature. They will learn to express
their own childlike feelings in the dance....'"
..
«Здесь, Ирма, послушай
это!» "В летнее время ученики будут брать уроки на открытом воздухе. Одетые
только в легкую короткую тунику и босыми ногами, их научат свободно перемещаться
в гармонии с природой. Их научат выражать свои собственные детские чувства в
танце...»"
"Just think how wonderful that must be!" mother said, thinking no doubt of
all the summer days I was forced to spend playing on the dusty street or in our
cheerless back yard. "If I send you to that school, who knows ... perhaps some
day ... you too will be a famous dancer!" She laughed and hugged me tight. "Tell
me, darling, would you like to try this school?"
..
«Подумай, как это
прекрасно!» сказала мать, не сомневаясь во все летние дни, которые я вынуждена
была проводить на пыльной улице или в нашем безрадостном заднем дворе. «Если я
отправлю тебя в эту школу, кто знает ... может быть, когда-нибудь ... ты тоже
станешь знаменитой танцовщицей!» Она засмеялась и крепко обняла меня. «Скажи
мне, дорогая, ты бы хотела попробовать эту школу?»
"I don't know," I said hesitatingly, for the thought of leaving home for a
distant city frightened me. "Why do I have to decide tonight?" I felt very
sleepy. "Can't we wait till tomorrow?"
..
«Не знаю», нерешительно сказала
я, потому что мысль о том, чтобы уехать из дома в отдаленный город, напугала
меня. «Зачем мне сегодня решать?» Я чувствовала себя очень сонной. «Мы не можем
подождать до завтра?»
"No!" Mother explained we had to decide tonight because the dancer was giving
only one more tryout early tomorrow morning. After further persuasion I agreed
to go. Mother at once carried me back to bed. In the dark bedroom, while tucking
me in, she said in a strangely serious voice:
..
«Нет!» Мать объяснила,
что нам нужно было решить сегодня вечером, потому что танцовщица назначила еще
одно испытание рано утром. После дальнейших убеждений я согласилась пойти. Мать
сразу вернула меня в постель. В темной спальне, заправляя меня, она сказала
странным серьезным голосом:
"Just one more thing, darling, before you go to sleep. I must tell you that
the pupils are required to remain at the school till they have reached their
eighteenth year. That means we shall be separated for a long, long time."
..
«Еще одна вещь, дорогая, перед сном. Я должна сказать тебе, что
ученики должны оставаться в школе, пока они не достигнут восемнадцати лет. Это
означает, что мы будем разделены надолго».
I sat bolt upright and blurted out, "No, I don't want to go!" and straightway
felt much relieved. Mother pushed me back onto the pillows. Calmly she reminded
me of the wonderful things I would receive at that school-things she could not
provide. And she promised to visit me often, which reassured me somewhat. And
so, tired of this long discussion in what seemed to me the middle of the night,
I once more agreed to attend the tryout.
..
Я сидела в вертикальном
положении и выпалила: «Нет, я не хочу туда!» и сразу почувствовала облегчение.
Мать оттолкнула меня обратно на подушки. Спокойно она напомнила мне о чудесных
вещах, которые я получила бы в этой школе, - вещах, которые она не могла
предоставить. И она пообещала часто навещать меня, что несколько успокоило меня.
И поэтому, устав от этой продолжительной дискуссии в том, что мне показалось
посреди ночи, я еще раз согласился присутствовать на мероприятии.
I had no sooner closed my eyes when I heard mother murmur as if to herself,
"What a dreadfully long time to be separated. Oh, how I shall miss you. Darling,
will you miss me?"
..
Я едва закрыла глаза, когда услышала, как мать
пробормотала, как бы про себя: «Как ужасно долгое время нужно быть в разлуке. О,
как я буду скучать по тебе. Милая, ты будешь скучать по мне?»
Alarmed at her emotional outburst, I started to cry. I threw my arms about
her and sobbed, "0 Mama, I shall miss you too!"
..
Встревоженная её
эмоциональным взрывом, я начала плакать. Я обняла её и всхлипнула: «Мама, я тоже
буду скучать!»
Mother stroked my head. "Go to sleep now, for we shall have to get up very
early to be there on time ...."
..
Мать погладила мою голову. «Иди спать,
потому что нам нужно рано вставать, чтобы быть там вовремя...»
And here we were, on our way to meet the "barefoot dancer," who they said
looked like a Greek goddess come to life. The tramcar stopped in front of the
Hamburger Hof, our destination. By the big clock over the front desk, mother
noticed with a start that we were late for the audition. She asked hastily for
Miss Duncan's suite and on being informed clutched my hand, racing me quickly up
the carpeted stairs. The sound of music on the third floor led us directly to
the right door. Mother knocked repeatedly, but there was no answer. When the
music stopped, she knocked again. A maid in black uniform with crisp white cap
and apron opened the door. She said curtly, "Sorry, the tryout is over." She was
about to close the door again when mother intervened.
..
И вот мы, на
нашем пути, чтобы встретить «босоногую танцовщицу», которая, по их словам,
выглядела как греческая богиня, ожившая. Трамвай остановился перед Гамбургским
двором, нашим пунктом назначения. По большим часам на стойке регистрации мать с
самого начала заметила, что мы опоздали на прослушивание. Она поспешно спросила
о номере мисс Дункан и, узнав, схватила меня за руку, быстро пробежала по
ковровой лестнице. Звук музыки на третьем этаже привел нас прямо к правой двери.
Мать постучала много раз, но ответа не было. Когда музыка остановилась, она
снова постучала. В дверь открылась горничная в черной форме с белой шапкой и
фартуком. Она коротко сказала: «Прости, тест закончился». Она снова собиралась
закрыть дверь, когда вмешалась мать.
"Won't you announce us anyway?" she inquired.
"I have orders not to admit
any more applicants," the maid said primly.
"Oh please," mother pleaded, "we
have come a long way. Our connections were bad, and my little girl will be so
disappointed. Please explain this to Miss Duncan."
..
«Разве вы не
объявите нас в любом случае?» - спросила она.
«У меня есть приказ не
допускать больше претендентов», - сказала горничнаясказал грубо.«О, пожалуйста,
- умоляла мать, - мы прошли долгий путь. Наши связи были плохими, и моя
маленькая девочка будет так разочарована. Пожалуйста, объясните это мисс
Дункан».
The maid looked down at me for a minute. She must have seen a small pale face
with two big blue-green eyes staring back at her. Perhaps she was touched by my
solemn expression as I clung tightly to mother's hand, for she said in a
friendlier tone, "Wait here while I go and inquire."
..
Горничная
посмотрела на меня минутку. Должно быть, она видела маленькое бледное лицо с
двумя большими сине-зелеными глазами, которые смотрели на нее. Возможно, её
тронуло мое торжественное выражение, когда я крепко прижался к руке матери,
потому что она сказала более дружелюбным тоном: «Подождите, пока я пойду и
спрошу».
Mother immediately bent down to straighten my bonnet and retie the satin bow
under my chin. With nervous gestures she straightened her own hat and veil,
reminding me for the tenth time to be sure to make a nice knicks for the lady
when we shook hands.
..
Мать тут же наклонилась, чтобы выпрямить мой
капор, и поправила атласный бант под моим подбородком. С нервными жестами она
выпрямила свою шляпу и вуаль, напоминая мне в десятый раз, чтобы убедиться,
чтобы мы сделали приятные ножки для дамы, когда мы пожмем друг другу руки.
How often since have I recalled that moment! And I always remember with a
feeling of profound gratitude that the door did open to me, for through it I
passed into a world of wider horizons. But most of all I offer thanks to a kind
Providence that made it possible for me to meet the remarkable woman who was to
mean so much to me. And I still hear those words that opened the fateful door:
"Enter, please. Madame will receive you!"
..
Как часто я вспоминала
этот момент! И я всегда помню с глубокой благодарностью, что дверь открылась
мне, потому что через неё я перешла в мир более широких горизонтов. Но больше
всего я предлагаю благодарить доброе Провидение, которые позволило мне встретить
замечательную женщину, которая должна была так много значить для меня. И я до
сих пор слышу те слова, которые открыли эту важную дверь:
«Войдите,
пожалуйста, мадам примет вас!»
[26], p.10-19 * DUNCAN DANCER * Follow Me *
*1*
Follow Me
Our momentous meeting took place in a room full of people-parents and their
children-who had come for the tryout. But because I arrived too late, I received
special attention.
..
Наша знаменательная встреча состоялась в комнате,
полной людей, родителей и их детей, которые пришли на свидание. Но поскольку я
приехал слишком поздно, я получил особое внимание.
On entering the famous dancer's room, I felt a pleasant sensation of warmth
and the fragrance of numerous vases and baskets of fresh flowers. The instant
she stepped forward to greet me, in bare feet and ankle-length white tunic,
looking indeed like a Greek goddess come to life, I had eyes only for her. With
childish pleasure I noticed the white ribbon she wore in her light brown hair. I
had never seen anyone so lovely and angelic-looking or anyone dressed in that
way. Beside mother's long black dress made in the Victorian fashion, Isadora's
simple attire gave her the appearance of a creature from another planet. I fell
completely under the charm of her sweet smile when she bent down to take my hand
while I curtsied.
..
Войдя в комнату знаменитой танцовщицы, я
почувствовала приятное ощущение тепла и аромата многочисленных ваз и корзин из
свежих цветов. В тот миг, когда она шагнула вперед, чтобы встретить меня, в
босых ногах и белой тунике на лодыжке, выглядящяя действительно как греческая
богиня, она ожила, я направила глаза только неё. С детским удовольствием я
заметил белую ленту, которую она носила в светло-коричневых волосах. Я никогда
не видела никого такого прекрасного, ангельского или любого, одетого таким
образом. Наряду с длинным черным платьем матери, выполненным в викторианском
стиле, простая одежда Айседоры дала ей вид существа с другой планеты. Я
полностью попала под очарование её сладкой улыбки, когда она наклонилась, чтобы
взять меня за руку, пока я присела в реверансе.
In a soft voice, speaking in halting German, she told mother that the tryout
was over. Mother once again made her excuses, and Isadora must have relented,
for she told her to remove my clothes quickly so she could have a look at me.
Mother knelt down and promptly started to undress me, right there in front of
all those people. It happened so quickly I didn't have time to be scared. In her
haste to comply with Isadora's request, mother had difficulty with the many
hooks and buttons that encumbered even children's clothing in those
days.
..
Мягким голосом, говоря о том, чтобы подавить немецкий, она
сказала матери, что тест закончился. Мать снова сделала извинения, и Айседора,
должно быть, смягчилась, потому что она велела ей быстро снять одежду, чтобы она
могла взглянуть на меня. Мать опустилась на колени и сразу начала раздевать
меня, прямо перед всеми этими людьми. Это случилось так быстро, что я не успел
испугаться. В спешке, чтобы выполнить просьбу Айседоры, мать испытывала
трудности с множеством крючков и пуговиц, которые в то время обременяли даже
детскую одежду.
After she had removed the black stockings, the high-buttoned shoes, and the
last petticoat, I stood exposed in a cotton camisole and a pair of lace-edged
underpants, from which dangled long black garters. I felt terribly ashamed when,
thus accoutred, I was made to stand alone in the center of the room. But not for
long. The lovely vision in the Greek tunic returned and asked my name.
"Come
and stand here in front of me, Irma, and do exactly as I do."
..
После
того, как она сняла черные чулки, туфли с высокой степенью застежки и последнюю
нижнюю юбку, я стояла, выставленная в хлопчатобумажном лифчике, и паре трусов с
кружевным краем, из которых свисали длинные черные подвязки. Мне было ужасно
стыдно, когда, таким образом, я была в одиночестве в центре комнаты. Только не
долго. Прекрасное видение в греческой тунике вернулось и спросило мое
имя.
«Иди и остановись передо мной, Ирма, и поступай так же, как и я».
The soft strains of Schumann's Traumerei came floating to my ears as Isadora
Duncan slowly began to raise her bare arms to the music. She watched me closely
as I imitated her gesture and then, after a while, she seemed no longer to pay
attention to me. A faraway look had come into her eyes as, lost in the music,
she raised her beautiful arms and with a swaying motion of her body moved them
gently from side to side like the branches of a tree put in motion by the wind.
How well I was going to know that expression 1 She once said, «Like swelling
sails in the wind, the movements of my dance carry me onward and upward and I
feel the presence of a mighty power within me.»
..
Мягкие напряжения
Трамурея Шумана приплыли к моим ушам, когда Айседора Дункан медленно начала
поднимать свои обнаженные руки в музыке. Она внимательно наблюдала за мной,
когда я подражала её жестам, а потом через некоторое время она больше не
обращала на меня внимания. В её глазах появился далекий взгляд, который,
потерявшись в музыке, поднял красивые руки и, покачиваясь, двигал её мягким
движением из стороны в сторону, как ветви дерева, приводимые в движение ветром.
Насколько хорошо я узнала это выражение. Однажды она сказала: «Как припухлые
паруса на ветру, движения моего танца ведут меня вперед и вверх, и я чувствую
присутствие могущественной силы во мне».
And how much would I learn to feel that power growing steadily in all the
years we worked together. This is how we first came in contact with each
other-the great teacher and her small pupil-standing face to face, oblivious of
the other people present, moving in unison to the music in our first dance
to-gether. With what poignancy I would recall this scene toward the end.
..
И сколько я буду учиться чувствовать, так что сила неуклонно растет за
все годы совместной работы. Так мы впервые вступили в контакт друг с другом -
великий учитель и её маленький ученик, стоящий лицом к лицу, не обращая внимания
на других присутствующих людей, двигаясь в унисон к музыке в нашем первом танце.
С какой остротой я бы вспомнил эту сцену ближе к концу.
A nod to the musician at the upright piano, and the tempo changed to a
lighter rhythm, an allegretto. She swiftly changed the mood and darted away,
skipping gracefully around the room. All eyes, I was fascinated watching her
circle about me like a bird. She reminded me of the sea gulls I had often
observed skimming across the big lake directly in front of the hotel. Uncertain
what to do next, I remained where I was. Still dancing, she beckoned to me and
called out gaily, «Follow me! Follow me!»
..
Кивнув музыканту на
вертикальном пианино, и темп изменился на более легкий ритм, аллеретто. Она
быстро изменила настроение и отскочила, изящно проскользнув по комнате. Все
глаза, я была очарована, наблюдая за её кругом вокруг меня, подобно птице. Она
напомнила мне о чайках, которых я часто наблюдала, прогуливаясь по большому
озеру прямо перед отелем. Не зная, что делать дальше, я осталась там, где была.
Все ещё танцуя, она поманила меня и весело позвала: «Следуй за мной! Следуй за
мной!»
Her radiant personality was contagious. I lost my selfconsciousness and
bravely skipped after her, trying my best to do exactly as she did. I undulated
my little arms in emulation of her for all I was worth. But, in that absurd
deshabille with the long black garters flapping against my legs at every step, I
must have looked comical. I heard her laugh when she stopped abruptly and said,
«That is enough, my dear. Go and put on your things.»
..
Её сияющая
личность была заразительной. Я потерял самообладание и смело пропустила её,
пытаясь изо всех сил сделать то, что делала она. Я собрала свои маленькие руки в
подражании ей во всем, что мне удавалось. Но в этом абсурдном неглиже с длинными
черными подвязками, хлопающими по моим ногам на каждом шагу, я, должно быть,
выглядела смешно. Я услышала её смех, когда она резко остановилась и сказала:
«Этого достаточно, моя дорогая. Иди и надень свои вещи».
While mother dressed me, I kept looking back over my shoulder at the lovely
vision in white who had cast such a spell over me. She slowly went from one
child to another of the many assembled there and deliberately made her choice as
if picking flowers. «I shall take you and you,» I heard her chant, «and you and
you ....»
..
Пока мама одевала меня, я все время оглядывалась через плечо
на прекрасное видение в белом, которое на меня накладывало такое заклинание. Она
медленно переходила от одного ребенка к другому из многих собравшихся там и
намеренно делала свой выбор, как будто собирала цветы. «Я возьму тебя и тебя», я
услышал ее пение: «И ты, и ты...»
I glanced with envy at the girls she had chosen. Would she want me too? I
wondered, secretly yearning to go with her wherever she went, for this was
something I now wanted to do more than anything else. However, she passed me by.
She turned instead with sudden animation and interest toward a young man,
sketchbook and pencil in hand, who had been quietly sitting in the background
observing. He whispered a few words, which caused Isadora to turn around and
look at me. She came over to where I stood beside mother, anxiously waiting for
her to notice me. She smiled, took my hand in hers and, leading me to the group
of girls she had selected, gently said, «And Irma, I will take you, too.»
..
Я с завистью посмотрела на девочек, которых она выбрала. Она захочет
выбрать меня тоже? Я задавалась вопросом, тайно желая пойти с ней, куда бы она
ни отправилась, потому что это было то, что я теперь хотела сделать больше всего
на свете. Однако она прошла мимо меня. Вместо этого она обернулась с неожиданной
живостью и интересом к молодому человеку, с книжкой и карандашом в руке, который
спокойно сидел и наблюдал на заднем плане. Он прошептал несколько слов, которые
заставили Айседору развернуться и посмотреть на меня. Она подошла к тому месту,
где я стояла рядом с матерью, с тревогой ожидая, когда она заметит меня. Она
улыбнулась, взяла меня за руку и привела меня к группе девушек, которых она
выбрала, мягко сказала: «И Ирма, я тоже тебя возьму».
I had no idea then of the role the young artist had played for me. When years
later I once asked Isadora what exactly had prompted her to choose me for her
pupil, she appeared surprised at my question.
«Why, don't you know? It was
Gordon Craig. He said to me, 'Take her, she has the eyes!'»
«Of course I
said that about you to Isadora,» Gordon Craig told me recently when I inquired.
In answer to my letter, he wrote from Vence in the south of France where he now
resides:
..
Тогда я понятия не имела о той роли, которую сыграл для меня
тот молодой художник. Когда несколько лет спустя я однажды спросила Айседору,
что именно побудило её выбрать меня как её ученика, она показалась удивленной
моим вопросом.
«Почему, разве ты не знаешь? Это был Гордон Крейг. Он сказал
мне: «Возьми её, у нее глаза!»
«Конечно, я говорил об этом с Айседорой, -
сказал мне недавно Гордон Крейг, когда я спросила. В ответ на моё письмо он
написал из Венса на юге Франции, где он сейчас проживает:
Dear Irma:
So once again I find you, don’t doubt if I remember you. But
to get your letter is perhaps the best thing which has happened to me for many
years - and no ‘perhaps’ at all. . . . I look on you as you were, small and
holding up your hands as in the picture and your blessed heart is just the same
as it was when a child, I feel this.
The Hamburger Hof, do I remember that!
Yes, and it was a foggy week - dark by day. I drew a poor sketch of the side of
the hotel from my window and some lights. . . . The date I was in Hamburg with
her was January 24th to Jist, 1905.
..
Дорогая Ирма:
Так снова я нашел
вас, и не сомневайтесь, помню ли я вас. Но получить ваше письмо - это, пожалуй,
лучшая вещь, которая произошла со мной за много лет - это вообще «невероятно»...
Я смотрю на вас так, как вы когда-то были маленькой и поднимали руки, как на
картинке, и ваше благословенное сердце - оно то же самое, каким было, когда вы
были ребенком, я это чувствую.
Гамбургский двор [отель], я помню это! Да, и
это была туманная неделя - темная днем. Я нарисовал бледный эскиз стороны отеля
из окна и некоторых огней.... Дата, когда я был в Гамбурге с ней, была без
сомнения 24 января, 1905 год.
And that is how I became Isadora Duncan's pupil. The chances of our ever
meeting had been very slim. Was it hazard or destiny-who can tell?
«Follow
me, follow me!» she had said when first we met. And follow her I did, from then
on to the end.
..
Именно так я стала учеником Айседоры Дункан. Шансы
нашей встречи были очень незначительными. Было ли это опасностью или судьбой -
кто может сказать?
«Следуй за мной, следуй за мной!» - сказала она, когда мы
встретились. И следую за ней с тех пор и до конца.
There were five of us when we children gathered the next morning at her hotel
to be attired in our new school uniform consisting of tunic and sandals and a
little hooded woolen cape.
..
Нас было пятеро из нас, когда мы, дети,
собрались на следующее утро в её отеле, чтобы одеться в нашу новую школьную
форму, состоящую из туники и сандалий, и маленького шерстяного плаща с
капюшоном.
Dressed alike, we looked like sisters. I distinctly recall the sense of
freedom I experienced in those light and simple clothes, which were the
distinctive Duncan uniform and which would henceforth set us apart from other
people. Goodbye petticoats and cumbersome dresses with bothersome hooks and
high-buttoned shoes. We children, strangers only a moment ago, now timidly
smiled at each other in a new-found comradeship.
..
Одетые одинаково, мы
были похожи на сестер. Я отчетливо помню чувство свободы, которое я испытала в
этой легкой и простой одежде, которая была отличительной формой Дункан и которая
отныне отделяла нас от других людей. До свидания юбки и громоздкие платья с
назойливыми крючками и туфлями. Мы, дети, незнакомые только минуту назад, теперь
робко улыбались друг другу в новом товариществе.
We were soon on our way to the station. I had never traveled in a train
before. In all the excitement I completely lost track of mother. Accompanied by
Isadora's maid, we settled ourselves in a second-class compartment in the train
for Berlin when, amidst all the confusion, I heard someone tap on the window. It
was mother. She tried bravely to smile, but her eyes were red from weeping. I
did not immediately understand why she should be crying, since I was on my way
to that marvelous school she had told me about, where I would soon be happily
playing and dancing with my schoolmates. Why wasn't she happy too? Poor mother!
She still had her stepchildren, but I was the only child of her own. Did she
have a premonition? Though I would see her again, the bond would never be• the
same. How could she possibly imagine that her daughter was leaving her, not for
a few years as she believed, but that an inscrutable destiny was taking her away
practically forever. I leaned out the open window and kissed mother goodbye. She
clung to my hand. A sudden shrill blast of the train whistle and we slowly moved
out of the station. Mother kept pace with the moving train to the end of the
platform. My last glimpse of her showed a weeping black-robed figure with a
small bundle, my discarded clothes, pressed tightly to her breast.
..
Мы
скоро отправились на станцию. Раньше я никогда не ездила в поезде. Во всем
волнении я полностью потеряла следы матери. В сопровождении служанки Айседоры мы
обосновались в отсеке второго класса в поезде в Берлин, когда, среди всего
замешательства, я услышала, как кто-то нажал на окно. Это была мать. Она смело
пыталась улыбнуться, но её глаза были крпсными от плача. Я не сразу поняла,
почему она должна плакать, так как я была на пути к той чудесной школе, о
которой она мне рассказывала, где я скоро буду счастливо играть и танцевать со
своими одноклассниками. Почему она тоже не была счастлива? Бедная мать! У неё
всё ещё были ее пасынки, но я была единственным её ребенком. У нее было
предчувствие? Хотя я увижу её снова, связь никогда не будет такой. Как она могла
себе представить, что её дочь покидает её, а не на несколько лет, как она
верила, но эта непостижимая судьба уводила её практически навсегда. Я высунулась
из открытого окна и поцеловал мать на прощание. Она прижалась к моей руке.
Внезапный пронзительный взрыв свистка, и мы медленно вышли из станции. Мать
двигалась с движущимся поездом до конца платформы. Мой последний взгляд на неё
показал плачущую черную фигуру с маленьким пучком, и мою брошенную одежду,
плотно прижатую к груди.
A few hours later we arrived in Berlin. A pale winter sun brightened the
city. The maid shepherded her small flock to the exit where our new guardian
awaited us. She sat in a closed carriage, looking very beautiful. To my childish
imagination she represented the legendary Fairy Queen in her coach, carrying me
and my companions off to her enchanted castle in the forest.
«Come and sit
here beside me,» she said sweetly as I climbed in. I was thrilled!
..
Через несколько часов мы прибыли в Берлин. Светлое зимнее солнце
оживило город. Горничная провела свое маленькое стадо к выходу, где нас ожидал
наш новый опекун. Она сидела в закрытой карете, выглядя очень красивой. В моём
детском воображении она представляла легендарную Королеву Фей в её карете,
уносящую меня и моих спутников в её заколдованный замок в лесу.
«Иди и сядь
рядом со мной», сказала она сладко, когда я забралась. Я была в восторге!
The horses rapidly traversed the long chaussee leading to the Grunewald.
Filled with expectation, we all sat quiet as mice. When the carriage at last
stopped in front of a yellow stucco villa with a tall picket fence, she said,
«Here is the school!» We all got out. Wide-eyed with curiosity about what
awaited us within, I climbed the many stairs to the entrance. Never was I so
surprised as when the door opened and there right in front of me stood the
seminude statue of a Greek Amazon on a pedestal, her head nearly touching the
ceiling! We all gaped with astonishment. When I recovered from my initial shock,
I turned to look for an explanation from the beautiful lady who had brought us
here. But the Fairy Queen had vanished-coach and all.
..
Лошади быстро
пересекли длинный путь, ведущий к Грюневальду. Наполненные ожиданиями, мы все
сидели тихо, как мыши. Когда карета наконец остановилась перед желтой лепной
виллой с высоким заборным ограждением, она сказала: «Вот школа!» Мы все вышли.
Широко глядя с любопытством насчет того, что нас ждало, я поднялась по
многочисленным лестницам ко входу. Никогда я не была так удивлена, как когда
дверь открылась, и прямо передо мной стояла статуя полуобнаженной греческой
Амазонки на пьедестале, её голова почти касалась потолка! Мы все изумились.
Когда я оправилась от своего первоначального шока, я обернулась, чтобы найти
объяснение у прекрасной леди, которая привела нас сюда. Но Королева Фей исчезла
- карета и всё.
Left alone in these strange surroundings and frightened, we children
instinctively drew closer together. A curious odor of bay leaves pervaded the
hall, emanating from the dried laurel wreaths that decorated the walls. I had
the sensation of having entered a chapel. We remained there waiting for what
seemed an unconscionable time.
..
Оставшись в одиночестве в этих странных
местах и испугавшись, мы, дети, инстинктивно сблизились. Любопытный запах
лаврового листа пронизывал зал, исходящий от высушенных лавровых венков,
украшавших стены. У меня было ощущение, что я вошла в часовню. Мы остались там,
ожидая чего-то, что как казалось длилось чрезмерно долго.
Then something happened. Over to one side some sliding doors opened a crack,
and out peered a small monkeylike face, brown and wrinkled. This face stared at
us for a minute; then the doors opened wider, and a small woman stepped out.
Out-landishly attired in a long red Chinese coat embroidered all over with
flowers and parrots, this strange apparition mysteriously approached, limping
slightly. She slowly circled around the little group, huddled close together for
protection. She kept her hands hidden Chinese-fashion in her voluminous sleeves.
We did not know what to make of it. Who was this?
..
Потом что-то
случилось. С одной стороны, какие-то раздвижные двери открыли проем, и оттуда
выглянуло маленькое обезьяноподобное лицо, коричневое и морщинистое. Это лицо
смотрело на нас с минуту; затем двери стали шире, и маленькая женщина вышла
наружу. Внезапно одетая в длинное красное китайское пальто, вышитое со всех
сторон цветами и попугаями, это странное явление таинственно приблизилось,
слегка прихрамывая. Она медленно кружала вокруг маленькой группы, прижавшись
вплотную друг к другу для защиты. Она держала руки скрытыми в объемных рукавах
китайского платья.
Мы не знали, что с этим делать. Кто это был?
Without a kind word of greeting to the pathetic little group in her house,
this odd creature poked her funny face into each one of our faces for a silent
scrutiny and then disappeared as mysteriously as she had come, closing the
sliding doors behind her.
..
Без каких-либо приветствий к жалкой
маленькой группе, появившейся в её доме, это странное существо направляло своё
странное лицо на каждое из наших лиц для молчаливого контроля, а затем исчезло
так же загадочно, как она и появилась, закрыв раздвижные двери позади себя.
I suddenly longed for the comforting arms of my mother. The others must have
had similar reactions, for Erica-the youngest, a mere tyke of four-suddenly
burst into loud, heart-rending wails. We all were about to join her when,
luckily, two nursemaids appeared.
..
Мне вдруг захотелось утешительных
рук моей матери. У других, должно быть, были подобные реакции, потому что Эрика
- самая младшая, всего лишь четырех лет - внезапно взорвалась в громкие,
раскалывающиеся вопли. Мы все собирались присоединиться к ней, когда, к счастью,
появились две няньки.
«Ah! here they are, our little Hamburgers!» they exclaimed. With •pleasant
grins lighting up their young faces, they said, «Welcome to the Duncan School!»
and in a cheerful, lively manner hustled us off.
..
«Ах! вот они, наши
маленькие Гамбургеры!» - воскликнули они. С приятной улыбкой, освещенной их
молодыми лицами, они сказали: «Добро пожаловать в школу Дункан!» И в веселой,
живой манере вытолкнули нас наружу.
Chatting all the way downstairs, they hurried us to the large, airy basement,
where they helped us remove our newly acquired white woolen coats with
pink-lined hoods and our winter over-shoes. «What you children need is some nice
hot tea and bread and butter,» one of them said. «That will cheer you up.»
..
Беседуя всю дорогу вниз, они поспешили к большому воздушному подвалу,
где они помогли нам снять наши недавно приобретенные белые шерстяные пальто с
розовыми вышивками и снять наши зимние ботинки. «Всё что вам нужно, дети - это
хороший горячий чай, хлеб и масло», - сказала одна из них. «Это поддержит
вас».
«And then you are going to meet all your new playmates,» the other one
grinned and jerked her thumb in the direction of the nearby dining hall. «Listen
to them! They have just come back from their daily outing.»
..
«И тогда
вы встретите всех своих новых товарищей по игре», - улыбнулась другая, и указала
большим пальцем в сторону соседней столовой. «Слушайте их! Они только что
вернулись со своей ежедневной прогулки».
The loud hubbub of children's voices resounded in the basement. It stopped
suddenly, the moment we newcomers entered the room.
«Meet our little
Hamburgers!» one of the nurses called out.
«You all have time to get
acquainted before tea.»
..
В подвале раздался громкий шум детских
голосов. Это прекратилось внезапно, как только мы, новички, вошли в
комнату.
«Познакомьтесь с нашими маленькими Гамбургерами!» - произнесла одна
из нянь.
«У вас всех есть время познакомиться перед чаем».
Being an only child and having played mostly solitary games at home, I always
felt shy when confronted with a mass on-slaught of other children. But this
group looked like a cheerful, friendly lot, with their cheeks red from the
wintry air and out-of-doors activities, and their eyes shining. They pushed
forward for a closer view of us. A pretty, dark-haired girl with round rosy
cheeks and small chocolate-brown eyes, older and taller than myself, made her
way through the crowd and grasped my hand. «My name is Anna,» she said sweetly.
«What is yours?»
..
Будучи единственным ребенком и играя в основном в
одиночные игры в домашних условиях, я всегда чувствовала себя застенчивой, когда
сталкивалась с массой из других людей. Но эта группа была похожа на веселую,
дружелюбную массу, с красными щеками от зимнего воздуха на открытом воздухе, и с
их сияющему глазами. Они подошли к нам ближе. Красивая, темноволосая девушка с
круглыми розовыми щеками и маленькими шоколадно-карими глазами, старше и выше
меня, пробралась сквозь толпу и схватила мою руку. «Меня зовут Анна, - сказала
она сладко. "А как тебя?"
I introduced myself and she immediately made me feel at home by saying, «I
want you to meet my friend Theresa,» and she put her arm around the waist of a
girl who was her opposite in coloring, with blue eyes, blonde hair, and a lot of
freckles on her tiny nose. They made a charming pair. Anna, who ap-parently
loved to get things organized, then drew out a darling little girl nearer my own
age and size. She had a dainty heart-shaped face with hazel eyes and dark
lashes. I especially admired her dark, naturally wavy hair. Anna introduced us,
stating im-portantly, «This is Temple. She is Miss Isadora's niece!» (the
daughter of her brother Augustin, as I later learned).
..
Я представила
себя, и она сразу заставила меня почувствовать себя как дома, сказав: «Я хочу,
чтобы вы познакомились с моей подругой Терезой», и она обняла талию девушки,
которая была её противоположностью во внешнем виде, с голубыми глазами, светлыми
волосами, и множеством веснушек на её крошечном носу. Они сделали очаровательную
пару. Анна, которая, по-видимому, любила организовывать происходящее, затем
вытащила из толпы милую девочку ближе к моему собственному возрасту и размеру. У
неё было изящное сердцевидное лицо с карими глазами и темными ресницами. Я
особенно восхищалась её темными, естественно волнистыми волосами. Анна
познакомила нас с важными словами: «Это Храм. Она - племянница мисс Айседоры!»
(Дочь её брата Августина, как я узнала позже).
Temple said, «Hello!» and stared at me with lips half-open in an expectant
sort of way, which I soon found out was a little habit she had. I didn't say
anything but thought, What luck! to be the niece of a Fairy Queen! I could not
get further acquainted with her, for Anna, who had taken me in tow, had more
girls to introduce, mainly the younger ones. There was Lise! with the pretty
golden curls and the large brown eyes of a startled deer. And beside her, little
Gretel with violet eyes, ash-blonde hair, and the delicate look of a Dresden
china doll. There were many more-Isabelle, Gerda, Marta, Stephanie-too many
names to remember all at once. When we sat at the long refectory table, I
counted twenty girls. I discovered later they came from every part of Germany,
some from Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, and Poland; Temple was the only
American.
..
Храм сказала: «Привет!» И уставилась на меня с полуоткрытыми
губами, что, как я вскоре узнала, была её маленькая привычка. Я ничего не
сказала, но подумала: «Какая удача! быть племянницей Волшебной королевы! Я не
могла больше познакомиться с ней, потому что Анна, которая взяла меня на буксир,
предложила больше девочек, в основном младших. Это Лиза! с довольно золотыми
кудрями и большими карими глазами испуганного оленя. И рядом с ней, маленькая
Гретель с фиолетовыми глазами, пепельно-светлыми волосами и тонким видом куклы
из Дрездена. Было еще много - Изабель, Герда, Марта, Стефани - слишком много
имен, чтобы запомнить все сразу. Когда мы сели за длинный столик, я насчитала
двадцать девочек. Я позже обнаружила, что они приехали из разых частей Германии,
некоторые из Бельгии, Голландии, Швейцарии и Польши; Храм был единственной
американкой.
«I do not know exactly how we chose those children,» Isadora once said. «I
was so anxious to fill the Grunewald and the forty little beds, that I took the
children without discrimination, or merely on account of a sweet smile or pretty
eyes; and I did not ask myself whether or not they were capable of becoming
future dancers.»*
*Life, p. 177.
..
«Я точно не знаю, как мы выбрали
этих детей», - однажды сказала Айседора. «Я очень хотела заполнить Груневальд и
сорок маленьких кроватей, так что я брала детей без дискриминации или просто
из-за сладкой улыбки или хорошеньких глаз; и я не спрашивала себя, способны ли
они стать в будущем танцорами».*
*Моя жизнь, с. 177.
I asked Anna, who took her seat beside me at tea, how she liked it here. She
didn't answer directly but inquired, «Have you met Tante Miss?»
«Tante who?»
I was puzzled. «Who is that?»
«Didn't you see her upstairs?»
«Oh, you
mean the one in the funny red coat with the parrots on it?»
Anna nodded
eagerly, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.
«What do you think of her?»
«I was so scared.»
..
Я спросила Анну, которая села рядом со мной за
чаем, как ей понравилось здесь. Она не ответила прямо, но спросила: «Вы
встречались с мисс Танте?»
«Танте, кто?» Я был озадачена. «Это
кто?»
«Разве ты не видела её наверху?»
«О, ты имеешь в виду ту, кто в
забавном красном пальто с попугаями?»
Анна нетерпеливо кивнула, озорная
улыбка была в её глазах.
«Что ты о ней думаешь?»
«Я был так напугана.»
Anna whispered, «We are all a bit frightened of her. She is Miss Duncan, Miss
Isadora's older sister. We call her Tante Miss.» And with the superior air of
one who had been enrolled at the school for the space of a whole week before I
arrived, she added, «But everybody else is very nice here, you'll see!»
«Attention everyone!» One of the nursemaids at the end of the table clapped her
hands for silence. «I am going to take the new ones upstairs to bed. The rest of
you stay down here and don't make too much noise. Is that understood?»
..
Анна прошептала: «Мы все немного испугались. Она мисс Дункан, старшая
сестра мисс Айседоры. Мы называем ее «мисс Танте». И с превосходным видом того,
кто был зачислен в школу на протяжении целой недели до моего приезда, она
добавила: «Но все остальные здесь очень хороши, вы увидите!» «Внимание всем!»
Одна из нянь в конце стола хлопнула в ладоши для тишины. «Я собираюсь взять
новых наверх в постель. Остальные вы остаетесь здесь и не делаете слишком много
шума. Это понятно?»
A shout by many throats in the affirmative answered her. «Well then, come
with me, all you little Hamburgers. You must be tired from the trip and the
excitement. Early to bed and early to rise for you five, and tomorrow you'll be
fresh and rested and can have a good time with the other children.»
..
Ей
ответил утвердительный крик из многих голосов. «Ну, пойдемте со мной, все наши
маленькие Гамбургеры. Вы должно быть устали от поездки и волнения. По-раньше
ляжете спать, и вам рано вставать, для вас в пять, а уже завтра вы будете
свежими и отдохнувшими, и сможете хорошо провести время с другими детьми».
With these words she marched us upstairs to the dormitory, where five white
beds, with blue satin coverlets and muslin canopies tied with blue ribbon at the
top, awaited us. The winter's pale setting sun cast a pink glow over the pretty
white and blue room. It struck me as peculiar having to go to bed in daylight,
but I didn't mind in the least as soon as I saw the canopied bed that was to be
mine. In Germany we call this a Himmelbett, or «heavenbed,» associated always
with children of the rich. The average child merely dreamed of such a heavenly
bed, curtained in flowing white muslin and covered in satin, fit for a princess.
I could hardly wait, after I had folded my Duncan uniform on the white chair at
the foot and placed my sandals neatly underneath, as I had been shown, to climb
into my Himmelbett and pull the silk coverlet up to my chin, finding that my
dream had come true.
..
С этими словами она направила нас наверх в
общежитие, где нас ожидали пять белых кроватей с голубыми атласными покрывалами
и муслиновыми навесами с голубой лентой наверху. Затянувшееся зимой солнце
заливало розовое сияние над красивой бело-голубой комнатой. Мне показалось
странным ложиться спать при дневном свете, но я ничуть не возражал, как только
увидел навесную кровать, которая должна была быть моей. В Германии мы называем
это Химмельбеттом, или «небесами», которые всегда ассоциируются с детьми
богатых. Средний ребенок просто мечтал о такой небесной постели, занавешенной в
белой муслине и покрытой сатином, подходящей для принцессы. Я едва мог
дождаться, после того как я сложила форму Дункан на белом стуле у подножия и
аккуратно поставила свои сандалии под ним, как мне показалось, чтобы забраться в
мой Химмельбетт и натянуть шелковое одеяло до моего подбородка, обнаружив, что
моя мечта сбылась.
While some of the other children dawdled and little Erica, the baby of the
school, had to be undressed and put to bed by «Fraulein» (as we were told to
call her), I glanced about the room. On the wall directly opposite hung the most
appealing picture: a large Madonna and Child in ceramic on an azure background,
framed in a garland of fruit and flowers in glazed colors, so natural they
looked real. At home in our dark, damp bedroom I had only a dull framed proverb.
Here, in the Duncan School, everything was different!
..
В то время как
некоторые из других детей улеглись, и маленькую Эрику, ребенка школы, пришлось
раздеть и положить в постель «Фрейлейн» (как нам сказали звать её), я взглянула
на комнату. На стене прямо напротив висела самая привлекательная картина:
большая Мадонна с младенцем в керамике на лазурном фоне, обрамленная гирляндой
из фруктов и цветов в глазированных красках, настолько естественная, что они
выглядели реальными. Дома в нашей темной, влажной спальне у меня была только
унылая обрамленная пословица. Здесь, в Школе Дункан, всё было по другому!
But the picture that pleased me most was the small reproduction of an angel
playing the viol that was attached to the bedstead above my head. The other beds
had similar Renaissance pictures, each one representing an angel playing a
different instrument. But I liked mine the best; the face of my guardian angel,
framed in dark curls and inclined over the instrument, had so divine an
expression that one could almost hear the melody. When Fraulein closed the
Venetian blinds, curtailing my observation, I stretched out with contentment and
tried to go to sleep.
..
Но картина, которая мне больше всего нравилась,
- это маленькое воспроизведение ангела, играющего на скрипке, который был
прикреплен к кровати над моей головой. На других кроватях были похожие картины
эпохи Возрождения, каждая из которых представляла ангела, играющего на другом
инструменте. Но мне понравилось моя, она была лучшей; лицо моего
ангела-хранителя, обрамленное темными кудрями и наклоненное к инструменту,
обладало таким божественным выражением, что почти можно было услышать мелодию.
Когда фраулейн закрыла венецианские жалюзи, свернув мое наблюдение, я
растянулась с удовлетворением и попыталась заснуть.
[35], p. 18-19.
Isadora Duncan at the Theatre of Dionysus, Athens, 1904.
[36], p. 18-19.
Isadora in her own equipage, Berlin, 1905.
Marta,
Lisa, and Gerda before a statuette of Isadora, Grunewald, 1905.
..
It was not easy. All the fresh impressions and strange sights that had
crowded these last three days tumbled through my mind. The pine-scented air of
the nearby forest filled the room with fragrance. Through the open window I
could hear the dis-tant rumble of the Rundbahn passing by. The melancholy hoot
of the locomotive, a sound forever afterward evoking memories of my childhood,
made me feel drowsy. Still I could not relax into sleep. Something was missing.
What I longed for was not the comforting arms of my own mother giving me a
goodnight kiss. It was just one more sight, before I dozed off, of the
beauti-ful Fairy Queen, who had brought us here to her enchanted castle in the
woods. She and her coach seemed to have disappeared completely.
..
Это
было непросто. Все свежие впечатления и странные достопримечательности, которые
переполняли эти последние три дня, провалились у меня в голове. Сосновый воздух
из соседнего леса заполнил комнату ароматом. Через открытое окно я услышала
пронзительный гул прохода Рундбана. Меланхолический гудок локомотива, звук,
навеки напоминающий мое детство, заставил меня почувствовать сонливость. Тем не
менее я не могла уснуть. Что-то не так. То, чего я жаждала, не было утешительным
оружием моей матери, дающей мне спокойный поцелуй. Это было ещё одно зрелище,
прежде чем я задремала, о прекрасной Королеве Фей, которая привела нас сюда в её
заколдованный замок в лесу. Она и её экипаж, казалось, полностью исчезли.
I began to fear I would never see her again when I noticed a shadowy vision
tiptoeing silently from bed to bed, bending over each child. At last she reached
me. It was the Fairy Queen! She placed a cookie between my lips and kissed me.
«Good night, darling, sleep well,» she murmured, and was gone. I sighed happily
and fell into a peaceful slumber on the threshold of a bright new
world.
..
Я начала бояться, что больше никогда не увижу её, когда увидела,
как тихое видение, тихо пробиралось на цыпочках, от постели к постели,
наклоняясь над каждым ребенком. Наконец она добралась до меня. Это была Королева
Фей! Она положила печенье между моих губ и поцеловала меня. «Спокойной ночи,
дорогая, хорошего сна», - пробормотала она и ушла. Я счастливо вздохнула и
погрузилась в мирный сон на пороге яркого нового мира.
[38], p.20--- * DUNCAN DANCER * Dancer of the Future *
*2*
Dancer of the Future
THE year she established her first school, Isadora was basking in newfound
fame and popularity. It was Germany’s privilege in the opening years of the
twentieth century to offer the comparatively unknown American dancer both
serious recognition and lucrative success. She chose Germany, she once remarked,
“as the centre of philosophy and culture which I then believed it to be, for the
founding of my school.” *
*Life, p. 177.
..
В год, когда она основала
свою первую школу, Айседора купалась в новообретенной славе и популярности. Это
была привилегия Германии в первые годы двадцатого века, чтобы предложить
сравнительно незнакомой американской танцовщице как серьезное признание, так и
прибыльный успех. Она выбрала Германию, как она однажды заметила, «как центр
философии и культуры, который, как я тогда считала, необходимо для основания
моей школы».*
*Жизнь, с. 177.
Germany, at that period still an empire, had for the last three decades
enjoyed a state of uninterrupted peace. The liberal arts and sciences
flourished. It was no wonder, then, that when Isadora arrived with her dances
inspired by Hellenic ideals, the artists and intelligentsia of Germany saw in
her some divine manifestation. She in turn-her imagination kindled by the great
masters of German music-started a bold new venture in dance history when she
created her own choreography to Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, the one that
Wagner had labeled “the Apotheosis of Dance.” It was animated by her desire to
weld the two sister arts, music and dance, closer together. Such a venture
created a sensation among music lovers, who tangled in hot debates as to whether
or not the music of Beethoven needed this visualization. But she had no choice,
for only in great music did she find the source of inspiration that harmo-nized
with her lofty ideals.
..
Германия, в тот период еще империя, в течение
последних трех десятилетий наслаждалась состоянием непрерывного мира.
Либеральные искусства и науки процветали. Поэтому неудивительно, что когда
Айседора прибыла со своими танцами, вдохновленными идеалами эллинов, художники и
интеллигенция Германии увидели в ней какое-то божественное проявление. Она в
свою очередь - её воображение, зажженное великими мастерами немецкой музыки, -
начала новое смелое начинание в истории танцев, когда она создала свою
собственную хореографию в Седьмой симфонии Бетховена, которую Вагнер назвал
«Апофеозом танца». Он был воодушевлен по ее желанию сблизить две сестры
искусства, музыки и танца, ближе друг к другу. Такое предприятие создало
ощущение среди любителей музыки, которые запутались в горячих дискуссиях о том,
нужна ли музыке Бетховена эта визуализация. Но у неё не было выбора, потому что
только в великой музыке она находила источник вдохновения, гармонирующий с ее
высокими идеалами.
To fully comprehend and appreciate her epoch-making contribution to the
history of the dance, it is imperative to recall the primitive, stagnant state
in which that art was then floundering. The so-called “classical” ballet was an
uninspiring and uninteresting acrobatic exercise which, as one contemporary
critic observed, “had no validity other than a mere diversion. No one who
considered himself an intellectual gave the dance as it was then serious
consideration.” Not until Isadora Duncan arrived on the scene and gave the dance
new form and life did she, according to the same source, “help us to realize
that the dance can be an art.”
..
Чтобы полностью понять и оценить её
эпохальный вклад в историю танца, необходимо вспомнить примитивное, застойное
состояние, в котором это искусство тогда барахталось. Так называемый
«классический» балет был скучным и неинтересным акробатическим упражнением,
которое, как заметил один современный критик, «не имело никакой
действительности, кроме простого развлечения. Никто из тех, кто считал себя
интеллектуалом, не ставил танец, как это было тогда, на серьезное рассмотрение».
Только после того, как Айседора Дункан пришла на сцену и дала новую форму танца
и жизни, она, согласно тому же источнику, «помогла нам понять, что танец может
быть искусством».
Another spectator, who described her as being “tall, graceful and slender
with a small oval face, good features and a mass of dark hair; who is beautiful
on the stage and has particularly graceful arms and hands,” saw in the
California girl “a dancer of remarkable skill, whose art . . . has a wonderful
eloquence of its own. It is as far from the acrobatics of the opera dancer as
from the conventional tricks by which the pantomimists are wont to express the
more elementary human emotions.” To the above quoted reviews of a German and an
English writer should be added the impression of a contemporary French
journalist, who describes a rehearsal he once attended in a theatre in France.
On a bare stage a troupe of girls in pink tights, tutus and ballet slippers,
with woolen shawls across their shoulders to keep them warm on that drafty
stage, evolve slowly under the direction of a ballet master.
..
Другой
зритель, который назвал её «высокой, изящной и стройной с маленьким овальным
лицом, хорошими чертами и массами темных волос; которая красива на сцене и имеет
особенно изящные кисти и руки», видел в калифорнийской девушке «танцовщицу
замечательного мастерства, чье искусство ... имеет замечательное красноречие.
Это далеко от акробатики оперного танца, как от обычных трюков, благодаря
которым пантомимисты привыкли выражать более элементарные человеческие эмоции».
К приведенным выше обзорам немецкого и английского писателей следует добавить
впечатление современного французского журналиста, который описывает репетицию,
которую он когда-то посещал в театре во Франции. На голой сцене труппа девушек в
розовых колготках, пачках и балетных тапочках с шерстяными шалями на плечах,
чтобы держать их в тепле на этой сквозной сцене, медленно развивается под
руководством балетмейстера.
The ballet master, bustling about, made the troupe repeat the same movement a
dozen times. But it never seemed quite right. He got very angry and stormed at
them. The stick with which he beat time, tapping it against the floor,
frequently struck the legs in pink tights. This whole set-up had something
infinitely sinister about it, something very sad. All this inanimate gymnastic
had only a very faint resemblance to what one imagines the dance to be. The
dance must after all express something. It is not enough to execute movements
with the legs alone, the whole body must participiate. The entire being must
express some feeling. Our ballerinas are for the most part marvelously
articulated dolls whose grace we can admire but whose pointes and jetes battues
cannot be considered anything more than choreographical exercises. It will be
the glory of Isadora Duncan, that wanting to renew the art of the dance, she
drew her inspiration from ancient Greece and revived for us again that epoch of
beauty.
..
Балетмейстер, суетящийся вокруг, заставил труппу повторить
одно и то же движение дюжину раз. Но это никак не казалось ему правильным. Он
очень рассердился и бушевал на них. Палка, которой он отбивал время, постукивая
по полу, часто ударяла по ногам в розовых колготках. Вся эта настройка имела
что-то бесконечно зловещее, что-то очень грустное. Вся эта неодушевленная
гимнастка имела только очень слабое сходство с тем, что воображает танец. Танец
должен все что-то выразить. Недостаточно совершать движения только с ногами, все
тело должно участвовать. Все существо должно выразить какое-то чувство. Наши
балерины - это по большей части удивительно артикулированные куклы, чью грацию
мы можем восхищать, но чьи бонусы и струны не могут считаться чем-то большим,
чем хореографические упражнения. Это будет слава Айседоры Дункан, которая хочет
обновить искусство танца, она черпала вдохновение из Древней Греции и снова
возродила для нас эту эпоху красоты.
Isadora’s appearance on the stage in a simple chiton “a la greque” and sans
pink tights (a shocking sight to the prudish element in society) led people to
believe that she wanted to revive the Greek dance. Yet she herself categorically
stated, “My dance is not Greek. I am not a Greek. I am American.” She felt her
dance had sprung from the roots of life as her Irish pioneer ancestors lived it
in a covered wagon traversing the wide spaces of the West on their way to
California in ‘49. “All this my grandmother danced in the Irish jig,” she told
her pupils, “and I learned it from her and put into it my own aspiration of
young America.»*
* Cf. Life, p. 340.
..
Выступление Айседоры на сцене
в простом хитоне «а ля греческий» и мужских розовых колготках (шокирующее
зрелище для ханжеской части общества), что заставило людей поверить, будто она
хотела возродить греческий танец. Но она сама категорически заявляла: «Мой танец
не греческий. Я не гречанка. Я американка». Она чувствовала, что её танец возник
из корней жизни, поскольку её ирландские предки-первопроходцы жили в крытом
вагоне, пересекающем широкие пространства Запада на пути в Калифорнию в '49
году. «Всё это танцевала моя бабушка в ирландской джиге, - говорила она своим
ученикам, - и я узнала об этом от неё, и вложила в это своё собственное
стремление молодой Америки».*
*См. Жизнь, с. 340.
With the same enterprising spirit that had animated her pioneer ancestors,
she undertook the formidable task of establishing her long-dreamed of school. I
know of no other precedent in modern times where a young artist, at the start of
a promising career, is moved to invest hard-won earnings in a philanthropical
enterprise simply to gratify some lofty ideal. But Isadora Duncan did just that.
Rather than invest her money in diamonds and costly furs and expensive mansions
and other luxuries so many women crave, she spent every penny she earned on the
upkeep of her school. “I had no wish for the triumphal world tours” (which her
manager urged on her), Isadora, the idealist, explained. “I wanted to study,
continue my researches, create a dance and movements which then did not exist,
and the dream of my school which had haunted all my childhood, became stronger
and stronger.”+
+ Life, p. 141.
..
С таким же предприимчивым духом,
который оживил своих предков-первооткрывателей, она взяла на себя огромную
задачу по созданию своей мечты о школе. Я не знаю другого прецедента в наше
время, когда молодой артист, в начале многообещающей карьеры, перемещается,
чтобы вкладывать трудно завоеванные прибыли в филантропическое предприятие
просто для удовлетворения некоторых высоких идеалов. Но Айседора Дункан сделала
именно это. Вместо того, чтобы вкладывать деньги в бриллианты и дорогостоящие
меха, дорогие особняки и другие предметы роскоши, которых так жаждут женщины,
она потратила каждую пенни, которую она заработала на содержании её школы. «Я не
желаю триумфальных мировых туров» (к чему её призвал её менеджер), как идеалист,
объясняла Исадора. «Я хотела учиться, продолжать свои исследования, создавать
танцы и движения, которых тогда не было, и мечта о моей школе, которая
преследовала иеня всё моё детство, стала сильнее и сильнее».+
+ Жизнь, с.
141.
Months before she founded her school late in December 1904, Isadora was
walking with a friend when they happened upon a group of girls doing
calisthenics with dumbbells in an open courtyard. The girls, dressed in black
woolen bloomers, long-sleeved middy blouses, black stockings and shoes, went
through their exercises in a lifeless manner. Isadora, bent on reform, not only
in the art of dance but also in dress, said to her companion, “Consider these
poor girls trying to exercise with all those horrible clothes on l One of these
days I am going to change all that.”
..
За несколько месяцев до того, как
она основала школу в конце декабря 1904 года, Айседора ходила с другом, когда
они встречались с группой девушек, делающих гимнастику с гантелями в открытом
дворе. Девушки, одетые в черные шерстяные блузки, с длинными рукавами,
миди-блузками, черными чулками и туфлями, безжизненно прошли свои упражнения.
Айседора, склонившись к реформе, не только в искусстве танца, но и в одежде,
сказала своему собеседнику: «Подумайте об этих бедных девушках, пытающихся
упражняться со всей этой ужасной одеждой. На днях я собираюсь изменить все
это.»
“How are you going to bring that about?” Her friend reminded her of the age
they lived in and the ingrained prudishness of centuries. “It would be a
miracle.” Isadora answered with conviction,
“I am determined to found a
school, where children will walk barefoot in sandals the same as I do and wear
short, sleeveless tunics so they can move in utter freedom and be a fine example
to all the other children in the world. They shall learn not to be ashamed to
expose their limbs to the rays of the health giving sun. And I shall teach them
to dance; not in the stilted, outworn tradition of either a fairy, a nymph, or a
coquette, as I found when I was a child and took dancing lessons, but in harmony
with everything that is beautiful in nature.”
..
«Как ты собираешься это
рассказать?» Ее друг напомнил ей о эпохе, в которой они жили, и об укоренившемся
ханжестве веков. «Это было бы чудом», - с уверенностью ответила Айседора,
«Я
полна решимости основать школу, где дети будут ходить босиком в сандалиях так
же, как и я, и носить короткие, без рукавов туники, чтобы они могли двигаться в
полной свободе и быть прекрасным примером для всех других детей в мире. Они
научатся не стыдиться выставлять свои конечности лучам здоровья, дающим солнце.
И я научу их танцевать; не в изворотливой, изможденной традиции ни феи, нифмы,
ни кокетки, как я обнаружила, когда была ребенком, и брала уроки танцев, но в
гармонии со всем, что красиво в природе».
Ardently wishing to share her revelation of truth and beauty with others, she
spared no time or expense. Engaged in this laudable endeavor for the benefit of
children in general and the good of her future little charges in particular, she
had to overcome much antagonistic opposition from all those who live like ants
in an anthill, greeting every advanced idea with ridicule.
..
Пытаясь
поделиться с другими откровением об истине и красоте, она не жалела времени и
денег. Занимаясь этой похвальной попыткой в интересах детей в целом, и для
пользы от её будущих небольших сборов в частности, ей пришлось преодолеть много
антагонистической оппозиции со стороны всех тех, кто живет муравьями в
муравейнике, приветствуя каждую продвинутую идею с насмешками.
---41
Many
critics were then barking at her heels, trying to disparage her efforts and
ridicule her art. One deluded member of that confraternity went so far as to
question whether she could dance at all! Comparing her technique unfavorably
with that of the contemporary ballet, he declared her lacking in both the
correct physical requirements for a dancer and the required technique to
establish a new art form. He proposed that the question of her qualifications be
placed before the ballet masters of the world. “Let them be the judge!” he
sneered, little realizing that he hurled this jeer at the woman destined to
raise the dance to a level equal with all the other arts.
Isadora, who had concentrated on proving the obsolescence of the ballet, declaring that “the principles of the ballet school are in direct opposition to what I am aiming at,” did not let the insult go unchallenged. In January or February 1903, she sent a typical reply to the offending newspaper, the Morgen Post:
I was very much embarrassed on reading your esteemed paper to find that you had asked of so many admirable masters of the dance to expend such deep thought and consideration on so insignificant a subject as my humble self. I feel that much literature was somewhat wasted on so unworthy a subject. And I suggest that instead of asking them “Can Miss Duncan Dance?” you should have called their attention to a far more celebrated dancer
• one who has been dancing in Berlin for some years before Miss Duncan appeared. A natural dancer who also in her style (which Miss Duncan tries to follow) is in direct opposition to the school of the ballet of today.
The dancer I allude to is the statue of the dancing Maenad in the Berlin Museum. Now will you kindly write again to the admirable masters and mistresses of the ballet and ask them-“Can the dancing Maenad dance?”
For the dancer of whom I speak has never tried to walk on the end of her toes. Neither has she spent time in the practice of leaping in the air in order to find out how many times she could clap her heels together before she came down again. She wears neither corset or tights and her bare feet rest freely in her sandals.
I believe a prize has been offered for the sculptor who could replace the broken arms in their original position. I suggest it might be even more useful for art of today to offer a prize for whoever could reproduce in life the heavenly pose of her body and the secret beauty of her movement. I suggest that your excellent paper might offer such a prize, and the excellent masters and mistresses of the ballet compete for it.
Perhaps after a trial of some years they will have learned something about
human anatomy, something about the beauty, the purity, the intelligence of the
movements of the human
body. Breathlessly awaiting their learned reply, I
remain, sincerely yours,
Isadora Duncan
In her concentrated studies of the origin of movement (which the ballet claims starts at the hips) the truth was inevitably revealed to her. When she declared, “Every movement starts from within, from here,” placing both hands on her chest to illustrate to her pupils, she had the centrality of the solor plexus in mind. From there the nerve signals of the brain generate the impetus that must precede every movement. She soon discovered that there exists a Science of Movement-something that no one had discovered before. When medical scientists of today tell us that there is a right and a wrong to every movement we make, it is a fact that Isadora discovered over a half-century ago.
And she proceeded to teach and demonstrate this truth through her dancing. Her entire technique was based on this idea. Endowed with nature’s rarest gift-genius-she possessed a strong, prophetic vision of her own important mission in life. In a lecture delivered before the Press Association in Berlin at the outset of her career she stated it eloquently:
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. The dancer will not belong to a nation but to all humanity.
Oh, what a field is here awaiting her! Do you not feel that she is near, that she is coming, this dancer of the future? She • will help womankind to a new knowledge of the possible strength and beauty of their bodies, and the relation of their bodies to the earth nature and to the children of the future. She will dance, the body emerging again from centuries of civilized forgetfulness, emerging not in the nudity of primitive man, but in a new nakedness, no longer at war with spirituality and intelligence, but joining with them in a glorious harmony.
This is the mission of the dancer of the future. . . • Let us prepare the place for her. I would build for her a temple to await her. Perhaps she is yet unborn, perhaps she is now a little child. Perhaps, oh blissful! it may be my holy mission to guide her first steps, to watch the progress of her movements day by day until, far outgrowing my poor teaching, her movements will become godlike, mirroring in themselves the waves, the winds, the movements of growing things, the flight of birds, the passing of clouds, and finally the thought of man in relation to the umverse.
Oh, she is coming, the dancer of the future! The free spirit
who will yet
inhabit the body of new woman; more glorious
than any woman that has yet
been; more beautiful than the
Egyptian, than the Greek, the early Italian,
than all women of
past centuries-the highest intelligence in the freest
body!*
• Reconstructed from notes in 1903 copybook.
Inscrutable fate propelled me, wrapped in childish insouciance, to become the unwitting pawn for an idealistic experiment. I was chosen to play my part in two pioneering projects that resulted in considerable benefit to mankind.
First: I was to be initiated into a completely novel mode of dance expression, based on an entirely novel technique; the foundation of a newly created dance form composed of movements and gestures never employed before by any dancer, anywhere, that did not come to life until my great teacher, Isadora Duncan, invented them.
Second: my schoolmates and I would henceforth be compelled, nolens volens, to take an active part in the promotion of the dress reform that was innovated and designed by Isadora. By dint of our courageous example, a general adoption (with minor modifications) of this sane, simple, and beautiful fashion came about.
It was an ambitious program and one we undertook wholeheartedly in the first instance, but with certain reservations and many misgivings in the second. I can still see the shocked expressions among the local population, especially women, when we Duncan pupils first appeared in broad daylight with the coming of spring, appareled in tunics and with our bare feet in sandals, on the open streets of Berlin. Pitying exclamations like, “Oh, you poor, poor, little children! Why, you must be freezing to death with so little on!” engulfed us. Approaching our innocent governess with threatening gestures and looks, they shouted after her, “It’s cruelty, that’s what it is! We ought to get the police after you. Cruel! Cruel! Cruel! «Unfortunately, that wasn’t by any means the end of it. No one had reckoned with the other children of the neighborhood, mostly boys, who subjected us poor victims to what amounted to a minor persecution. Like the Christian martyrs of old, we were actually stoned. Frequently (and this was most humiliating) the children pelted us-in this era of horse-drawn carriages-with something else entirely! In this way we were continually forced to dodge either stones that hurt or filth that besmirched. We often panicked, despite heroic efforts on the part of our chaperone to fend off these wild hordes of insultscreaming juveniles.
How I dreaded those daily outings! They made me feel ashamed to be exposing my bare limbs in public, and they instilled in me an unreasonable complex, which I later had great difficulty in overcoming, about not dressing like other human beings. New ideas always frighten people. But it hardly seems credible that, in the first decade of this atomic century, the pupils of Isadora Duncan should have been stoned because of their unconventional dress. But a novel idea was on the march and nothing could stop its progress.
My education as a dancer of the future was purposely delayed until I had mastered the minutiae of daily school routine.
My first lesson, for instance, had nothing to do with dancing. For identification's sake, we had each been provided with anumber. Mine was 16. The day after my arrival I was handed a length of white tape with red numbers, which I was taught to sew neatly into every piece of clothing. There happened to be something symbolic about mine. The street number of the Duncan School was also I 6. In my childish fashion I took great pride in that fact, together with a sort of proprietary interest.
It was not easy to ad just to a school discipline that demanded lining up in pairs every time we walked up and down the stairs to go from one classroom to another and even on our daily promenade. There were long periods every day when we were not allowed to speak, and infraction of that strict rule meant punishment. Then I was forced to eat food I didn't like. But hardest of all was getting up at 6:30 every morning to go through an hour's exercise before breakfast. Clad only in blue one-piece bathing suits (years before Annette Kellerman made her sensational appearance in one! ) , we held onto rails along the wall and went through a series of limbering-up exercises we children used to call Beinschwingen and Kniebeugen. When Isadora said, «Gymnastics must come before dancing,» she never meant before breakfast. That was strictly the Spartan idea of Elizabeth Duncan, not the Athenian ideal of her sister.
The rest of the morning was taken up by schoolwork presided over by a regular public school teacher supplied by the German government. Dancing and music or singing lessons occupied the afternoon hours. Fresh in my memory is the unforgettable occasion of my first lesson in our dance room, standing there in bare feet and wearing a short white tunic made of cheesecloth. The room seemed very large to me, although it could not have measured more than twenty-five by eighteen feet.
Empty except for a few benches ranged along a wall and a brown felt carpet tacked to the floor, it had many windows and a glass-enclosed porch off to one side, from which a door opened onto a flight of iron stairs leading down into the garden. Sliding doors on the opposite wall connected with the spacious music room, where a grand piano (an Ibach) occupied the semicircular space formed by a large bay window.
Here, as everywhere else in the house, antique bas-reliefs formed the decorative motif. I principally remember the large one of a Nike tying her sandals; she was minus a head but had beautifully flowing draperies. I was fortunate enough nearly two decades later to admire the original in Greece. However much I admired these works of art, none could compare to the small statuette of our own goddess of the dance gracefully poised on a tripod in one corner of the dance room. It inspired and helped me more to understand Isadora’s art than all the archaic Greek representations. Whenever the guiding spirit of our school was absent-and that occurred more frequently than we liked-her adoring youthful pupils would gather in front of it and offer a silent prayer, as to a votive statue, wishing for her speedy return. For it was in this room that she initiated us into the fundamental principles of her dance, teaching us to walk in harmony and beauty with arms raised to the light. With the intuition of a true artist, she knew how to impart an understanding of her aims to her young disciples-a feat that her older sister, who took over when Isadora left, was never able to accomplish.
It seems strange that a woman suffering from a defect, which made one leg slightly shorter than the other, should have been put in charge of our basic dance instruction. But such was the case. As we grew up, we learned to accept with equanimity Isadora's unpredictable nature. But for a long time I puzzled, trying to figure out how Isadora expected us to learn to dance from her lame sister, who not once appeared in a dance tunic or demonstrated a movement for the pupils. She always wore the voluminous Chinese coat, which helped to hide her defect and restricted her teaching to simple dance steps. She taught us the waltz, the polka, and the mazurka-all of them popular dances in her youth-for she had conducted social dancing classes in America. She would lift her skirt a few inches and demonstrate the step; that was all. Now and then she would roll up her long, loose-hanging sleeves and illustrate a series of arm movements devoid of any expression or meaning, merely to impart suppleness. Her method of teaching had nothing in common with Isadora's, which relied a great deal on inspirational technique. Thus, under Elizabeth's guidance, we at first learned to dance rather perfunctorily. Somehow, however, we acquired enough basic knowledge and made sufficient progress for Isadora to work with us. One lesson from her made up for all of Tante Miss's routine. According to her own precepts, Isadora taught us simple, rhythmic movements-walking, running, skipping~ movements that come naturally to children. European children have the quaint custom of calling grownups with whom they come in close contact by the courtesy title
of Aunt or Uncle. When we called her «Tante Isadora,» she acted horrified. She said, «Now that you are my pupils, you may call me Isadora, or darling Isadora, but never, never call me Auntie!» On the contrary, her sister, who was twelve years older than she, did not object to the somewhat incongruous appellation of Tante Miss, which was given her when the German pupils in the beginning thought the prefix «Miss» was her name. Somehow or other, it suited her perfectly. Tante Miss, who lived in the school, we saw every day. Isadora, who had an apartment on the Hardenbergstrasse in Charlottenburg, we saw seldom.
Of the three Americans who instructed us in the arts of dance and music, Professor Passmore, our singing teacher, impressed us most as an American. Mr. Passmore, who looked like a cartoon of Uncle Sam with his beard and side whiskers, had his own method of teaching singing. A cheerful gentleman who liked to laugh a lot, he placed us in a semicircle, with hands resting on top of our heads, and made us vocalize to the words «Santa Barbara a Santa Clara.» That this curious, outlandish incantation, repeated at every lesson, held an important message concerning my future could not of course be guessed. Santa Barbara, the first American city whose name I learned to pronounce and sing, would turn out to be the birthplace of the man I was to marry. Dear Professor Passmore-had he only known!
«The Jay is a jolly old bird, heigh-ho! «-that was the first song in American he taught us-a composition of his own-and that is how we children regarded him-as a «Jolly Old Bird.» After his Wednesday and Friday singing lessons he would drink a cup of tea with Tante Miss in the music room as he conversed animatedly with her and his long black beard had a funny way of moving up and down, much to our amusement. He was, in fact, a skillful vocal instructor, guiding our voices gently into their natural pitch and emphasizing breath control. This was a technique we were grateful for later, when we had to sing and dance at the same time.
Learning something new every day, the time passed swiftly and I had no chance to suffer from those attacks of H eimweh that were shortly to reduce the number of pupils in the Grunewald school to fifteen. Mother had decided that. I should try out the school thoroughly before making up my mind whether or not to stay. Just before Easter she wrote me to stay on if I wished. I still have the letter I wrote to her in reply. My first letter was dated April JO, I 90 5. I wrote with the steep, large lettering of an eight-year-old that I was glad she had decided to leave me at school.
To make absolutely sure that I was in good hands, mother had repeatedly tried to get permission to visit me. Her many requests were refused by Elizabeth under the pretext that in-sufficient time had elapsed for me to become acclimatized. These refusals, made without Isadora's knowledge, angered mother. As soon as Isadora appeared again in Hamburg, mother went to see her. Isadora received her very kindly, immediately assuring her that she could visit me whenever she wanted. Graciously, she invited mother to stay at the school during her visit.
I had no idea mother was coming. One morning, when we descended to the basement dining hall, lined up in pairs as usual and holding hands, not allowed to speak a single word, I suddenly saw mother. I was even more speechless than before.
Dressed in a mauve silk negligee, her hair still in braids and quickly pinned up, she stood beside a narrow iron cot in a corner. The moment she saw me, she held out her arms and came rushing to me for an emotional embrace. As she pressed me to her breast, she called out endearments in her native Schleswig-Holstein dialect. This embarrassed me in front of the others. Most of them had never seen mother, and I wanted terribly for her to make a good impression. She clung so long to me that Fraulein thought discipline was being impaired. She called out, «Now Irma, sit down and eat your breakfast first and visit with your mother afterward.»
The other children were already seated, a big steaming bowl of hot porridge in front of each of them. But no one ate. Fascinated, they just stared at my mother. Their eyes filled with longing as they thought of their own mothers, whom they had not seen for months. Mother spoke to them gently, giving each a smile, trying to make their acquaintance. By her mere presence she spread a sort of homey Gemutlichkeit, a tenderness only mothers know how to bestow. Hearing her speak in the familiar, clipped North German accent, the girls from Hamburg became so homesick they started to cry. Later, except for little Erica and myself, they all returned home.
I had permission to skip school and spend the entire day with mother. I
remember sitting in a coffee shop where she let me stuff myself with pastry and
hot chocolate, something I hadn't tasted since I entered the school. While I was
eating, she pumped me further about the food I was getting there.
«Tell me
frankly,» she said, «how you like it.»
«Oh, so so. Not the way you cook,
Mama.»
«What do they give you? Tell me in detail.»
«Vegetables,» I said,
making a wry face.
«What else? That can't be all?»
«Macaroni .
«No
meat?»
«No meat.»
you know, that sort of stuff.»
Mother looked worried. At home I had eaten meat every day, and sometimes she would give me raw chopped meat with onions on black bread and plenty of salt and pepper, which I actually ate with relish. Naturally, after that kind of fare, our vegetarian diet was unappetizing and tasteless. There was no use complaining; the school physician, Dr. Hoffa, had ordered it.
I loathed it with all my heart and stomach, and never had enough to eat. But
I did not say this to mother. I did not want to upset her.
«And for
dessert-you do get dessert, don't you?» she asked hopefully.
«Yes, prunes.»
«Prunes every day?»
«No, sometimes we get sago pudding.»
When she learned that we had five meals a day-breakfast, second breakfast,
luncheon, tea, and supper-she was satisfied that I wasn't starving. She promised
to send me some homemade cake as soon as she got back. She still looked worried.
«Are you sure they are treating you all right and that you really like it
there?» she wanted to know.
«I like it fine, Mama,» I assured her. «The
people are very nice . . . some nicer than others.»
I thought of Isadora. And suddenly, out of the blue, it struck me how much of a stranger mother had become. In the short span of three months, I had somehow grown away from her, as if I had entered another world. And of course I had. Being educated far in advance of ordinary children, dressing differently from them, we Duncan pupils had indeed been set apart.
Like members of a religious community, under the benediction of some holy influence, we became an ever more dedicated group as we were further initiated into the secrets of Isadora's art. This was a world that no outsider could enter, nor could he ever fathom the depths of understanding and spiritual communion that existed amongst us whenever we worked or danced together with Isadora. That was a secret known to ourselves alone.
I had known Isadora so far only as a teacher. That spring for the first time I had the joy of seeing her perform on the stage. Sitting in a box with her other pupils, I watched her give a program called Dance Idylls which she originally performed in 1900, at the New Gallery in London under the patronage of H.R.H. the Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein. It contained a group of dances set to early Italian music, with costumes and dance motifs copied from Renaissance paintings. In those early days she made use of whatever stage decor was available, such as a sky-blue panorama in the background and tree groupings for the wings on either side. Later she adopted those tall, blue-gray curtains of her own design (though this was disputed by Gordon Craig), which she used henceforth exclusively. Those famous tall curtains subsequently became standard equipment, in one color or another, at every theatre, concert hall, school auditorium, or television set-wherever a neutral background was required.
On that memorable day when we first saw her perform, Isadora’s dancing, lively and beautiful with all her youthful charm, was a revelation to her pupils. One particular dance made the most indelible impression on my childish mind. It was called «Angel Playing the Viol,» to cello music by Peri. In this dance, in which she did not move her feet at all, I saw before my astonished eyes my guardian angel come to life. It was the one in the picture above my bed. Ever afterward, when I looked at this picture, it was Isadora’s face I saw. Of this performance Karl Federn, the German writer who instructed her in Nietzsche’s philosophy, wrote:
A simple scene • • . a green carpet and a spacious gray-blue backdrop . . • almost childish and laughable seems this stage decor until she appears, for then the scene changes with each of her dances and becomes real. So powerful is the mood she creates that we can see meadows and the flowers she gathers . . hear the waves break against the shore and surmise the approach in the distance of a fleet of ancient ships with billowing sails.
Her entrance, her walk, her simple gesture of greeting are movements of beauty. She wears no tights, no frilled ballet skirts, her slender limbs gleam through the veils and her dance is religion. . • . She appears as the Angel with Viol out of the painting by Ambrosio di Predis. A long violet garment worn over grayish veils floats down to her bare feet. In her hair, which hangs loosely to her shoulders, she wears a crown of white and red roses. And the Quattrocento comes alive again before us with all its innocence and deep religious feeling. Pan and Echo-a short Greek tunic, her hair tied into a knot.
We ask ourselves: Can this possibly be the same creature? With wonderful gestures expressive of the antique ideal, she resurrects the nostalgia of Hellas. How many statues have come to life in her! In a heavily draped Greek attire, she mourns to music of Gluck over the death of Eurydice, in rhythmic, measured, ceremonious grief that mounts and mounts until she sinks to the ground in despair. And then she appears again-this time the scene is darker, wrapped in sombre shadows, and her gown is colorless and floating like the shadows, and her movements are rapid and ghostlike: the shadows of the underworld listening to Orpheus. Suddenly the scene is bright again and everything is joy and contentment-Orpheus has found his Eurydice.
She has a dance without music, awesome and very gripping, called «Death and
the Maiden» . . . as in Maeterlinck’s «Intruse,» death announces itself unseen
but intensely apprehended. . . . The spectator feels a cold shiver run up and
down his spine. Everyone has sensed the awesome presence of the destroyer.*
*From Nach Funfundzwansig lahren, dated 1928, in Isadora Duncan's
Der
Tanz der Zukunft [The Dance of the Future] Eine Vorlesung [Jena,
1929]
iii-iv.
(Isadora once remarked that she did not call this dance «Death and the Maiden» when she composed it, but that she had some vague idea of it as Maiden and brutal reality, and it was the audience who named it Death. If one recalls her own tragic end, the dance seems almost prophetic.)
The unusual gift of the great artist to make others see the things born of her imagination gave depth and significance to everything Isadora created. She knew how to dance with such commanding authority that those who saw her perform were impressed even when they did not comprehend the meaning of her art. Few dancers possess such insight into music that the dance seems to express exactly what the composer intended. Richard Wagner has said: «The most genuine of all art forms is the dance. Its artistic medium is the living human being, and not merely one part of it but the whole body from the soles of the feet to the top of the head. For anyone completely sensitive to art, music and poetry can only truly become comprehensible through the art of the dance-mime.» And with every gesture Isadora Duncan revealed herself as a supreme dance-mime. She was the prototype of her own inspired vision of the Dancer of the Future-whose dance belongs to no one nation but to all of humanity.
«WE must adopt more children and build an addition to the school!» Isadora exclaimed enthusiastically when she saw the progress we had made during her five months’ absence. Returning from one of her protracted tours in the latter part of June that same year, she was filled with plans for the future, not counting the expense. Her sister was more practical. «Where will the money come from? As it is, we are living way beyond our budget.»
«I have an idea!» Never at a loss to make life more exciting, Isadora said,
«We'll give a benefit performance and show the children off to the public for
the first time. That will surely arouse sufficient interest. We will ask
everybody we know to subscribe.»
«That's an excellent idea,» Elizabeth
agreed, since she had already enlisted the aid of several Berlin society ladies
to act as patronesses of the school. She added, «Princess Henry of Reuss was
here a few days ago and saw the pupils dance. She was enchanted.»
Princess
Henry VII of Reuss, whose principality in Thuringia was a small one, possessed,
nevertheless, enormous wealth. A woman close to the Imperial court, she could be
useful in getting other influential ladies to join.
«I shall write to her immediately,» Isadora said, and she composed the
following letter:
Dear Princess: For the last eight months twenty little
girls have been living together in my school in Grunewald creating much joy to
themselves, a delight to all who have seen them, and a radiant hope for the
future of the Art of the Dance.
I wish to take twenty-five more next winter. This will necessitate a new
building erected on the vacant plot next door. As you know, I have given my
entire earnings to the maintenance of the school and am most pleased to do so in
the future. But they are not enough for the new ground and erection of the
second building to be connected by a passageway with the old one. So I am giving
a benefit at Kroll’s Opera House on July 20th, as a means of raising money for
it.
Of course we do not expect people who are out of town to be
present but that they may subscribe and give their tickets to artists, etc. All
the artists who have visited the school have been enthusiastic in their praises
for the lovely dancing of the little girls and are unanimous in their belief in
the value of the school to art and the state.
I myself am delighted with the progress of my pupils and am convinced that
almost every child has more or less talent for the dance if directed along
natural channels; and that the dancing of these little girls will be a source of
much joy to the public in the years to come. For this reason I do not hesitate
to ask for help in the advancing of my idea and feel sure my request will meet
with your sympathy.
Isadora Duncan
Among the various artists she mentions as visiting the school was an unknown Swiss musician called Jaques-Dalcroze. He witnessed a lesson once, and I recall the occasion vividly because of his infectious enthusiasm and constant interruptions. What fascinated him most were the kinetics involved in what Isadora called the «scale of movements,» which started with a slow walk, gradually accelerating into a fast and faster pace till it evolved into a run, and from there by degrees reverted to a slow walk again.
The Greatest Thing in Life 39
"Ha! " he exclaimed, jumping up from his seat in great
agitation; and he
inquired of Tante Miss, "May I have your permissiOn to improvise at the piano
for a repetition of this
exercise?" Permission granted, he proceeded to
improvise for us.
When he left, he signed the guest book, which was always
on
top of the piano. A few years later, he founded his whole system
of
Eurythmics on what he had seen that day at our school.
Such things
occurred so frequently with people interested in
the new dance form Isadora
had invented that it was no wonder
she should constantly voice the
complaint, "Everybody is running off with my ideas!" Unfortunately, they could
not be
patented. If they could have been, what royalties she might have
collected from her millions of imitators, including the Russian
ballet!
It so happened that the well-known German composer
Engelbert Humperdinck
lived next door to us on Trabener-
strasse. Famous for his universally
beloved children's opera
Hansel and Gretel, he headed the committee for the
support of
our school. One afternoon we all went to have tea with him and
his family. A man of about fifty, he regaled us by playing music
from
his opera such as the "Knusper-Waltzer" and the lively,
tuneful
"Rosenringel" and "Tanzreigen." Appropriately enough
for our youthful years,
Isadora taught us a dance to the last two
compositions. Humperdinck often
played his tunes for us to get
the right tempo and feeling. He played them
with such verve
that we children responded with natural spontaneity and put
all
we had into the charming dance.
The subscription list mounted daily, with Princess Reuss
contributing a
thousand goldmarks; Princess von Meiningen, a
hundred; Frau von Mendelsohn
of the banking family, also a
thousand; Countess Harrach, a lady-in-waiting
to the Kaiserin,
five hundred; Siegfried Wagner, son of Richard Wagner of
Bayreuth, a thousand; and so forth down the list to Frau Begas,
the wife
of Reinhold Begas, the famous German sculptor, who
created the national
monument to Emperor William I as well as
many of the principal statues of
Berlin. Isadora gave us new silk tunics in pastel shades of blue, pink, and
yellow to wear for
the occasion, making us discard the cheesecloth ones
entirely.
Also we had small wreaths of rosebuds for our hair.
Then came the big day. The excitement of that moment can
never be
repeated. Here I was, after only seven months of
apprenticeship, ready to
make my stage debut. Such a thrill
comes to few children, and when it does
they are never afterwards the same. A marvelous ingredient, a wonderful feeling
of
accomplishment, is then added to the ordinary routine of daily
existence. This is something that the average child does not
expenence.
We were to appear at the very end of Isadora's
performance.
Quietly, we entered the stage door of the big Opera House late
at night. \Ve had slept all afternoon and early evening so as to
be
fresh and bright. I had an awesome sensation as I mounted
the stairs to the
dressing rooms while the performance was in
progress. The sound of the
orchestra playing faintly reached my
ears. The curious, indefinable smell of
backstage familiar to
every performer, mixed with the unseen but
nevertheless acutely
sensed, electrifying presence of the hushed audience
out in front,
gave me my first attack of stage fright. The stern voice of
Tante Miss saying, "Here, sit down in front of me so I can put
your
make-up on," brought me out of it.
I did as I was told, holding my hair back so she could smear
cold cream
over my face. When she finished and had applied
the lipstick, she said,
"There you are! I made you a nice cupid's
bow." She surveyed me critically
to judge the effect of her handi-
work. "Now don't touch your face," she
warned. "Who's next?"
This strange, unfamiliar business of make-up
completed, I
turned to the mirror. A rouged and powdered face stared back,
resembling a painted mask; a face that was and yet was not mine.
How
familiar this pre-curtain ritual was to become in the course
of my long
theatrical career!
When the other children had been similarly transformed
with the aid of
poudre de riz and Dorin's rouge, and we stood
The Greatest Thing in Life 41
ready in silk tunics and circlets of rosebuds for a final inspection,
we
all jumped and looked startled when a shrill bell suddenly
rang in our
dressing room.
"This is it!" Tante Miss said. "Get ready to go downstairs,
and don't forget to put on your slippers and woolen shawls."
Then, lined
up two by two, we were hustled downstairs. With
finger on her lips, Tante
Miss signaled us to keep quiet and
take our places backstage. Excitement
took hold of me again,
for I was about to experience something completely
unknown,
like diving into deep water. The orchestra struck up the
by-now-
familiar melody and, waiting in the wings poised to take off
on
cue, I summoned up my courage and dashed out onto the
vast, empty stage of
the Royal Opera House.
Dancing from the encircling shadows into the glaring
light,
I instantly forgot my previous nervousness, as I lost myself in
the music and the dance. What joy, to dance in natural abandon
carried
along by the beautiful sounds of a symphony orchestra!
This utterly
entrancing sensation made all of us dance with such
spontaneous enjoyment
that we must have projected our own
happiness across the footlights, for
when we finished the audi-
ence responded with deafening applause.
The
shock of this unexpected noise descended upon us with
the suddenness of a
thunderclap. We turned for reassurance to-
ward the wings, where, near the
proscenium arch, we had espied
the lithe figure of our idol, who had been
watching our dancing
and for whom alone we had danced. Sensing our childish
alarm,
she quickly advanced toward us smiling, her light draperies
floating behind her. Arms filled with long-stemmed roses, she
stopped in
our midst and took a bow while the gaze of her little
pupils turned toward
her as flowers toward the sun.
The audience clamored for encores. When the
music began
again, Isadora quickly whispered to us to dance toward her,
one by one, from the opposite corner of the stage. We did so,
and as
each child skipped up she handed her a pink rose. With
the flowers in our
hands, we then circled about her as she posed
DUNCAN DANCER
in the
center of the stage, arms outstretched as if to embrace us
all in a loving,
maternal gesture. Happy, laughing children
danced a rondo about her, a real
"Rosenringel Reigen," and in
that ecstatic group was one who wished this
happy dance would
never, never stop.
In the audience that night in July
1905 was Gordon Craig.
He gave his impression later:
She called her
little pupils to come to her and please the public
with their little
leapings and runnings! as they did, and with her
leading them the whole
troupe became irresistibly lovely. I sup-
pose some people even then and
there began reasoning about it
all, trying to pluck out the heart of the
mystery. But I and hun-
dreds of others who saw this first revelation did not
stop to
reason, for we too had all read what the poets had written of
life and love and nature, and we did not reason then; we read,
we wept
and laughed for joy. And to see her shepherding her
little flock, keeping
them together and especially looking after
one very small one of four years
old, was a sight no one there
had ever seen before and, I suppose, will
never see again.*
Whoever would have believed it possible that our innocent
dance debut should bring forth wrath from on high? No one less
than the
German Kaiserin, Auguste Victoria, a pious woman
(who inspired her husband's
famous remark about its being
woman's duty to occupy herself solely with
Kinder, Kirche,
Kueche), pronounced herself outrageously shocked at children
performing in bare limbs. Brought up in the Victorian era, when
the
sight of a woman's ankle was considered daring, she could
not look upon
children's bare legs without feeling that it was
immoral. If the poor
Kaiserin could only see her royal descend-
ants today going bare-legged in
the summertime, she surely
would realize what enormous progress has been
made against
prudishness through the good example set by that same group
of dancing children she once criticized.
Her official utterance
condemning the display of bare limbs
occasioned wide publicity. It aroused
further controversy and
* In a talk for BBC Radio.
The Greatest Thing in
Life 43
also a livelier interest on the part of influential people in
Isadora
Duncan's school for the education of children along modern
lines. It was then the only one of its kind in the world teaching
freedom of motion; a sane, healthy attitude toward the human
body; and,
to complement these two important objectives, an
appropriate dress reform.
Nothing comparable had been seen in
the Occidental world since the Hellenic
and Roman civilizations.
It was no wonder that under these circumstances the
question of
the propriety of exposing limbs to public view should be
dis-
cussed seriously even by learned professors. How much the ques-
tion
was a topic of the day is evident in an article written in 1906:
IN ISADORA
DUNCAN'S HOUSE
Several ladies and gentlemen of society recently gathered
to-
gether in Grunewald to have Isadora's sister Elizabeth Duncan
present
to them the pupils of the Duncan School.
The inte1ior of Isadora's home
breathes the severe style of
classical Greece softened by modern
conveniences. Everywhere
subdued colors and geometric lines and, in all
things, from the
reliefs of old Italian masters hanging on the walls, to the
color-
ful flowers decorating the tables, a display of good taste. What
the visitor is immediately aware of and what helps to dispel any
lingering skepticism and calls forth respect is that here are people
who
have more than a sure sense of good taste. What impresses
him is that there
is indeed a great idea behind all this-perhaps
a way of life.
As we
enter the festive hall we behold, in addition to the an-
cient Greek spirit,
the most refreshing youth. We are confronted
with what at first impact
confuses and leaves one dumbfounded;
namely, a group of seventeen little
girls in tunics of transparent
silk and with hair unbound and carefully
adorned with flowers
or a simple diadem!
Seventeen youthful dancers,
that is a total of thirty-four little
dancing legs, bare as bare can be. And
here is something curi-
ous! However greatly it may contradict one's
conventional cus-
toms, the spectator is hardly conscious of this bareness of
limbs
in these surroundings. He does not perceive it as something odd
44
DUNCAN DANCER
or even offensive but rather as an aesthetic necessity, and he
gains the impression that even the smallest sandal would spoil the
quiet
flow of lines.
One of the little dancers takes a big ball and bounces it
onto
the floor. She skips around it playfully and continues to bounce the
ball with dancing gestures. Never have I seen anything so grace-
full
Never beheld so harmoniously rounded a dance image that
appeared so entirely
natural. ...
How very difficult to achieve, and how very seldom
em-
ployed in ordinary life, is the beauty of apparently the simplest
of
human motions. The Duncan sisters are quite right when they
regard the walk,
the rhythmic stride, as the basis for all dance
art. As the most important
of the 95,140 combinations of move-
ments which, according to the opinion of
the dance theoretician
Emanuel of Paris, are possible for the human body to
achieve.
Whether the little Duncan girls stride ceremoniously in the
man-
ner of antique choruses, whether they hop about cheerfully or
mime
games, always, their every movement seems born out of
the spirit of the
music •.•. What enjoyment does the sight of
a well-proportioned foot and the
play of its muscles afford! This
wonderful adjunct to the human body has
become estranged to
modern man. The compulsion of footwear has so pitiably
crip-
pled it that it has become almost a shameful thing. These
child-
dancers have completely normal feet. And since the whole foot
and
not the toes alone have been designed by nature to support
the body's
weight, their art does not deteriorate into the man-
nered offense which is
the alpha and the omega of the old-style
ballet and which causes those who
practice it so much effort and
pam ...•
Better-cared-for children cannot
be imagined, and they are all
visibly and most lovingly devoted to the
cause. Elizabeth Duncan
conducted us into the dormitories: a symphony in
white and
blue bathed in light and fresh air, in an orderliness and
cleanliness
that conveys an indescribable comfort. The girls are to remain
in this house till they are seventeen, thereafter they are going to
appear with Isadora Duncan on the stage. It is reassuring to
know that
this gay but fundamentally serious art of the dance
has, in this conception,
a future.
The Greatest Thing in Life 45
When, after two hours which
passed like a dream, I stood
once more in the tumult of the streets in the
midst of hurrying,
perspiring, and laborious people, the skeptic stirred
again in me
and I asked myself: What is the purpose of all this? What
benefit is there in it for us modern-machine people living in this
era
of shrillest disharmonies, in this piece of ancient Greece trans-
planted to
a northern clime? ..• But then, above conflicting
sentiments the thought
arose, that even if there seems to be no
practical use for it, one must
admit it really is very nice when,
far removed from the monstrous, dusty
highroad trodden by
millions, there exist a few gardens here and there
secluded and
filled with "Wunderblumen."
This was not the first skeptic
nor the last to ask himself: Of
what practical use is all this? He had part
of the answer when
he surmised that it was "perhaps a way of life." New
ideas are
seldom of immediate, general benefit to the contemporary
gen-
eration. Sufficient time must elapse before the seeds start to
germinate and take root. Isadora's credo was: "To dance is to
live." She
said that what she wanted was a school of life, for
man's greatest riches
were in his soul, in his imagination. She
called the dance "not a diversion
but a religion"; and she taught
that idea to the children in her school.
"Life is the root and art
is the flower." Again and again she would
reiterate that dance
was the most natural and most beautiful aid to the
develop-
ment of the growing child in its constant movement, and only
that education was right which included the dance.*
It is not surprising
that intelligent men were somewhat per-
plexed when they first came in
personal contact with a living
demonstration of this credo. Isadora Duncan's
idea was still
above their heads. Cultured Europeans were suddenly
con-
fronted with the unusual phenomenon of seeing an American
(and a
woman at that) bring culture from the New World to
the Old. It had always
been the reverse. Her unique dance art
represented one of the very few
genuine, original art forms the
* Cf. Art, pp. 88, 141-q.z.
DUNCAN
DANCER
United States had produced in its less than two hundred years
of
existence.
Frequent inquiries as to the exact purpose of her dance
school came from every direction. In a notebook of this period,
she set
forth her views:
If the dance is not to come to life again as an art, then
far better
that its name should rest in the dust of antiquity •••• I am
deeply interested in the question: Is the dance a sister art or not;
and
if so, how shall it be brought to life as an art? And I put
this question
quite apart from myself or my dance, which may
be nothing-or
something-simply as a question which must be
of interest to most people.
My dancing is to me an instinctive thing born with me .•••
You call me a
barefoot dancer. To me you might as well say
a bare-headed or bare-handed
dancer. I took off my clothes to
dance because I felt the rhythm and freedom
of my body better
that way. In all ages when the dance was an art, the feet
were
lett free as well as the rest of the body; also, whenever the
dance
has had an influence on the other arts-as in the beautiful
bas-reliefs of
dancing figures of the Greeks. . • •
If you would think of this a bit you
would see that the con-
ception of a dancing figure as being in light drapery
and without
shoes is not mine especially, but simply the ideal dancing
figure
as thought of by all artists of all times. Then you would cease to
use the title "barefoot dancer," which I confess I detest; and you
would
see that in endeavoring to found a school for the renewing
of the dance as
an art, it is quite natural that the pupils should
follow in their dress the
hint given them by the Great Masters in
portraying the dancing figures. • .
.
I have danced before the public continuously since I was a
little
girl; in all these years, although certainly there has been
much blame and
discussion, there has been on the whole a gen-
eral feeling of joyous acclaim
and encouragement . . • that has
upborne me on my way, for I felt it was a
sort of voice from the
people that such a dance was wanted, needed. . . .
Now I could not think that I could teach another what had
been a gradual
evolution of my own being and a work of all
The Greatest Thing in Life 47
my life. But I felt I must give response to all these questionings.
And
so the idea gradually came to me ... to endeavor to
found a school whose
object would be the finding of the true
dancing. Not in any way a copy of my
dance, but the study of
the dance as an Art.
And in the 1906 prospectus
of the Grunewald school, she
stated its purposes clearly:
To rediscover
the beautiful, rhythmical motions of the human
body, to call back to life
again that ideal movement which should
be in harmony with the highest
physical type, and to awaken once
more an art which has slept for two
thousand years-these are the
serious aims of the school.
Isadora's
initial effort to arouse sufficient interest for the fi-
nancial support of
the Grunewald school had not been very
successful. She found herself forced
to rely entirely on her own
resources for the ever increasing upkeep of her
establishment.
Thereafter, she was kept constantly on the move despite her
wish not to go on triumphal world tours to earn enough money
to feed
many little mouths five times a day. This made her
undertake tours lasting
so long that her pupils didn't get even a
glimpse of her for months,
sometimes an entire year-much to
the regret of her devoted charges, who
missed her inspiring
presence and guidance. Tante Miss, who was now in
complete
charge, could never fill that void. Neither physically nor in
character did she in the slightest degree resemble her younger,
more
talented sister. Less idealistic and of a more pedantic tem-
perament, she
proved in the end to be of an infinitely more
practical mind. The
enthusiastic response of the public to our
initial performance suggested to
her the idea that the school
might help to support itself.
In order to
learn from nature, the great teacher, we were
often taken to the woods in
summer to observe the waving of
trees, the flight of birds, or the movements
of clouds. Learning
DUNCAN DANCER
to dance from these, we developed a
sensitive understanding of
nature. Isadora once remarked on how often,
returning from
these studies to the dance room, we pupils felt in our bodies
an
irresistible impulse to dance out one or another movement which
we
had just observed. And thus in time, she thought, some of us
would come to
the composition of our own dances; but even
when we were dancing together,
each one, while forming a part
of the whole under group inspiration, would
preserve a creative
individuality.*
Not being a choreographer herself,
Tante Miss now thought
of following Isadora's suggestion and encouraged us
to com-
pose dances. The charming Kinderscenen by Schumann easily
inspired ideas for this. She employed the method of letting us
all
improvise together and then, picking the one who had hit on
the best
interpretation, singling her out to develop her idea. In
this ingenious way
we composed a whole group of little poems,
danced either singly or in group
formation. I contributed several
compositions. One of them I danced as a
solo called "Poor Or-
phan Child." My dramatic instinct came to the fore as,
with
hesitant steps, I went from side to side holding out my hand,
palm
upturned, in a pitiable gesture of begging for alms. Isadora
liked it so
much she always made me dance this when visitors
came to the school.
Tante Miss made all the costumes herself. She was very
adept at it. Here
was something she apparently enjoyed doing.
I once saw her sitting on the
floor contentedly pasting tiny
golden paillettes one by one onto white silk
angel gowns-the
ones we wore for Schubert's "Sarabande."
She dearly
loved to give us small objects to hold while we
danced, probably because we
did not always know what to do
with our hands and she didn't either. We had
a variety of bells,
cymbals, hoops, garlands, scarves and even, for the
"Italian
Marinari" dance, short lengths of genuine seaman's rope,
dec-
orated with the national colors of Italy! Isadora, the purist, who
*
Cf. Art, p. Sz.
The Greatest Thing in Life 49
preferred the Doric to the
Ionic style, did not, of course, en-
tirely approve of this. But we children
thought most of these
gadgets were fun, except that I didn't care to dance
with small
brass cymbals tied to my hands. Isadora herself had discarded
these adjuncts long ago, and we later learned from her how
expressive
and varied the gestures of the hands can be when
executed with the
artfulness of a master.
One day, at the end of our rehearsal of the program,
Tante
Miss said that she had an important communication to make.
We
immediately sat hushed and attentive. "We have," she an-
nounced, "the great
honor of presenting this first program of
dances from our school for the
second time in public at the
composer's anniversary." Very
composer-conscious ever since we
had met Humperdinck, we wanted to know
whether Robert
Schumann was still alive. Tante Miss shook her head. "No,"
she said, "he died half a century ago, and we have been asked to
help
commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of his death. So you
must all dance
especially well on that day."
We had given the program initially at a Sunday
matinee at
the Theater Des Westens in Berlin three months after our debut
at the Opera House. This, our first independent appearance,
was reviewed
in the National Zeitung dated October 31, 1905:
As the curtain rose a sweet
little child skipped out onto the stage
to a melody by Schumann in a
delicate chiffon tunic. With bare
feet she tripped lightly and daintily
across the carpet . • . and
soon there came a second, and then a third elfin
figure until the
stage was filled with about twenty similar shapes. The
images
they evoked were of enchanting gracefulness. They floated across
and chased each other like irridescent butterflies with multicolored
wings, bending, swaying, springing, and dancing like spirits from
Oberon's court. . . . At times they resembled allegorical figures
representing Autumn and Winter, indicating with characteristic
but
simple gestures the disparate moods of nature.
And again they appeared, this
time as angels in long white
gowns and wreaths of flowers in the hair
striding gravely about.
50 DUNCAN DANCER
Then followed a very frolicsome
dance . • • an animated swarm
of colors and small shapes as if a storm wind
had tossed the
flowers in a meadow together.* And then in the next dance the
girls would break up into orderly groups, those in the fore-
ground
seeming to paraphrase the melody while the taller girls
in the background
indicated the accompaniment. . • . Almost
everything went along with
admirable precision, but every now
and then the set figures gave way and the
little ones would skip
about spontaneously, and this especially was
delightful and in-
teresting because it demonstrated conclusively how well
they have
learned to coordinate their movements.
It is important to
remark that every form of affectation was
avoided. The whole thing gave the
impression of having been
worked out with the characteristic naturalness of
expression pe-
culiar to children. This appears to me to be of primary
impor-
tance in their work. The public applauded the youthful artists
enthusiastically and with great vigor.
Someone on the commemorative
committee must have seen
this program and invited us to Zwickau, Schumann's
birthplace,
for the anniversary performance. For our first voyage away from
school we had each been supplied with a small wicker suitcase
held
together by two leather straps. It contained our dance cos-
tumes and
accessories, including a pair of slippers and a woolen
shawl for backstage.
I remember with what pride I carried mine,
which had the number 16 painted
in black on the outside.
It was the middle of summer, and the village made a
pic-
turesque sight nestling in a valley at the foot of the Erzgebirge
in
Saxony. In the market place of this medieval town stood the
house where
Schumann was born, and nearby was the Gothic
merchant's hall, turned into a
theatre, where we would dance
to his music. Perhaps his spirit watched over
us, for the towns-
people took us instantly to their hearts.
All sixteen
of us had been billeted in the quaint old house
* "Courante" by Carelli; a
"Blind-man's-buff," danced and choreo-
graphed by Irma.
Isadora with
Grunewald students, 1905; Irma at right, fifth couple from
top.
Pupils
of the Isadora Duncan School, 1906-1908.
(upper 1.) Erica. (upper r.) Irma.
(lower 1.) Theresa. (lower r.) Anna.
The Greatest Thing in Life 51
of the local gold-and-silver smith and his friendly young wife.
When we
left, he presented each child with a small silver chain
with a silver
pendant. "They were made in my workshop," he
said, "and my wife and I would
like you to wear them as a
memento of Zwickau and Robert Schumann's
commemoration
festivities." Alas, we wore them only once, for "jewelry" was
strictly forbidden. Tante Miss confiscated them and we never
saw the
little silver chains again.
From Zwickau we proceeded to other cities in
Saxony-
Dresden, Leipzig, etc.-making a small tour of Germany which
lasted till Christmas. Another Christmas away from home. • . .
In the
library there was a large tree, festooned all over with
golden threads and
tiny red apples. Small wax candles burned
in wire holders that made the
golden threads glisten. There was
the joy of opening a package from home
filled with goodies. U n-
der the tree were paper plates, one for each child,
containing gin-
gerbread, assorted nuts, and-in the center-the yearly
Christ-
mas symbol, a single orange.
By far the grandest present came
from Isadora. Though
absent on a tour through Holland and Belgium, she had
sent us
pretty new dresses and bonnets specially designed by her and
made in the Hague. Both the dresses and velvet bonnets were
blue and
edged with swansdown. Mother had sent me a hand-
some doll with blond curls
and a purple velvet dress. I had
loved playing with dolls at home, but now I
discovered to my
surprise that I had no further interest in them.
To our
delight, we received another present from our gold-
smith friend-a silver
thimble-which we were allowed to keep.
For as long as we lived in Germany,
each year under the Christ-
mas tree, we found a small silver trinket-a
bangle for our hair
or a cup-most of which he never knew we were not
permitted
to keep. Each year we would open his gift eagerly but with
sadness, knowing that if only Isadora were present she would
never have
deprived us of these things.
That winter in Hamburg mother received a
letter:
52 DUNCAN DANCER
The Isadora Duncan School will appear on Sunday
at one o'clock
at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg. \V e have asked the
manage-
ment to place two seats at your disposal. The school will arrive
late Saturday night and the directress of the school, Miss Eliza-
beth
Duncan, begs you for the sake of the children's health and
peace not, under
any circumstances, to visit them either upon
arrival or departure. You will
have an opportunity to see your
little daughter Irma after the performance
around three o'clock
in the dressing room backstage.
After the
performance the children are invited to a tea party
given by the local
committee for the support of the school. Since
the departure is set for six
o'clock, it will be impossible for Miss
Duncan to permit you to take your
little daughter home for the
afternoon. The shortness of time and other
considerations will
make it otherwise difficult for Miss Duncan to keep the
necessary
control over her charges for whom she is responsible.
As well
can be imagined, mother felt like rejecting these
demands. The middle-aged
spinster who caused them to be
written obviously did not understand or
sympathize with a
mother's feelings. However, not wanting to cause any
trouble
and familiar with Elizabeth's Spartan tactics, she decided to
abide by the rules. Mother came backstage after the matinee,
her arms
laden with flowers. She handed several small bouquets
to her favorites and
the biggest one to me. She hugged me and
said, "All of you danced so
beautifully." Then she kissed me
and whispered, "But oh, Irma, you were
simply wonderful!"
Mother had good reason to be proud of me, for only a year
ago I had lived at home inconspicuous as a blade of grass; then
events
in my young life moved so fast that here I was returning
to my home town
dancing at the same theatre Isadora Duncan
had appeared in that memorable
week of our first encounter. In
the interim I had not only made my dance
debut and gone on
tour, but I was already featured in two solo numbers of my
own
choreography. Enough to encourage any talented youngster, no
matter
what restrictions were necessary to achieve success.
The Greatest Thing in
Life 53
Mother must have realized this when, after once more request-
ing
permission to take me home and being refused by T ante
Miss, she did not
insist on her inviolable parental rights. Since
I was a scholarship pupil,
Tante Miss considered me school
property, and there was nothing mother could
do but take me
away for good. Knowing how much I loved dancing and being
Isadora's pupil, she naturally did not wish to hurt my chances.
Actually, however, none of us really knew what our future
was to be at
that extraordinary institution dedicated to an un-
tried, idealistic
experiment. Doubts of any sort were hardly ever
raised by those who saw us
dance, but there happened to be
someone among the spectators that day in
Hamburg who did
voice them. His article was signed only with the initials V
.M.:
The house was well attended, everyone was delighted and
en-
thusiastic. The contrast was immense. In the middle of a snowy
winter's day this charming idyll of spring, these tender human
buds who
devote themselves with such earnestness and under-
standing, and at the same
time with all the grace and ease of
youth, to this art although they can't
possibly know what it will
later offer them in return for all this devotion.
This thought must occur immediately to every philanthropist.
And it is
reassuring to learn from the school prospectus that the
leaders of the
Duncan Dance School have taken this point well
into consideration, that they
are preparing their pupils adequately
for the struggle of existence.
There also arises another concern as one views this perform-
ance for the
second time. 'V"ill this art be strong enough to con-
tinue to hold
attention, or is it merely a beautiful dream, which
one may dream only once?
. . . But it can't be denied that it
is a beautiful art, in its present form
perhaps not yet an end in
itself, but surely a good seed to which one may
wish a favorable
growth and fruitful ripening.
During the first year at
school we developed a strong attach-
ment to our pretty young nursemaids, a
brunette and a blonde,
Fraulein Lippach and Fraulein Konegen. The day they
packed
54 DUNCAN DANCER
their things and departed, what a wailing went
up among the
smaller children! Tante Miss, however, was deaf to our laments
and remained adamant in dismissing them. What we needed,
she explained,
was an English governess, so we could learn to
speak English. I had learned
my first English words at Isadora's
knee when she taught her pupils to
recite Keats' immortal lines:
((Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty,-that is
all/Ye know on earth,
and all ye need to know." ((That is the motto of our
school,"
she said, ((and I want each and every one to learn these lines
by heart."
If she could only have remained with us, and continued to
instruct us in this way, what a difference it would have made in
our
young lives! Instead of growing up directly under her be-
nign influence, we
were subjected to all kinds of indignities and
abuses under the regime of
our new English governess, a verita-
ble ogre if there ever was one. A woman
of vague features,
completely colorless, with bad teeth and pale gums, she
struck
terror in our hearts the moment we laid eyes on her. She had,
besides, the revolting habit of cracking her knuckles incessantly;
we
were convinced she cracked them even in her sleep. And her
methods of
teaching discipline were thoroughly antiquated. She
treated us as if we were
hard metal and she a blacksmith ham-
mering us into shape.
I would not be
living up to the maxim Isadora taught us if,
in this history of her school,
I refrained from telling the whole
truth, the good and the bad. "The web of
our life is of a mingled
yarn, good and ill together." In later years, when
we were grown
up, we often would harp on this unhappy period in our
child-
hood, much to Isadora's annoyance. Finally she was driven to
exclaim, ((Why do you girls always talk about the bad things?
Why don't
you sometimes also remember the beautiful things
that happened to you at
school? I am sure there was more of that
in the long run."
And so it
undoubtedly was. However, it is a queer quirk of
the human mind to recall
the unhappy things of childhood more
The Greatest Thing in Life 55
vividly than the beautiful. The good things are taken for
granted by
children. Cruel treatment comes as a shock and is
resented and has
psychologically a traumatic effect, sometimes
with bad results. I firmly
believe that stupidity is the root of
all evil. There were unhappy things
that can definitely be traced
to the stupidity of our English governess and
the unenlightened
attitude of Tante Miss when it came to cruel treatment.
Their
behavior was in direct contravention of the instructions of
Isa-
dora, who did not believe in punishment and personally used
only
logical reasoning to correct our misdeeds. Unfortunately,
her prolonged
absences made her completely unaware of what
went on in the intimate lives
of her charges. Insufficient control
and superintendence is the only blame
attached to her, since she
sincerely believed that by placing us in the
trusted care of her
sister, she had left us in the best of hands.
With
the arrival of our hated governess I, for one, devel-
oped a real propensity
for what she called "being naughty," and
the occasions when I was sent
hungry to bed were innumerable.
Often, when I disobeyed, the governess tied
me to the foot of
my bed, leaving me there for hours like a martyr at the
stake.
Her sadistic corporal punishments belonged to the dark ages,
and
after she had inflicted this hurt I would weep and look at
the picture of my
guardian angel. Where was Isadora? I could
not understand why she was never
there when we needed her
in this beautiful house in the pine forest, which
she had wanted
to be a children's paradise. She herself found Grunewald to
be
"very melancholy" when she did return. No wonder!
No use complaining
to Tante Miss; she knew very well
what went on and punished us herself, only
in subtler ways.
Writing to mother was of no avail; all our mail had to be
cen-
sored. I felt trapped. Then I thought of our kindly old Nor-
wegian
cook. Frequently, out of pity, she would surreptitiously
slip me a slice of
dark, dry bread when I had been sent to bed
without my supper. With her
help, I managed to smuggle a
letter out to mother.
DUNCAN DANCER
Within a few days mother's short telegram, saying "I am
coming to take
Irma home," came as a great surprise to Tante
Miss. That was the last thing
she wanted to happen. In a state
of considerable alarm for fear Isadora
would hear of this, she
called me to her study for a private interview,
something she
had never done before. By cajolery and flattery she finally
per-
suaded me to change my mind, but not until she had promised
to stop
the more cruel kinds of punishment. When mother came,
some blind, childish
loyalty to my absent idol made me refrain
from telling her everything. Her
protests to Tante Miss did
some good, for the harsher treatment ceased, but
she could not
persuade me to go home. "Just for a little while," she urged,
"till Isadora returns and we can explain it all to her directly.
I know
she will understand. She was very nice to me and said
such nice things about
you the last time I saw her." But I heard
an inner voice prompting me:
"Don't go. Stay here. This is where
you belong."
Usually, with the
coming of spring, we could count on our
idol's return. And, as anticipated,
one fine morning in early 1Y1ay
she breezed in, looking radiant in a brown
and pink traveling
costume. Her small brown cap had a pink chiffon veil
becom-
ingly draped around it. (She loved veils and wore them in
various
attractive ways.) All unhappiness was instantly erased
from our minds; we
gathered about her with happy smiles. Then
she asked us to dance. That was
always the first thing she wanted
to see. Afterwards we were called into the
library, the most
elegant room in the house, where the two sisters were
seated
together on the couch below the big window. We knew some-
thing
was in the wind or we would not have been asked to come
there. Isadora said:
"You have danced so well I would like to take all of you to
have tea at
my apartment. But it is just a small place, so I can
ask only four or five."
With her sister's permission she invited
three of the smaller ones and her
niece. Then she said, "And
The Greatest Thing in Life 57
I would like
Irma to come too." I glanced in agitation at Tante
Miss, who of late had
substituted deprivation of privileges for
corporal punishment. She stared at
me, wrinkled her brow,
smacked her tooth, and said flatly, "Irma cannot go;
she has
been naughty."
I could not recall what sin I had committed; I
never could.
My trespasses consisted entirely of talking back, for I never
did
anything really bad. Nor, as far as I remember, did the other
children ever commit any really offensive acts. I was close to
tears and
stood there shamefacedly with lowered eyelids, scrap-
ing my foot on the
carpet. Isadora, who had just seen me dance
my "Poor Orphan Child" for the
first time and liked it, said
placatingly to her sister, "Oh, Elizabeth,
let's make an excep-
tion for once and let her go."
"No, that would be a
bad example for the others. I am
sorry, but I can't allow it."
Isadora
was not in the habit of being contradicted by anyone.
However, she did not
say anything further, although she
seemed annoyed. While the other invited
children rushed up-
stairs to don their party clothes (the new
swansdown-trimmed
dresses Isadora had given us for Christmas), I lingered in
the
hall trying to hide my tears. Suddenly I felt a light touch on
my
shoulder. I turned around and there was Isadora whispering
quickly, "Shh,
keep quiet, darling! Go and get dressed and then
wait in my carriage, but
don't let anyone see you! Hurry!"
How we children giggled at the wonderful
trick Isadora
had played on old Tante Miss! ·when we arrived at the
apart-
ment in Hardenbergstrasse, we found Gordon Craig seated there
on
the sofa smoking a pipe. I had not seen him since that day in
Hamburg over a
year ago. After tea, Isadora took a stack of her
photographs out of a drawer
and threw them on the floor
saying, "Here they are, children; pick any
picture you like and
I will autograph it for you!"
While we carefully
made our individual choices, she and
Craig sat together watching us with the
affection of indulgent
58 DUNCAN DANCER
parents. It gave me such a
comfortable, homey feeling. Children
always crave affection and loving
kindness, and parents try to
give it to them. But children harbored in an
institution, no
matter how humane the treatment, are starved for that loving
individual attention of caresses and endearments that a mother
usually
bestows on them. Most regrettably, Elizabeth Duncan,
in whose charge we were
left and to whom we instinctively
turned for those signs of comfort and
affection, never-in all
the years we were in her care-offered an endearment
or a
gentle pat on the cheek to any of her pupils. That is why most
of
them did not feel any affection for her either.
With Isadora it was entirely
different. Children know in-
stinctively when they are loved. That afternoon
in her apart-
ment we were completely happy. She autographed all our
photographs, inscribing mine "With love and kisses." I hugged
the pretty
picture to my breast and carried it back to school
like a trophy.
As if
she had sensed what troubled her little pupils and had
seen into their
hearts, she came next day to Grunewald to teach
us an unforgettable lesson.
Early in the morning, while we sat
at our desks, she opened the door and
entered the classroom.
Our teacher and the entire class rose to their feet.
"Good morning!" Isadora said cheerfully. "Please be seated
and don't let
me interrupt." Turning to our schoolmarm, Frau
Zschetzsching, who sat at her
desk on a raised dais looking very
prim in a white blouse with high boned
collar and hair done up
in a pompadour, Isadora said, "Please continue with
whatever
you were studying. I'll sit here quietly and listen."
Our
schoolmarm was flustered in front of the famous per-
sonage whose
acquaintance she had not made before, this being
Isadora's first visit to
her classroom. "We were doing arithme-
tic," she answered, "but I don't think
that will interest you,
Miss Duncan. Let us turn to another subject. Would
you like
to hear the children recite poetry?"
The Greatest Thing in Life
59
"Yes, I love poetry, that would be very nice."
Although we had no
inhibitions about dancing before a
public, we all were tongue-tied and
embarrassed to stand up and
recite. The stuttering and loss of memory were
pitiful to hear.
It was in turn painful for us to see our schoolmarm's angry
dis-
comfiture mounting by the minute and Isadora's puzzled look
as she
made a concentrated effort to understand our incoherent
German. With an
embarrassed smile, Frau Zschetzsching finally
said, "Well, they don't seem
to be in very good form today.
I think, perhaps, with the Gniidige Frau's
permission ..."
"May I put a question to them?" Isadora interrupted her.
"Of course." Our schoolmarm looked relieved. Isadora stood
up, assumed
her familiar stance with head slightly inclined to
one side and chin tilted
upwards, while all eyes were riveted
on her.
"Tell me, children," she
said earnestly, "what is the greatest
thing in life?"
A ray of
intelligence flowed back into our dull minds. In-
stantly, a flurry of hands
shot into the air, furiously wigwagging
for attention. The answer to that
one was obvious. We all knew
it. So when she asked, we all shouted in
unison, "To dance!"
and sat back with an expression of triumph on our
shining faces.
But Isadora sadly shook her head. We could not believe our
ears when we heard her say, "No, dancing is not the greatest
thing in
life."
That sounded like heresy, coming from her-of all people-
the
greatest dal).cer in the world! What could it be? Music?
Painting? Singing?
Our choices showed the influence of our
thorough artistic education. No, no,
no, none of those, she told
us. We gave up. Lifting one forefinger for
emphasis, she an-
nounced in a clear, vibrant voice:
"The greatest thing
in life is-LOVE!"
We stared at her dumbfounded. She turned for
corrobora-
tion to our schoolmarm and asked, "Is it not true?" To our
6o
DUNCAN DANCER
astonishment, the prim schoolteacher had turned crimson with
confusion. Delighted with the dramatic effect she had created,
Isadora
waved a graceful farewell, said "Adieu!" and dis-
appeared.
No sooner was
the door closed than a chorus of eager voices
questioned our schoolmarm.
"What did she mean, Frau Zschet-
zsching? Why is love the greatest thing?
Why, why, why?"
She rapped her desk for order and said, "Be quiet! Sit down,
and I will explain."
Slowly she opened a drawer of the desk and drew
forth a
black book. We recognized it as the New Testament, from
which
she read us a lesson each day. With a solemn expression,
she announced, "Let
me read you a verse from First Corin-
thians." While we sat with hands folded
in prayer and assumed
the proper, pious mien expected of us, she intoned:
"Though I speak with the tongue of men and of angels,
and have not love,
I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling
cymbal" and she continued
through the whole thirteenth chap-
ter, which ends, "And now abideth faith,
hope, love, these three;
but the greatest of these is love."
Our teacher
fixed us with a stern look. "This, my dear chil-
dren, is what Miss Duncan
meant when she said the greatest
thing in life is love." She closed the book
with a loud thud and
said, "Class dismissed! "
It was entirely by chance
(because printed material of that
sort was carefully kept away from our
hands) that a few weeks
later we saw an item in an illustrated weekly
telling of Isadora's
marriage to Gordon Craig. Naturally Isadora's personal
life
was a closed book to her young disciples, so this piece of news
aroused the wildest interest. There was one thing we could not
comprehend-why had we not been told? Surely, if this story
were true (we
had no way of knowing then that it was not), we
reasoned that we would have
heard about it from T ante Miss.
This fascinating news item remained an
unsolved riddle as far
as Isadora's pupils were concerned.
The Greatest
Thing in Life
For a whole year thereafter we did not obtain as much as a
glimpse of her. She was at that time expecting the birth of her
first
child at a secluded beach cottage in Nordwyck, Holland-
fact of which her
pupils were kept in strict ignorance. She had
invited her niece to visit her
and had included Erica and me
too, but Tante Miss as usual said No. So that
we would not feel
too disappointed, Isadora in the kindness of her heart
sent us
some toys. I remember the penciled note she included saying:
"Dear Irma, Here is a lamb for you and a pink kitten for little
Erica.
Love, Isadora." I treasured the note more than the toy
lamb on wheels, for
which I considered myself too old, as I
had reached the ripe age of ten.
Years later, I found a thought she wrote in her diary while
awaiting her
first born. It said: "Yellow tulips, white hyacinths,
great window spaces of
sky, black steps leading to a balcony-
four red pillars. Dearest Baby, if you
can remember these things
and always love them."
When at last we saw her
again in Grunewald the following
spring she appeared with a sweet blue-eyed
baby in her arms.
Her own contribution to "the greatest thing in life." She
held
the child up for all of us to see and admire and said, "Very
soon,
she will be the youngest pupil in the school."
European Tour
IT was
night and the train sped eastward. We always traveled
third class. At night
the smaller children, leaving the hard
benches for the older girls to
stretch out on, climbed up into the
Gepaecknetz, a luggage rack that was
shaped like a tiny ham-
mock though it was not as comfortable. The iron
braces hurt
my back even though I tried to pad them with my coat or woolen
shawl. However, it was better to lie down, no matter how un-
comfortably,
than to sit up all night.
Contrary to the policy of the school (that we were
not to
appear on the stage together with our famous teacher until we
reached the age of seventeen), Isadora had decided to take us on
tour
with her. All agog over the big adventure, I could hardly
sleep, knowing
that at this moment, in the middle of winter, we
were traveling at top speed
to St. Petersburg in Russia. What
a fantastic place the name alone con jured
up in my lively imag-
ination! I had read about that frozen land to the north
where
fierce animals, such as wild bears and wolves, roamed through
the
endless forests; and of the cities where men called tsars
lived in courts of
Oriental splendor, speaking a barbaric tongue
no one could understand.
Though I was not, as a rule, a very
good student-lapsing too often into
daydreams during which
I listened to the long-drawn hoot of the suburban
trains and
imagined I was on the way to some far-off place-! always
gave
undivided attention to geography. It was my favorite
subject. I did not have
a good memory for verses, but the jingles
Frau Zschetzsching taught us to
remember geographical names,
62
European Tour
I seldom forgot. There
was, for instance: "Ural Gebirge, Ural
Fluss, Caspisc!tes Meer und
Caucasus." Was this an omen of the
future? How was I to know that a time
would come when I
would traverse the Urals, the Caspian Sea, and all of the
Cauca-
sus on many occasions with the pupils of my own school to dance
for the Russian people. Now as a child of ten, the largest part of
Europe had appeared merely as a colored blotch on my geo-
graphical map.
It was most exciting to see it take on actual
dimension and reality.
This was vividly brought home to me the instant we changed
trains at the
frontier to the wider-gauged Russian cars, with a
Russian conductor, big
brass samovars of hot water for c!tai, and
candles that burned during the
night instead of gaslight. I kept
my eyes glued to the window, as did all
the other children, on
the lookout for wolves and wild bears when the gloomy
woods,
deep in snow, stretched out on either side. But we saw nothing.
That did not prevent us from having goose pimples all over.
All would
have been perfect but for one thing. Dining car
meals being far too
expensive, Tante Miss provisioned us with
a hamper of the most outlandish
food. A faddist by nature, she
was currently addicted to a health-food diet.
Throughout the
three long days of our trip she fed us, three times a day,
nothing
but dried figs, dried bananas, and nuts. "Don't make a fuss," she
admonished me when I refused to eat any more. I tried to ex-
plain that
my stomach was upset. She wouldn't hear of it. "Non-
sense, this is good for
you," she insisted. "Just think of some-
thing else while you eat. The other
girls seem to like it, why
don't you?"
There was no use protesting. No
one could be more tyran-
nical than Tante Miss, and it was health-food diet
or go hungry.
I knew something awful would happen, and it did. As we
stood disheveled, unwashed, and travel-weary in the middle of
the
elegant lobby of the best hotel in St. Petersburg, I experi-
enced an awful
attack of biliousness. While waiting there for our
rooms to be assigned I
saw, as through a green miasma, the
DUNCAN DANCER
golden open-caged
elevator ride up and down discharging pas-
sengers, who leisurely wended
their way toward the restaurant
hidden behind pots of tall palms. The odor
of expensive food
wafted my way, together with the sounds of dinner music,
the
usual selections from The Gypsy Baron. And then it happened 1
Like a
contagious wave, my sickness started to spread among the
other girls. A
group of green-looking children was led up-
stairs and put to bed. Tante Miss
shook her head in dismay.
"Too much excitement, I'm afraid," she said. We
knew better.
Too many dried bananas, figs, and nuts!
Feeling fine the
next day, after a good night's rest in real
beds and some real food, we made
the acquaintance of St.
Petersburg. In those forever vanished times the city
was lively
and brilliant in its mantle of deep snow. The jolly sleighrides
from the hotel to the theatre and back every day were our
special
delight. To children, there is nothing quite so much fun
as a ride in an
open sleigh. There was always a long string of
them when we sallied forth,
since each accommodated only two
passengers. The bulky clothes of the I
svostchik, with his long
beard covered with frost, reminded us of Santa
Claus. Off we
went at a fast clip, sliding down the broad Nevsky Prospect, a
bear rug across the knees and the merry tinkling of little bells
in our
ears, sounding so festive and gay we could hardly refrain
from shouting for
joy.
Our first performance, on February 9, 1908, proved a gala
event in
the Russian capital. Presented as a benefit for a chari-
table organization
under the august auspices of H.I.H. Grand
Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, sister
of the Tsar, it drew the elite
and aristocracy of St. Petersburg society to
the Maryinsky The-
atre. Isadora danced her "lphigenia" program, and we
appeared
at the very end in a "Werber Waltz" by Lanner, which she had
choreographed and taught us in May of 1907, and which we had
first
performed in Mannheim that summer for the city's three-
hundred-year jubilee.
Isadora wrote of this dance:
European Tour
I taught them to weave and
entwine, to part and unite, in end-
less rounds and successions. Now
resembling the Loves of a
Pompeian frieze, now the youthful Graces of
Donatello, or again
the airy flights of Titania's following, the light of
inspiration and
divine music shone in their youthful forms and faces. The
sight
of these dancing children was so beautiful it awakened the
ad-
miration of all artists and poets.*
"How darling they are! Look at
the one over there, isn't
she cute! My, what beautiful hair! You must simply
love to
dance, you look so happy! " Such were the usual backstage
compliments we heard when people crowded into our dressing
room. But
after that performance at the Maryinsky Theatre,
there was so much Russian
spoken it made my head swim. We
all sighed with relief when the audience was
gone.
Then there was a soft knock at the door, and a soft voice
said,
"May I come in?" The moment she entered, we recognized
Anna Pavlova. We had
seen her dance in an old-style ballet
the night before. She approached and
kissed each one of us,
murmuring "Dooshinka, dooshinka." t Dressed in a
white gown
with a long, glittering white shawl over her shoulders, she
looked as she had on the stage-tiny, dainty, and very pretty
with her
dark hair tied back into a knot, ballerina-fashion. The
young man with her
carried a large box of candy which she
offered us. Our hawk-eyed English
governess stepped forward
and took it away saying, "Sorry, Madame, but the
children are
not allowed to eat candy, except one a day." With these words
she disappeared, carrying the candy with her.
As soon as the door closed
behind the ogress, Anna Pavlova
(who also had been brought up in an
institution) whipped out
another box of candy from beneath her long shawl.
With
gestures of her hands indicating for us to hide it quickly, quickly,
she helped us to stow it away in one of our wicker suitcases. We
*Life,
p. 214.
t "Darling"
66 DUNCAN DANCER
simply loved her for that
clever trick. Lying in bed that night,
under cover of darkness, we had a
feast. Needless to say, we saw
no more of the other box of candy, except the
telltale wrappings
scattered about our governess' room.
Summoned one
morning to Isadora's suite, we found her
seated on a chaise-longue
surrounded by shoe boxes. "There is
a pair of golden sandals for each of
you," she said. "Try them
on and see if they fit."
From a bolt of pink
silk two lengths of material were cut
and stitched up at the sides. With two
small buttons, one for
each shoulder, the material was caught up and
fastened to-
gether to form armholes and "voila, presto!" we soon each had
a new pink silk tunic. A Russian embroidered belt completed the
costume.
Our suspicion that this new getup signified that something
special was
afoot was verified when Isadora announced, "This
afternoon we are going to
have tea with a real grand duke. What
do you think of that! " She explained
that his name was Andre
Vladimirovitch and he was a cousin of the Tsar. "He
lives in
that big white house on the other side of the river; you must
have noticed it when you took a walk along the Neva. You must
be on your
very best behavior," she admonished.
We found the idea of meeting a royal
personage quite
overpowering, for in Germany everybody, from infancy on,
was taught to look upon royalty as some kind of demigod. We
did not look
forward to the encounter with great pleasure.
When the time came, instead of
going by the Troitsky
Bridge we crossed the frozen river in sleighs and got
out directly
below the house. Andre Vladimirovitch, resplendent in uniform
and decorations, greeted us jovially. A young man of twenty-
seven, he
was tall, blond, and good-looking, and he spoke to us
children in German.
Without formality, he proceeded to show
Isadora and the rest of us his
brand-new mansion, including the
bathrooms with sunken marble bathtubs,
which he had built
for his mistress the prima ballerina Mathilde
Kschessinska, who
European Tour
was seven years older than he. The
latter, holding a little boy
by the hand, followed the Grand Duke silently
wherever he
went. This tiny, mouselike woman dressed in black, with small
features and dark frizzy hair, I took at first to be the boy's
gov-
erness, but the child was their son Vova. * Next to the brilliant
personality of the Grand Duke, she made no impression at
all.
Soon
many other guests arrived and crowded into the dining
room, where we
children were seated at a table laden with the
most mouth-watering
assortment of French pastries, towering
layer cakes, fruit tarts, and
candies-none of which we touched
despite the repeated urging of our friendly
regal host. We hated
to be on display and reacted with chronic shyness.
Finally the
Grand Duke took a plate filled with chocolate candies and
per-
sonally passed them around.
"Notice how polite they are," he said.
"Each takes only one
little piece. None of them would dare take two."
When he reached me with the silver platter, I took one like
the others,
but-being a child of spirit-I stopped him when he
was about to withdraw and
deliberately chose another.
"Ha, hal" he threw back his head and laughed.
"Good for
you," he said, patting me on the head. That broke the ice, and
the adults retired to the salon for their own refreshments,
leaving us
in peace to enjoy ours.
After tea, the Grand Duke wanted to know whether
Isadora
would favor them with a little dance. But she refused. How
about
the children? He and his guests would love to see them
dance. Our music
director, a young Viennese by the name of
Max Merz, regretfully informed
Isadora that he had not
brought any music with him. However, he liked to
improvise,
and sitting down at the piano he started to play. Isadora
con-
ferred with Elizabeth about what to do when the latter surprised
me
by saying:
"Let Irma dance something, she knows how to improvise."
*
Vova, short for Vladimir.
68 DUNCAN DANCER
Isadora looked undecided.
"Well, if you say so, Elizabeth,"
and she told me to try.
I had never
improvised before so large a company and felt
very timid. A command is a
command, however. Trembling
with nervousness, I hid behind one of the tall
columns in the
Greek-style hall to take off my pink socks and golden
sandals.
Unfortunately the hall had a marble floor not at all pleasant to
dance on in winter. Concerned about this situation, Madame
Kschessinska
suggested spreading sheets on the floor. But they
proved too great a hazard
because they slipped. I much pre-
ferred the solid ground to dance on.
In
her "Memoirs" Mathilde Kschessinska recalls this scene
when she tells of our
visit to her new palace. An old woman in
her nineties, she now resides in
France and still teaches ballet
in her school in Paris. When I wrote to her
a few years ago she
very kindly responded, giving me news of herself and her
work.
After the Russian revolution she became the morganatic wife
of the
Grand Duke and goes now by the title of H.S.H. Prin-
cesse Mathilde
Romanovsky-Krasinsky. Having always been a
friend and genuine admirer of
Isadora, she assured me that she
had not forgotten her or her performances
in St. Petersburg,
which she always remembered with great pleasure.
On
that freezing day in February, 1908, when I put my
bare feet on that marble
floor I felt as if standing on ice. So I
moved about quickly and danced with
great verve to keep my
feet off the ground as much as possible. My spirited
dance was
much applauded, though no one guessed the reason why. I must
have given a good account of myself, for Isadora hugged me
warmly-more
for my sportsmanship, I imagine, than for any-
thing else. The Grand Duke
shook my hand, saying, "That is
something our ballerinas can't
do-improvise." I felt very proud
of myself and only wished mother could see
me now ....
Having made the acquaintance of a Grand Duke, we now
wondered whether by good luck we might not obtain just a
glimpse of Tsar
Nicholas II himself. Every time we passed the
European Tour
dark red
fa~ade of the Winter Palace, my childish curiosity was
aroused. What did the
ruler of this vast country look like? I
soon discovered. Once, coming back
from a walk near the river,
we noticed a closed carriage accompanied by
several outriders
in uniform. A pale-faced man with a small goatee, wearing
a
peaked cap, glanced out the window. When he saw us, he smiled
and
waved his hand in greeting. Somebody shouted, "The
Tsar! The Tsar!" We all
stared after the retreating vehicle.
Could that really have been the Tsar?
Where was his crown,
his ermine robe, his golden coach? Little did I suspect
that the
time was soon at hand when the last of the Tsars would be
deprived forever of these imperial appurtenances, or that I
would one
day stand in that tragic cellar in the Urals where he
and his family had
been shot to death during the revolution
that would topple his throne and
cause all this brilliant life to
collapse.
Our two weeks in St.
Petersburg passed all too swiftly. Of
the many interesting sights we had
seen there, one other experi-
ence remained outstanding-our visit to the
Imperial Ballet
School. "I took my little pupils to witness the training of
the
children of the ballet school," Isadora said, "and they observed
them with the view of swallows circling freely in the air looking
at
caged canary birds." *
Under the direction of Marius Petipa, who obstinately
clung to the passe traditions, the ballet was not amenable to any
change
whatsoever. Only with the coming of the young, for-
ward-looking ballet
master Michael Fokine, who took over sev-
eral years later, did a radical
change take place. He adopted
many of the new ideas Isadora Duncan had
brought to the dance,
and thus the Russian ballet underwent the
transformation for
which it is known today. These revolutionary ideas, which
marked a new epoch in the art of dance, Fokine saw demon-
strated for the
first time in January 1905, when Isadora made.
her initial appearance in
Russia.
*Life, p. 215.
DUNCAN DANCER
Mathilde Kschessinska saw
Isadora Duncan dance for the
first time in Vienna in 1903. She frankly
confesses to having been
completely conquered by her art. She was so carried
away, she
says, by her "Blue Danube Waltz" that she climbed on her seat
and cheered as loud as she could with the rest of the audience.
As a
professional dancer of the first order herself, she easily
recognized the
hard work that had produced such beautiful
dancing and made Isadora the
perfect mistress of her art.
I think that this above-mentioned earlier date
is of special
interest. Because of her position as prima ballerina assoluta
of
the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg, possessing enormous
authority
in that organization, she must surely have adopted
and made use of some of
the new ideas Isadora Duncan origi-
nated. Thus Isadora's influence
undoubtedly made itself felt on
a part of the Russian ballet as early as I
903, although she her-
self made her debut in that city only in January 1905.
Kschessinska, reminiscing about how the new changes came
about that
transformed the old-style ballet, stresses in her
"Memoirs" the overwhelming
impression the young American
dancer made on Fokine. With a wild enthusiasm
he immediately
commenced to initiate the necessary reform. Hoping to obtain
the same inspiration from the same source as Isadora did, for
her
new-found art, he went to the Hermitage Museum to study
the Greek vases for
dance movements. His first Greek-inspired
production was a ballet called
Eunice, in which Kschessinska
danced the principal part. On that opening
night performance
the many old balletomanes criticized him severely for his
obvious
copying of what they termed "Duncanism." But being a staunch
supporter of Fokine, M. Kschessinska always considered that
first
performance on December IO, 1906, a date of importance
in the transformation
of the old-style ballet to a freer expression.
She and Fokine worked closely
together toward that goal. In
1907-o8, Kschessinska decided to take Vaslav
Nijinsky, who
had graduated from the Ballet School only the year before, for
a new dancing partner, recognizing in him a great talent. After
European
Tour
our performances in St. Petersburg in 1908, and having seen
Isadora's Chopin program, they initially danced together at the
Maryinsky Theatre to Chopin's "Nocturne," choreographed by
Fokine. At
the time of our visit, none of the famous dancers
associated with the ballet
school in St. Petersburg had yet been
completely emancipated artistically.
Nor were their names (with
one or two exceptions) known outside of their own
country. Not
until five years after their first contact with Isadora's ideas
did
they form the great company known as the Diaghilev Ballets
Russes,
which brought that roster of world-renowned names,
such as Nijinsky,
Pavlova, Karsavina, Fokine, and others to
the attention of foreign countries
for the first time. While most
of these ballet dancers freely admitted that
Isadora Duncan's
ideas gave new life to their once moribund art and helped
to
beautify it, they all maintained that neither Isadora herself nor
her
pupils could execute ballet movements, whereas any well-
trained ballet
dancer could easily assimilate and execute any
Duncan movements.
This
assumption to my mind has always seemed both illogical
and absurd. They
forget, or don't seem to comprehend, that
Isadora Duncan's theory of the
dance precludes any assimilation
of movements based on ballet technique and
therefore no ballet
technique can produce the proper Duncan movement and
expres-
sion. Although Isadora's art has incontestably helped to beautify
the ballet and given it new life, the converse does not apply. The
art
of Isadora Duncan has never been either beautified or re-
vitalized by the
ballet.
That morning we watched for three hours while the ballet
girls
of different age-groups stood in rows on the tips of their
toes going
through torturing exercises in a bare room with a
large portrait of the Tsar
hanging on the wall. We were familiar
with many of the exercises. We
practiced barre work ourselves-
though of course in a much more relaxed
style, without distor-
tions, and from natural positions of the feet.
What amazed us Duncan pupils was the way the ballet
72 DUNCAN DANCER
students danced continuously in front of a mirror, closely
watching
every move they made. There were no wall mirrors
in our school. Our
teacher's philosophy of the dance forbade any
such visual aids. Isadora
taught us to close our eyes and listen to
the music with our souls. Then we
were to dance in accordance
with this music heard inwardly and, while
listening, feel an
inner self awakening deep within us. Its strength would
ani-
mate our bodies.
"This is the first step in dancing as I understand
it," she
used to say. "This is the truly creative dancer, natural but not
imitative, speaking in movement out of himself and out of
something
greater than all selves. It is the mission of all art to
express the highest
and most beautiful ideals of man. What
ideal does the ballet express? All
ballet movements are sterile
because they are unnatural; their purpose is to
create the delu-
sion that the law of gravitation does not exist for them." *
She pronounced an anathema on dancers who comprehended
only with the
brain, who loaded down their dances with empty
gestures devoid of meaning,
and on all those systems of dancing
that are merely arranged gymnastics, too
logically understood.
In this connection, as far as physical education for
children was
concerned, she once said, "It seems to me criminal to entrust
children, who cannot defend themselves, to this injurious train-
ing. In
my opinion it is a crime to teach the child to guide his
growing body by the
stern power of the brain, while deadening
impulse and inspiration."
To
which I might add that ballet of the present period has
not fundamentally
changed its principles. Despite some liber-
ation from old bonds, it still
does not represent a true art of the
dance, but only highly accomplished
acrobatics. The male
dancer, not going on toe, is not as hampered in the
evolution of
kinetics as the ballerina. But so long as the latter cannot
make
more than a few movements unaided, or is kept in a constant
* Cf.
Art, pp. 52, 55-56.
European Tour 73
state of levitation by her partner
if not tossed about like a set
of Indian clubs between several assistants,
her physical activities
can hardly be dignified by the term dancing.
I
recall almost nothing of Helsingfors, Finland, the next
stop on our
itinerary, except the abnormal amount of butter we
were urged to eat in
order to keep from freezing, for the temper-
ature was below zero. Then we
gave performances in Warsaw
and Lodsz in Poland. Warsaw, where we stayed for
a week at the
Hotel Bristol, stands out primarily because of the new coats
Isadora designed and had made to order for us. Of coarse gray
military
material, they were edged off and embroidered each
with a different
color-blue, green, brown, wine red-and we
also had those little pillbox caps
that are now so much en vogue
to match. We referred to them as our Polish
coats and, although
they scratched quite a bit, being unlined, we took
inordinate
pride in them and even insisted on wearing them in the
sum-
mertime.
The tour continued through Holland and Belgium and,
since each stop took up a week or more, it was spring by the
time we
returned to Germany to dance at the various southern
watering places such as
Wiesbaden. By this time the weather
was warm enough for us to perform out of
doors, as we did on
the extensive lawn in front of the Kurhaus in
Baden-Baden.
At the International Art and Landscaping Exhibition in
Mannheim in the previous year, we danced in the middle of a
rose garden,
against the dramatic background of an illuminated
fountain and its
reflecting pool. For this occasion the water was
turned off, and the
fountain proper was boarded over to provide
a stage. To reach it, we were
paddled across the pool in flower-
bedecked gondolas manned by costumed
gondoliers. At night
the scene was lit by floodlights; and the performance,
seen as
if suspended in mid-air, took on a most romantic aspect. A
select but enthusiastic audience attended. An article in a local
newspaper described the end of the performance:
74 DUNCAN DANCER
The
crowd swiftly passed by the brightly illuminated water tower
and fountain so
as not to dim the inner vision glowing with the
beauty and grace they had
just witnessed. For they were all very
much moved by the wonder of the
dances a small group of chil-
dren had presented there. Repeatedly one hears
men both old
and young exclaim: "How delightful! That was really quite
en-
chanting! "-not to mention the enthusiastic remarks of the
women!
While Isadora danced alone, her reform movement in
the art of the dance did
not carry quite the conviction it has when
she shows us her graceful dancing
children. 'Vhat appears to our
present doubting generation only as a dream
will become a
reality for the children of the next generation.
We
children were apparently successfully putting our message
across to the
people, as Isadora had hoped we would, proving
that her efforts had not been
in vain. More and more people
began to understand what Isadora's art was all
about now that
they saw it could be transmitted to others. She had wanted
her
pupils to set a good example to all the other children in the
world.
With what fine result we fulfilled this wish can be
gleaned from the
following article, which appeared in a Swiss
paper after a performance we
had given in Zurich:
To begin with: the appearance of the Duncan Dancers was
a
complete victory! We noticed with the greatest pleasure the many
children present in the audience and hope there will be an even
greater
number here tomorrow, because here they have an ex-
ample of what the true
dance should be, so different from the
instruction they receive in their
usual social or ballet dancing
classes. One must see with one's own eyes
with what clarity of
expression these Duncan pupils perform in order truly
to appre-
ciate their unique art. . . • The magnificent free strides of their
simple walk, which one has already much admired in Isadora
Duncan, has
also become a salient characteristic of her young
pupils. The arms, the
hands, the entire body is here awakened
into graceful motion and rhythmic
life.
For instance, with what grace did a group of three slender
girls
raise their arms and close into a small circle . . . or, as in
European Tour
75
the Lanner Waltz, when a fine silken fabric arched overhead
into a
triumphal arch beneath which the dancing children passed
in pairs and then
scattered to the four winds; or that supple back-
ward thrust of the body and
head with raised arms indicating a
delightful Dionysiac joy .•..
To
correctly evaluate what these children achieve with their
dancing one should
immediately afterwards see some of the ster-
eotype movements of the ballet.
Anyone endowed with a normal,
healthy perception would not be able to stand
it by comparison;
for the latter is all artificiality while the former
offers us, to-
gether with simplicity, a truly artistically styled
naturalness.
Appearing on the same program with Isadora, as we were
now
doing, did not imply that we actually danced with her; we
were still too
young for that. The only exception to this rule
was the "Reigen" we did
together at the very end of each per-
formance by way of an encore. It was
always a wonderful event
for us. Then the act of dancing invariably took on
a special
meaning for me. Just to hold hands with Isadora, as I often did
in the circle, and to watch the radiant expression on her face
when she
danced, was so inspiring that I carry the memory of
it with me to this day.
Isadora herself derived unique pleasure
from this, for she said:
Whenever I felt their willing hands in mine, felt the pull and
swing of
their little bodies as we danced our fast-paced rondos,
I always envisioned
that orchestra of dancers I would one day
bring to life. The sight of these
dancing children was so beau-
tiful they strengthened my faith in the
ultimate perfection of an
orchestra of dancers which would be to sight what
the great
symphonies were to sound. A vast ensemble dancing the Ninth
Symphony of Beethoven.*
That artistic goal was still a long way off. In
the meanwhile,
she presented her pupils to the European public, with the
prom-
ise that in the future they would dance in a mighty array such as
the world had never seen.
* Life, p. q,o.
DUNCAN DANCER
So far,
the tour had taken us in three months to six countries. At
the end of our
engagements in the south of Germany, we con-
tinued on to France. How
thrilled I was to be going to Paris!
At the Gare du Nord the porters dressed
in blue smocks rushed
into our compartments shouting, ccPorteur! porteur!"
and I had
a hard time holding onto my now well-traveled wicker suitcase.
Tante Miss, who had been reading a novel-Renard's Pail de
Garotte-to
brush up on her French while sitting up all night
in the day coach, shushed
the swarm of blue-smocked porters
away. "Allez-vous en, allez-vous en," she
kept repeating until
they had gone.
We finally managed to evade their
grasping hands and
reached the street safely through the noise and bustle of
a busy
terminal. We found an old-fashioned horse-drawn omnibus
waiting
for us. On the steps outside the French station I
breathed in the soft,
caressing night air, eagerly observing the
sights and sounds of Paris. They
immediately struck me as being,
in some indefinable way, unlike those of any
other country I had
seen. No one who has been to Paris in the month of May
will
ever forget it.
Sitting on two banquettes facing each other, and
attired in
our Polish coats and pillbox caps, we were able to take in the
sights at leisure. The stodgy omnibus lumbered down the Rue
de la
Fayette and then continued along the Boulevard Hauss-
mann while the horses'
hoofs clumped hard on the uneven
pavement, making the windows rattle.
Debouching onto the
Place de !'Etoile, straddled by the massive Arch of
Triumph,
we saw the heart of the city suddenly open like a picture book
before our enchanted eyes. Illuminated by garlands of lights
strung
along both sides of the magnificent Avenue des Champs-
Elysees and reaching
toward the Place de la Concorde where
the fountains were playing, Paris was
beautiful.
In the spring of 1908, the uncrowded traffic moved at a
much
slower pace than it does today. It did not obliterate the
sense of calm
spaciousness that was such a notable characteristic
European Tour 77
of
the French capital, for vehicles then consisted mainly of ele-
gantly
accoutered phaetons and equipages. Every now and then
a silent electric
automobile, signaling its approach by delicately
ringing a bell, would
overtake our steadily plodding omnibus.
Progressing at a slow pace, we
finally entered the suburb of
Neuilly.
The long passage from east to
west across Paris had occu-
pied the better part of an hour. During the last
part of it we
began to feel drowsy. I glanced over at Tante Miss sitting in
one corner with her eyes closed; she seemed to be dozing. We
had been
very quiet, since her presence was enough to curb our
speech. She frowned on
any kind of chit-chat and always told
us to keep quiet. But as soon as we
entered the wide A venue de
Neuilly, with its broad center strip of grass
and trees, we saw
that a spring fair was in progress. Instantly we were wide
awake.
"A carnival! A carnival!" we shouted in unison. In all the
years
at school we had seen plenty of museums, but not one fair.
The sight of this
one made us hop up and down on our seats
with glee. At home in Hamburg
mother had taken me to the
Christmas fair. Everything was there just as I
remembered it:
the milling crowds; the double row of lighted booths filled
with
toys and gingerbread; the incessant shouts of the hawkers offer-
ing
their wares; the spinning carrousels, each blaring forth
another brassy
tune; the pungent smell of steaming sausages.
Above it all an acrid odor of
magnesium flares floated like a
cloud of incense offered to the spirit of
King Carnival. We
clapped our hands in childish rapture and laughed, wishing
we
could jump out and join in the fun; but the stern voice of Tante
Miss
spoiled our innocent enjoyment with, "Come down off
those benches
immediately and keep quiet! "
We obeyed reluctantly. Her attitude toward us
was one of
perpetual reproof. She never missed a chance of reminding us
to behave with more dignity because we were pupils of the
Isadora Duncan
School-as if that should stop our normal urge
for fun and mischief.
Disgruntled grumblings and little gri-
DUNCAN DANCER
maces behind her
back were our ineffectual revenge. We were
craning our necks to get another
good look at the gay fair despite
her reproof, when the lumbering omnibus
suddenly veered
sharply to the right, jumbling us together.
We had
turned into a quiet side street of the residential sec-
tion. By comparison
with the broad and lively main thorough-
fare, it seemed as deserted as a
cemetery. The strident music of
the calliopes and hurdy-gurdies grew fainter
and fainter until
only the monotonous clop, clop of the horses remained. The
street was dark, with only a gaslight flickering here and there.
After a
while the brakes screeched, and the omnibus came to
a sudden halt.
"This
is where we get out," Tante Miss said wearily. The
omnibus did not deposit
us in front of a hotel or pension as we
had expected, but had stopped in
front of a church with a tall,
slender steeple. A churchyard on one side and
a small house on
the other presented an eerie picture. All was silent and
dark
except for a light burning in the window of the house. We did
not
know what to make of this. My curiosity got the better of
me. I timidly
asked Tante Miss where we were, not really ex-
pecting an answer because she
never told us anything. She sur-
prised me by explaining wearily but
patiently, "This is our new
home, we are going to remain here for as long as
we stay in
Paris."
"In this church r"
"No, silly, of course not. In
the little house beside it. Just
follow me." And she added, while we trouped
up to the house
together, "This used to be the rectory of the American
church,
but it isn't any longer. Now, no further questions. Take your
suitcases and go inside; supper is waiting."
There was something
important that she did not explain.
None of us had any inkling when we went
to bed that night
that we would never return to Grunewald. Isadora
considered
Germany (mainly for personal reasons but also because of the
Kaiserin's puritanical views) no longer the proper place for her
European Tour 79
school. With the closing of the house in Grunewald, she
now
had just twelve of her most talented pupils left.
We appeared with
her for a month or more at the Theatre
de la Gaiete Lyrique in Paris that
spring. Gordon Craig, who
was then living in Paris and came to our
performances, wrote
in his notebook:
It was here that she first used the
great blue curtains some
twenty or twenty-five feet high, which followed my
designs as
may be seen in my The Arts of the Theatre, published in 1905
and which I had made in 1901-2-3. She pretends that she used
them in
1904 in Berlin where I saw her dance for the first time
in December. She did
not use them then. She used a few curtains
six feet in height.
Performing every night, practicing, and rehearsing, we were
kept busy.
During the day, out for a stroll and some fresh air-
always walking in
orderly pairs-we often stopped in the Bois
where the acacia trees were in
bloom to watch the Parisian chil-
dren at play. They rolled hoops or tossed
diabolos into the air
or played cache-cache, hiding from their nurses behind
the big
trees. We sometimes envied them, for our toys were left in
Grunewald and we had nothing to play with. But at night, when
the little
Parisians slept, we envied them no longer. For then
came our turn to play.
Dancing on the stage to our hearts' con-
tent in harmony with beautiful music
played by a fine orchestra
under the baton of the great Colonne-what could
be a more
stirring game! We never tired of it and eagerly looked forward
to our nightly gambols.
Not that our academic studies were neglected.
Frau Zschet-
zsching came from Germany to resume them after a three-month
vacation. She also taught us French, a language she pronounced
with a
strong Germanic accent, which bore no resemblance to
the way the natives
spoke. We learned to pronounce it better
from singing the old folk songs
"Sur le pont d' A vignon" and
"Le Chevalier de la Marjolaine."
So DUNCAN
DANCER
Although we had contributed to our upkeep by giving paid
performances ever since our stage debut, the expenses of the
school
mounted and became more and more difficult to meet.
Away on tour, Isadora
would be constantly bombarded by tele-
grams from her sister or mother asking
for funds-a thousand
marks here, two thousand marks there, until she felt
like saying,
"To heck with it all!" She always remembered this effort of
sustaining the school's expenses as uphill work, like straining
forward
against the rapids of a river. She had no sooner returned
from Russia at the
end of June than Charles Frohman proposed
an extended engagement in London,
together with her pupils.
This was all so quickly organized that she had no
time to rest
from her strenuous tour. It seemed that the Duchess of
Man-
chester, who was a dollar princess, was ready to sponsor the
Duncan
School in England, and so we all went there to dance
at the Duke of York's
Theatre, beginning July 6, 1908.
It rained almost the whole time, and we
took melancholy
walks into Hyde Park from our nearby lodgings in Half Moon
Street, finding no gay children at play but only placid sheep
grazing on
the common. Frohman had advertised us somewhat
sensationally as "Twenty
Parisian Dancers." That this statement
was misleading and inaccurate on both
counts did not bother this
seasoned showman one bit. However, he gave us the
thrill of
our young lives when he presented each of us with a little gold
watch. We simply squealed with delight. To be in possession of
a real
gold watch was the height of our ambition. We were
seldom given presents. No
longer were our daily outings in
Hyde Park melancholy; we positively beamed
with pride as we
walked about in the rain with our watches pinned to the
outside
of our coats. After a week of this, alas, our golden watches
turned a nasty green.
Ellen Terry, the mother of Gordon Craig, tried to
make up
for this disappointment by taking us to the zoo; then to see
Peter Pan and The Pirates of Penzance. She loved children and
we loved
her. She was the second celebrated actress we had met.
European Tour 81
The first one had been Eleonora Duse, who did not take us to
a zoo.
Instead, reclining on a couch a la Dame aux Camelias,
she had placed her
long, slender hands on our heads in benedic-
tion and murmured, "Que dieu
vous garde!"
The highlight of our month's stay in London turned out to
be a command performance for their majesties King Edward VII
and Queen
Alexandra. The day before this important occasion
we lunched with the
Duchess of Manchester at her lovely estate
on the Thames. For a change we
enjoyed a spell of beautiful
weather, and the command performance was
planned to be given
outdoors.
When we went in to luncheon, Isadora sat
next to the Duch-
ess and then asked me to sit beside her. This honor,
pleasant as
it was, made me nervous. Luncheon was served in grand style,
with a uniformed footman in the ducal colors standing behind
each chair.
For a main course we had scrambled eggs and string
beans. The latter
happened to be my great aversion. I didn't
think anyone would notice if I
left them untouched, though I
had been taught that leaving food constituted
a grave social
error. Just as the white-gloved footman was about to remove
my
plate, Isadora-who had been engaged in conversation with the
Duchess-glanced my way and said, "Irma, eat your string
beans."
What
to do? Both she and the Duchess were giving me their
undivided attention.
Luckily the situation was saved when the
Duchess, taking pity, said, "I know
how she feels. I have a little
niece who can't stand them either," and
motioned to the footman
to remove my plate. Then I heard her say to Isadora,
"Their
majesties are definitely coming tomorrow night, so why don't
we
have our coffee in the drawing room and talk about the
arrangements, while
the children go outside to play? It's such
a lovely day."
We breathed a
sigh of relief. Amid heavy tapestries and em-
bossed silver, the ducal
luncheon had been a bit too formal and
skimpy. Once out in the sunshine, the
velvety lawns and the
82 DUNCAN DANCER
carefully tended flowerbeds
restored our normal spmts. We
roamed unattended through the park. At one
point we came
upon a charming sunken garden surrounded by a high wall,
which-we noticed with delight-was covered with luscious
peaches growing
in espalier fashion. They hung there, well
spaced, in glowing colors, like
nature's miniature masterpieces,
ripe for the picking. In the twinkling of
an eye, two of the older
girls had jumped into the garden whence they threw
the golden
fruit, flushed with pink, up to us. The first peaches we had ever
eaten (they are considered a great luxury in Europe and are
very scarce
in the northern countries), they tasted as delicious
and sweet as stolen
fruit is supposed to.
But suddenly we heard someone call from a distance,
"Chil-
dren! Children! Where are you?"
Hastily we wiped the telltale
juice from our hands and lips,
and walked sedately back, putting on an
innocent air. We kept
our fingers crossed that Isadora would not discover
our misdeed.
After the dance the next day, their majesties graciously shook
hands with us, and the King wanted to know what everybody
else in that
overdressed era was always asking: "Are you not
cold with so little on?"
Bored with the same old question, we
simply shook our heads and smiled.
Queen Alexandra, elegantly
gowned in the Victorian style with trailing
skirt, feathered hat,
and long feathered boa, enjoyed our dancing so much
that she
attended several of our matinees when we children presented
our
own program. She particularly liked the old German folk
songs we sang and
danced, such as "Haenslein sass im Schorn-
stein und fiickte seine Schuh," in
which I had the solo part, or
the one where little Isabelle with the bushy
hair was so amusing,
which was called, "Hexlein, willst du tanzen." They
probably
recalled to the Queen her own childhood in Denmark.
I must
mention here that despite the frequent paid perform-
ances we children gave,
none of us ever received any weekly
allowance or pocket money. We got not
even a penny's worth
to buy an occasional lollipop or a ribbon for our hair.
Naturally,
Irma and Isadora, Neuilly, 1908.
Gordon Craig and Isadora,
Berlin, 1904.
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.
European
Tour
with our strict upbringing, we dared not ask for any. Even small
sums sent from home by our parents were frowned upon.
Thoughts of filthy
lucre had no place in our spiritual education
dedicated to the true dance.
So one can imagine the thrill I
experienced when one day, in a restaurant in
Piccadilly, I found
a golden sovereign lying on the stair carpet. My
exclamations
of glee drew the governess' attention, and she grabbed it away
from me. Like all children I believed in the rule "finders,
keepers,"
but she said with a righteous air, "This must be re-
turned to the
management, immediately." Then the old hypo-
crite put it in her black
leather bag and kept it. She happened
to leave us that season for good. We
children were so overjoyed
to be rid of our dragon that I did not begrudge
her my lucky
find. To be rid of her was well worth the loss of a gold
sovereign.
The noted English novelist John Galsworthy saw us that
June
and wrote an article about the Duncan dancers:
DELIGHT
I was taken by a
friend one afternoon to a theatre. When the
curtain was raised, the stage
was perfectly empty save for tall
grey curtains which enclosed it on all
sides, and presently through
the thick folds of those curtains children came
dancing in, singly,
or in pairs, till a whole troop of ten or twelve were
assembled.
They were all girls; none, I think, more than fourteen years
old, one or two certainly not more than eight. They wore but
little
clothing, their legs, feet and arms being quite bare. Their
hair, too, was
unbound; and their faces, grave and smiling, were
so utterly dear and
joyful, that in looking on them one felt trans-
ported to some Garden of
Hesperides, where self was not, and
the spirit floated in pure ether. Some
of these children were fair
and rounded, others dark and elf-like; but one
and all looked
entirely happy, and quite unself-conscious, giving no
impression
of artifice, though they evidently had the highest and most
care-
ful training. Each flight and whirling movement seemed con-
ceived
there and then out of the joy of being-dancing had surely
never been a
labour to them, either in rehearsal or performance.
DUNCAN DANCER
There
was no tiptoeing and posturing, no hopeless muscular
achievement; all was
rhythm, music, light, air, and above all
things, happiness. Smiles and love
had gone to the fashioning of
their performance; and smiles and love shone
from every one of
their faces and from the clever white turnings of their
limbs.
Amongst them-though all were delightful-there were two
who
especially riveted my attention. The first of these two was
the tallest of
all the children, a dark thin girl, in whose every
expression and movement
there was a kind of grave, fiery love.
During one of the many dances, it
fell to her to be the pursuer
of a fair child, whose movements had a very
strange soft charm;
and this chase, which was like the hovering of a
dragon-fly round
some water-lily, or the wooing of a moonbeam by the June
night,
had in it a most magical sweet passion. That dark, tender
hun-
tress, so full of fire and yearning, had the queerest power of
symbolising all longing, and moving one's heart. In her, pursuing
her
white love with such wistful fervour, and ever arrested at the
very moment
of conquest, one seemed to see the great secret force
that hunts through the
world, on and on, tragically unresting,
immortally sweet.
The other
child who particularly enchanted me was the small-
est but one, a
brown-haired fairy crowned with a half-moon of
white flowers, who wore a
scanty little rose-petal-coloured shift
that floated about her in the most
delightful fashion. She danced
as never child danced. Every inch of her
small head and body
was full of the sacred fire of motion; and in her little
pas seul
she seemed to be the very spirit of movement. One felt that Joy
had flown down, and was inhabiting there; one heard the rip-
pling of
Joy's laughter. And, indeed, through all the theatre had
risen a rustling
and whispering; and sudden bursts of laughing
rapture.
I looked at my
friend; he was trying stealthily to remove
something from his eyes with a
finger. And to myself the stage
seemed very misty, and all things in the
world lovable; as though
that dancing fairy had touched them with tender
fire, and made
them golden.
God knows where she got that power of
bringing joy to our
dry hearts: God knows how long she will keep it! But
that little
European Tour ss
flying Love had in her the quality that
lies in deep colour, in
music, in the wind, and the sun, and in certain
great works of
art-the power to set the heart free from every barrier, and
flood
it with delight.
John Galsworthy remembered our dancing years
later. Lec-
turing at Princeton University, he spoke of losing oneself in the
contemplation of beauty. He said, "How lost was I when I first
looked on
the Grand Canyon of Arizona; when I first saw
Isadora Duncan's child dancers
. . • or the Egyptian desert
under the moon."
This tribute by the
English writer fittingly closes a chapter
in the lives of Isadora's little
pupils from the Grunewald school.
The innocent years of childhood were
rapidly drawing to an
end. This long voyage to foreign lands had broadened
my out-
look and perceptions and had made me more aware of the out-
side
world. With it, too, had vanished many of my childhood
illusions.
Sojourn at Chateau J7illegenis
EvERY life has its ups and its downs, its
prosperous periods and
its meagre ones. The same was true of Isadora's
school. Ever
since she founded her philanthropical institution, she had
tried
to keep it going despite financial difficulties. This meant an
endless succession of dance tours with no time out to put down
roots for
the establishment of her private life. Once more, no
sooner had the London
season ended than she was off again.
This time her destination was America.
And once more she en-
trusted the school to the management of Elizabeth. She
had no
other alternative and no reason for not trusting her sister.
It
had not been easy for Isadora to decide on this trip,
putting the whole
expanse of an ocean between herself and her
loved ones for who knew how
long. She said, "It cost me many
pangs to part from my little baby Deirdre,
who was now almost
a year old, and from that other child-my School."
Although the number of her original pupils had dwindled
to a mere dozen,
she continued to pretend they still numbered
twenty. Constantly on the
lookout for people who might be
persuaded to become patrons of her school,
she was delighted
upon her arrival in America when she met Mrs. W. E. Corey,
a
wealthy American lady who took an interest in furthering the
arts.
Before her marriage to a steel magnate, the former Mabel
Gilman had been on
the stage in musical comedy. An article
appearing in a New York newspaper on
September 20, 1908,
said in part:
It is owing to Mrs. W. E. Corey's
desire to devote some of her
present fortune to encouraging artists who need
it that the twenty
little members of Isadora Duncan's school for dancing are
just
86
S'ojourn at Choteau Villegenis
now enjoying the delights of
residence in a chateau, about forty
miles from Paris.
Mrs. Corey, who
wants to help not only young dramatists but
artists of all kinds as well,
heard from Miss Duncan of her plans
and the struggle that it was for her to
maintain the school by
her dancing. Even in France to clothe, feed and
educate twenty
children is not a slight financial undertaking, especially
when
they are reared carefully ..•.
"To think that you should be paying
to house your school in
Paris," said Mrs. Corey when she heard of the work
that the
children are doing, "when I have a chateau standing empty which
they might as well occupy! There is a farm there, too, with all
that
they could want to eat, and there are servants with nothing
to do but wait
on them."
Unfortunately, our unknown but very generous American
hostess
was not there to extend a welcome when we arrived
late in September at her
beautiful chateau. Instead we were met
by her Irish mother, Mrs. Gilman, a
short, square-shaped
woman in her fifties, who displayed none of her
daughter's gen-
erous traits. With Tante Miss and our French governess we had
come on foot from the small station at Massy-Palaiseau two
miles away,
when we saw her standing by the front door. Her
daughter's sudden affiuence
through a rich alliance did not
change Mrs. Gilman's manner or outlook from
the skimpy days
when Mabel had worked in the chorus line to earn a living.
Dressed in a gray suit and wearing shiny black low-heeled shoes,
she
stood with feet apart and firmly planted in the graveled
driveway. Like a
watchdog, she was grimly determined to bar
all comers from entering the
house. Without offering a greeting
she exclaimed, "Well, bless my soul! If
they aren't here, the
whole lot of them!" Pointing at some buildings across
the drive-
way enclosing a large courtyard where the stables were, she said
to Elizabeth, "Their quarters are over there. I'm afraid your
kids will
only scuff up the parquet floors and scratch our nice
furniture if I let
them in here." She jerked a thumb behind her
88 DUNCAN DANCER
at the
chateau. "Those rooms over there are plenty good enough
for them. Come on
and let me show you."
\Vith that remark, not very flattering to our general
up-
bringing (especially since the Grunewald school prided itself on
an
immaculate cleanliness and neatness), she stepped out ener-
getically and
conducted us to an apartment near the stables,
probably originally occupied
by the grooms. To my amazement
I saw that, except for a large table and some
chairs occupying
the entire space in the small dining room, the rest of the
rooms
were completely devoid of furniture. There was not even a
single
chair. Furthermore, we children were obliged to sleep-
not, as Isadora and
her generous art patron in far-off America
imagined, in the comfortable beds
of the chateau-but on simple
pallets spread on the hard floor. These
primitive living quarters
provided neither electricity nor sanitary
facilities of any sort.
Moreover, we later discovered, the whole place was
infested
with mice. At night, after blowing out the solitary candle serving
as light, we could hear them hungrily gnawing at the woodwork.
Quite
patently Mrs. Gilman had seen to it that her daughter
Mabel's little guests
would not enjoy "the delights of residence
in a chateau." Nor, if she had
any say about it, would they have
"servants with nothing to do but wait on
them." Her daughter's
decision to place the chateau and everything in it at
the disposal
of Isadora's dance school obviously met with her complete
dis-
approval. It must have been a real disappointment to her when
Elizabeth left us there.
Tante Miss made no visible protest nor, for
that matter, did
she inform Isadora of the true conditions concerning our
recep-
tion and accommodation at Mrs. Corey's chateau. She told us,
"I am
going to leave you here with Mademoiselle and a woman
to do the cooking. I
want you to be good children and obey
Mademoiselle because I will be able to
come out and see what
you are doing only once in a while. I am staying in
Paris at
Isadora's apartment to take care of Deirdre."
Sojourn at
Chateau Villegenis
Chateau Villegenis, where Elizabeth apparently was
satisfied
to leave us, was situated in the lovely Bievre valley, a few
kilo-
meters south of Paris and not far from Versailles to the west.
It
had once belonged to Napoleon's brother Jerome Bonaparte,
the sometime King
of Westphalia, who died there in 1 8 6o. To
the north it was dominated by
the imposing mass of the wood
of Verrieres, a heavy stand of pine, oak,
beech, and chestnut
trees; and a river ran through the extensive property.
The chateau itself stood in the center of a wooded park,
reached by a
half-mile driveway from the main gate in the
surrounding wall. The white
house, with two wings in typical
French style, mirrored its fa~ade in a
small lake, with a parterre
of flowers extending to each side. The estate
contained tennis
courts, orchards, hot houses, a little ivy-covered chapel,
and even
a medieval donjon hidden deep in the woods. The house was
beautifully appointed, with all the conveniences and servants
galore;
but Mrs. Gilman, together with a little girl called
Fran~oise (a distant
relative by marriage), lived there in solitary
splendor. We were not invited
to set foot in it, not even to take
an occasional hot bath. For our daily
ablutions we used a large
tin pan and cold water drawn from the pump in the
courtyard.
The French governess pleaded in our behalf for the use of a
bathroom, but to no effect. "I don't know why I should let you
kids run
all over my house," was Mrs. Gilman's only answer.
And so, in the midst of
these beautiful surroundings we
children were destined to live in squalor,
which made our stay
at the chateau completely miserable. At first, in balmy
October
when we could spend all our time outdoors, it wasn't so bad.
But
we knew that October could not last forever.
At one point we even had hopes
of leaving. Late one night
we were told to pack our things quickly, and we
were whisked
off to Paris-only to be returned the next day. As usual, no one
told us where we were going. But when I peevishly remarked
at being kept
in the dark that "we might be on our way to
DUNCAN DANCER
America; even
then no one would tell us so," the response was
that I had guessed
correctly.
It seemed that Isadora's American tour had had an
inauspi-
cious beginning. To help drum up more interest, Mr. Frohman
-remembering how our dancing had captivated even the sophis-
ticated
London audiences-may have had the idea of sending
for us, and Isadora may
have countermanded it because of the
extra expense involved. In any case, we
returned, greatly dis-
appointed, to the chateau.
That one night and day
in Paris, we stayed at the tiny three-
room apartment of Mrs. Mary Sturges
(later Mrs. Desti), at
10 Rue Octave Feullet. She was an old friend of
Isadora, an
American divorcee and expatriate who made her home in France.
A few days later she motored out to see us, bringing her little
son
Preston and a photographer. "I want to send Isadora a pic-
ture of you
children," she said, "so that she can see how well
you look and how happy
you are here."
A gay, rather frivolous woman, who liked to laugh at
every-
thing and was constitutionally unable to take anything seriously,
she conceived the idea of posing us festooned all over her auto-
mobile.
We put on our Polish coats and climbed aboard her
I 908 model limousine,
which had more polished brass trim than
room to sit in. Preston (who later
became the well-known play-
wright and movie director), climbed in too and
had his picture
taken with us. It must have reassured our absent guardian
that
all was indeed well with her pupils at Mrs. Corey's marvelous
French chateau, where we were enjoying a delightful residence
and being
tended by the servants who had nothing to do but
wait on us.
Mrs.
Sturges only made matters worse by telling us in her
gay, chatty manner,
that she was taking Elizabeth and Mr.
Merz, our music director, on a motor
trip. "We are making a
tour of the Rhineland," she informed us in her
easygoing way.
When we pressed her for further details, she chatted on,
"Well,
I'm not supposed to tell you, so don't tell anyone I told you,
Sojourn at Chateau Villegenis 91
but it seems that the Grand Duke of
Hesse" -she stopped and
wagged a finger at us in mock-seriousness. "Remember
now,
this is a secret! Well, the Grand Duke has offered Elizabeth a
piece of property near Darmstadt for the building of a school
of her
own."
When she saw that this piece of news left us gaping with
utter
astonishment, she hastily added, "Remember, not a word!"
She waved gaily and
grinned one last big grin as she got into
her chauffeur-driven limousine,
calling out, "Au revoir! See you
again when I return! " The chauffeur tooted
his brass horn, and
we scattered like chickens. Then wheels crunched on the
gravel
and she was gone, leaving us shaken children trying to grasp
fully this formidable piece of news.
Our first reaction was to wonder,
"Does Isadora know of
this?" and, "What will happen to us?" As usual, there
was no
one to enlighten us, and our future seemed as uncertain as our
present. Abandoned here in France by our second guardian, who
had been
entrusted by Isadora to take good care of us, we
couldn't help feeling that
we were a group of lost waifs.
To cap it all, Mademoiselle packed up her
things one day
and left. Whether it was the bad food, or not getting paid,
or
that we were too much to cope with, we never knew. From that
moment,
left without any sort of supervision, we entered upon
a state of total
neglect.
The winter that year in France proved to be exceptionally
severe. It was so cold that the pump froze and the older girls
needed to
hack the ice away to get water for our cold baths. By
then our open sandals
had worn thin and had such big holes in
them that we were practically
walking barefoot in the snow. Our
clothing, too, was threadbare and provided
little warmth. For-
tunately, some coal fires in an open grate provided a
little heat
in the tiny rooms, otherwise we would surely have frozen to
death. During the bad weather, confined indoors, we sat on the
floor
(there being no chairs) huddled close beside the hearth,
and whiled the day
away till bedtime. Vle had no books or
92 DUNCAN DANCER
games to keep us
occupied. Apparently no one cared what hap-
pened to us. The cuisiniere, a
mute old peasant woman, con-
cerned herself exclusively with cooking what
meagre food there
was. The provisions dwindled rapidly. Our daily fare
during the
winter months consisted entirely of either pumpkin soup or a
dish of plain boiled potatoes. Forks not being available, even
though we
were guests of a millionairess, we ate with spoons,
the only eating utensils
provided by Mrs. Gilman.
Time seemed to stand still, with nothing to look
forward to,
not even the approach of Christmas. The usual Christmas
pack-
ages from home failed to arrive. Our parents had no idea of
our
exact whereabouts in France, and mail from Grunewald
could not be forwarded.
Not that we children were remiss in
wanting to correspond; we simply lacked
the money to buy
stamps, and in our ignorance we had no inkling that letters
could be sent without them. The prospect of having to celebrate
our
beloved W eihnachten alone in a strange land caused a great
deal of
homesickness. Christmas Eve had dawned bleakly when
Mrs. Gilman surprised us
by calling us over to the chateau.
We tidied ourselves as best we could and
eagerly approached
our hostess, who stood waiting by a side door. With our
bare
toes sticking out of our sandals in the snow, we curtsied politely
and said "Merry Christmas."
"Yes, that is what I want to see you about,"
she said, looking
us over carefully without as much as a smile. She asked us
into
the glass-enclosed side entrance, but would not let us enter the
house as if our presence might contaminate it. She opened the
door and
showed us the huge, decorated tree in the hall. With
spontaneous
exclamations at the beautiful sight of the tree and
the many attractively
wrapped presents beneath, we pressed
forward for a closer view. But she
restrained us. "No, don't go
in," she said. "You will only scuff up the
floors. I just thought
you kids might like to see the tree since you haven't
got one."
She stepped inside for a moment, returning with an open
Sojourn at Chateau Villegenis 93
box of candies. "Here, take one," she
said in a more friendly
tone, and offered each child a bonbon. Then she
closed the box
and replaced it on the table in the hall. We stood crowded
to-
gether in the small entrance watching her, not knowing what
to do or
say, hoping for a little more friendly human contact.
"Well, run along now,"
she said, dismissing us. "I just
wanted to show you the tree. You
understand, don't you?" We
nodded our heads and sadly trudged back to our
bare rooms.
In Europe, the tree is lit and the presents are opened late on
Christmas Eve. Glumly we sat on the floor close by the fire
after our
evening meal of pumpkin soup and waited for some-
thing to happen. But what?
It was cold outside and snowing.
We could hear the wind in the chimney. We
talked, remember-
ing other, happier Christmases. Presently, to get in the
right
mood, I started softly to sing: "Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht; alles
schlaeft einsam wacht/' The others joined in, and we sang on
bravely
till the end. With the last notes, our voices quavered
and then failed. We
all burst into tears. Through our tears,
hungry as the mice in the
wainscotting, we gnawed on raw
acorns and chestnuts that we had gathered in
the woods for
Christmas presents-the only ones we had. We cried ourselves
to sleep, lying on the miserable pallets on the floor.
The following
day, we looked through the frosty windows
and watched the fine little
friends of Fran~oise arriving for a
party at the chateau. We were not
invited, Mrs. Gilman's excuse
being that we did not speak French. But
Christmas is a day for
children the world over and needs no special language
for their
understanding.
It was a hopeless situation. With Isadora in
America, Eliza-
beth in Germany-none of us knowing their exact
whereabouts-
and Mrs. Gilman ignoring our existence, we found ourselves
helplessly trapped. In an effort to find a solution, I realized that
outside help in our predicament could be obtained only by noti-
fying
mother. Not aware that an unfranked letter would actu-
94 DUNCAN DANCER
ally reach her, this escape seemed closed too. As a result, a
frightening sense of insecurity enveloped us all.
Because of the bad
weather and for lack of proper clothing,
our outdoor exercises had to be
curtailed. The cramped rooms
made indoor exercise equally impossible. We had
no means of
letting off excess energy, and so it was not surprising-cooped
up as we were in four tiny rooms, like dumb animals in a cage-
that the
older girls should gang up on us younger ones for
something amusing to do.
The six older girls, all teen-agers,
tyrannized the younger to such an
extent that we lived in con-
stant terror. Children can be very cruel. As the
oldest of the
younger group, and possessed of a latent fiery temperament
that needed only strong fanning to erupt like a volcano, I did
not
suffer from their machinations. They knew me and my tem-
per too well. But
one day, after a fierce quarrel when I tried to
remonstrate with them and
their unspeakable behavior, they
held a court and sentenced me to Coventry.
Now being sent to Coventry is not a pleasant experience, as
most
children in boarding school well know. In my case, where
it lasted for
weeks, it amounted to solitary confinement. If the
youngest girls with whom
I roomed even so much as glanced
my way, they were severely punished. I
became embittered, se-
cretly vowing some kind of vengeance on the three
ringleaders.
At one point I became so morose I decided to run away. I had
no money, and it meant walking all the way home to Hamburg.
In
desperation I packed my few belongings in a small satchel
and sneaked out of
the house before dawn. I got past the main
gate without being seen by the
gatekeeper and wandered deter-
minedly along the highway to Paris. But after
a few miles of
walking in my torn sandals, I got footsore and so frightened
at
the enormity of my rash undertaking that I succumbed to my
misgivings
and returned to the chateau as the lesser of two evils.
I don't know how
long this ostracism would have lasted
(since I was too proud to ask the
girls to forgive me) if a fright-
ening incident had not occurred and changed
their minds. As I
Sojourn at Chateau Villegenis 95
have mentioned, coal
fires burned in open grates in our bed-
rooms. One day I happened to be
sitting in the farthest corner
of the room while two little girls played
close to the open fire.
I was supposed to be in solitary confinement, but I
knew that
both Erica and Temple secretly sympathized with me, having
themselves been badly treated by the big ones. I sensed that
they played
in this room on purpose, despite the risk they took,
to keep me company
after my month-long loneliness.
I was drawing pictures and paying them no
heed when sud-
denly I heard a terrified scream. Erica's dress had caught
fire,
and the flames rapidly spread to her face. Temple stood petrified
beside her, screaming. I rushed over and was trying to extinguish
the
flames with my bare hands when the older girls came run-
ning in. Seeing me
struggle with Erica in an effort to subdue
the flames, they recoiled in
panic, thinking I meant to throw her
in the fire. For the first time I saw
fear written on their own
nasty faces-fear of what I might be capable of
doing to them
in revenge. Their cowardly expressions gave me inner
satisfac-
tion, for I realized I now had the upper hand.
"Don't stand
there like idiots!" I shouted at them. "Go
fetch the water cans quickly!"
They obeyed my command with alacrity, relieved that I was
not going to
destroy them after all. When they brought the
water, I poured it over Erica
till the flames were extinguished.
"Poor little Erica," I consoled her,
rubbing her dry with a
towel. "You'll be all right now."
She threw her
arms about me, and we kissed. Temple came
up and whispered, "Irma, dear,
none of us little ones are sore
at you. THEY forced us to ignore you. Both
Erica and I are so
sorry for you."
"I know, don't worry. You'll see,
I'll get even with them
yet."
That night, when I was about to drop off
to sleep, one of
the ringleaders bent down low over my pallet. I sat bolt
upright
in a combative mood.
DUNCAN DANCER
"What do you want?"
"Sh, sh, don't be alarmed;'' she whispered. "Susanna wants
to see you.
She is ready to forgive you because of what you did
to save Erica."
Susanna, the eldest of our group, asked me to apologize.
"Never!" was my
defiant retort. She came from the same city
I did and did not in the least
impress me with her absurd airs.
The other girls looked on her as a queen,
she had them so
hypnotized. To me she was just a stupid, stuck-up kid, and I
told her so. At this lese majeste, the others acted stunned. When
they
had recovered sufficiently and saw that I was not going to
kowtow to their
silly queen, two of them crept up behind me.
I stood there unaware in front
of Susanna, who was propped up
on pillows as if on a make-believe throne,
when they suddenly
doused me with a pitcher of ice-cold water. My fury
aroused,
I threatened them with dire destruction and rushed out of the
room, bolting the connecting door. It was their only exit, and
now I had
them under complete control. I intended to keep
them locked up in there for
good. Now it was their turn to beg
me to unbolt the door, and when they
promised to behave and
cause no more mischief, I set them free.
This
life would have continued indefinitely but for the for-
tuitous arrival of a
new governess. Fraulein Harting turned out
to be a young, sympathetic
Alsatian woman, who spoke both
French and German. Overjoyed to have at long
last someone
who spoke our own language, I told her all that weighed on my
mind and made me unhappy. When I confessed my big sin, my
attempt to run
away, I was ready for her to scold me. Instead,
she asked earnestly, "Why
didn't you? I would have done the
same thing." I told her that I had no
money to buy a ticket.
"You need only go to the nearest station and ask for
Travelers'
Aid," she explained-and she told me how that society would
always furnish a ticket home for anyone stranded in a foreign
land.
She told me also that it was possible to send a letter without
Sojourn
at C hdteau Villegenis 97
stamps, postage due. I immediately decided to put
her advice to
the test. Not having written home for four months, I tore a
page out of my copybook and poured out my heart to mother,
telling her
that Elizabeth Duncan had a plan for establishing a
school in Germany, but
that Isadora had decided to have hers in
France. And to make no mistake
about my preference!
Fraulein Harting's advice had been correct. Mother
received
the letter and instantly sent me money and a large package with
all the necessities I had had to do without for so long, such as
a brush
and comb, soap, tooth powder, and writing paper. From
Tante Miss and
Isadora, we had not a word; they seemed to
have forgotten us.
Life in
the rooms near the stables at Chateau Villegenis
continued as before except
that now we had a governess. We
complained bitterly. For days we were fed
only pumpkin soup,
which I loathed. Once, rebelling, we refused to eat it.
But our
governess said, "I'm sorry. Pumpkin soup is all there is to eat.
You will only have it again tomorrow for breakfast if you don't
eat it
tonight."
"Oh, no I won't!" I suddenly shouted. Disgusted with the
whole
business, not only the horrible food, I seized the bowl of
soup and flung it
across the table at the wall. It landed directly
above a photograph of Mabel
Gilman in musical comedy cos-
tume, dripping all over the picture. There was
a shocked pause.
Everyone present stared at me while I stared defiantly at
the
big stain on the wall. Then Fraulein Harting found her voice.
She
pulled me by the ear, saying, "I'll teach you to throw food
around! Come
with me! "
She dragged me to the upper floor, locking me into a dark,
unused room. "You can spend the night here and cool off!" she
shouted,
and left. I threw myself against the door and rattled
the knob, screaming,
"Let me out! Let me out! " Suffering a
fearful attack of claustrophobia, I
was frantic. When my eyes
became accustomed to the dark, I saw that the room
was crowded
with furniture-all the furniture Mrs. Gilman had begrudged
DUNCAN DANCER
our using. In an access of fury, I climbed over the stuff,
opened
the window, and proceeded to throw out the furniture. Out it
went, piece by piece: chairs, tables, mirrors, everything I could
lift.
The crashing on the hard ground outside made a big noise
in the still night.
It wasn't long before Fraulein Harting came rushing back.
She unlocked
the door, screaming at me, "Are you crazy? Stop
that immediately!" But I
paid no heed and kept flinging furni-
ture out the window with enormous
gusto. It was a marvelous
relief for my long-pent-up resentment.
All
this shouting and excitement brought old Mrs. Gilman
on the run. "What on
earth is going on?" she wanted to know.
By this time the governess had
gotten hold of me and dragged
me outside to the heap of broken furniture.
"Look what you have done!" Fraulein Harting pointed out
unnecessarily. I
knew what I had done, and I was secretly glad
of it the moment I saw Mrs.
Gilman. For a while, the latter
stood absolutely speechless. Finally she
gave me a look of hate
and said, "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"
With
my heart still pounding wildly from the exertion and
the fury and the fear,
I looked her straight in the eye and said
nothing. On seeing this woman-who
had shown so little com-
passion for the starving, freezing children who were
guests un-
der her roof-now reproaching me, I felt only bitterness well up
in my heart. And although I cried hot tears of shame, I could
not bring
myself to say to her, "I'm sorry."
She started to upbraid me in the angry
tones of an outraged
woman, and I expected the worst in retaliation. But to
my great
surprise and relief, Fraulein Harting simply took me by the
hand and led me straight to bed. She covered me up warmly
and brought me
a bowl of hot milk with bread in it. "There,
calm yourself," she said. "Eat
this and then go to sleep. We'll
talk tomorrow."
But we never did. I
suppose she too had seen the mask fall
from Mrs. Gilman's face and suddenly
realized where the guilt
Sojourn at Chateau Villegenis 99
of my
rebellion really lay. Her sympathy was all for the neg-
lected motherless
children in her care, with no further concern
about Mrs. Gilman's broken
furniture. She told us she would
go to Paris and bring us help.
It was
the end of Mar~h. Spring comes early in this part of
Fran<:e, and the
flowers and trees were budding with fresh, new
life. Instead of our
governess, Mrs. Sturges showed up again on
a Sunday. She carried a bolt of
gray cloth under her arm and
brought scissors and sewing material. Greeting
us with squeals
of laughter, she said pleasantly, "I brought you girls some
ma-
terial to make new dresses. I wanted to buy a pretty blue, but
Elizabeth said gray was more practical. So here is some blue
embroidery
yarn for decorating. I also brought you some new
sandals."
With several
more delighted squeals, she told us the won-
derful news that Isadora was
expected to return from America
any day. We happily set to work on making
new dresses for her
arrival. And then, one marvelous sunny day in the first
week
of April, there she was! She actually stood before us, our idol,
our goddess, our longed-for Isadora. The spell she cast with her
very
presence made everything seem rosy, all cares forgotten.
She embraced us all
tenderly and remarked how we had grown!
She herself looked pale and worried.
"Poor children," she said
gently, hugging us, "poor children. Miss Harting
told me every-
thing. You must pack your things and come with me at once."
But there was nothing to pack. Our old clothes were torn
to tatters. We
had thrown them away for rags the day before
and left them in an empty
storeroom beside the stables, where
we had discovered an abandoned marble
tub that once belonged
to Jerome Bonaparte. With whoops of joy we had heated
water
in the kitchen and had taken our first hot bath in six months in
the Napoleonic tub. No hot bath had ever felt so good!
Cleaned up now,
our hair washed, wearing our new dresses
and sandals, we were ready and oh!
how willing to go and leave
this place forever. At that moment Mrs. Gilman
appeared to
100 DUNCAN DANCER
greet her distinguished visitor. When
Isadora saw the squat
figure in a gray suit and black low-heeled shoes, she
cut her dead
by turning her back and walking away without saying a word.
"Come on, children, get in the cars and let's go," Isadora
called out.
She took my hand, saying, "You come and sit with
me in my car." I hopped in
beside her, smiling happily. As we
passed through the gate in the great wall
surrounding Chateau
Villegenis, I did not once look back at the place where
I had
been so unhappy. "With my hand in Isadora's I felt safe once
more
and happy. I leaned back blissfully against the soft cush-
ions of the
limousine and sighed contentedly. Everything seemed
well again with me and
my small world as we sped along the
sunny highway to Paris.
Elizabeth
Takes Over
UPON Isadora's return from America, two events occurred that
had a decisive bearing on our future as well as hers. One was
the
fateful meeting with the millionaire she had hoped would
help to establish
her school on a solid financial basis. This was
Paris Singer. The other was
her sister Elizabeth's quite un-
expected competition.
After a short
engagement at the Gaiete-Lyrique Theatre in
Paris there followed a month's
vacation on the Riviera, for
which Isadora provided us with a new, much more
elaborate
wardrobe. Then she resettled her pupils at Neuilly in a
com-
fortable pension not far from the house she had bought with
the
dollars earned on her American tour. She once again devoted
herself to the
reorganization of her school in France. Starting
with the nucleus from the
Grunewald school, she found she had
first to obtain the consent of the
parents for our permanent
residence in France. To this effect she sent them
each a letter
dated June 7, 1909:
My dance school no longer exists in
Germany because of insuffi-
cient support. My own resources are no longer
adequate to enable
me to carry the expense alone. A group of influential
friends,
here in France, is now engaged in organizing a dance school
under my sole direction, but supported by other funds.
In this new
establishment the pupils will continue as hitherto,
to receive an academic,
as well as an artistic education. The par-
ents are requested to agree by
contract to leave the children at
the school till they have reached the age
of eighteen. Having
finished their education, the graduated pupils will then
be able
101
102 DUNCAN DANCER
to obtain dance engagements through
the school organization.
Half of their fee will then be deducted for
repayment of the ex-
penses incurred for their education.
If you should
consider leaving your daughter with me under
the above stipulated
conditions, I beg you to let me know imme-
diately. If otherwise, I shall
find myself constrained to return
your daughter to you. My address is: 68
Rue Chauveau, Neuilly
pres Paris. Teleg. "Duncanides."
At the same time,
unbeknownst to all of those most intimately
concerned with her project,
Elizabeth Duncan had perfected and
put into operation her secretly hatched
plan of establishing a
school under her own name in Germany. In order to
start her
enterprise with a trained group of pupils acting as her
assistants,
she caused a similar request to be sent to our parents. Hoping
she would surely come out the winner in this contest for the
possession
of the original pupils, she placed enormous faith in
the fact that the
German parents were bound to prefer keeping
their offspring in their
homeland. She then made her intentions
public by placing the following
notice in the German press:
With reference to the sojourn of my sister
Isadora Duncan and
her school in Paris, I beg to state that I have been
associated with
this school since its foundation in the capacity of both
teacher and
director. My own activities have been widely recognized in
Ger-
many. I therefore declare that I am not taking any part in the
re-establishing of a new school in Paris, France. As repeatedly
stated,
I shall continue my activities in Germany, specifically in
Darmstadt, where
my own school is now in the process of being
built. I beg you not to
construe this as going against my sister. I
merely continue to pursue my
long and successful-if at times
difficult-activities in Germany. I shall
proceed on my chosen
path with the guarantee of the fine support I have
received so
far for my undertaking.
In the meanwhile, fearing that most
of the pupils would
prefer to remain with Isadora if given a choice, and
egged on by
Elizabeth Takes Over 103
Max Merz, her friend and adviser
who master-minded the
whole scheme, she resorted to some audacious tactics.
We had not seen her for ages when she appeared one after-
noon at our
pension all smiles and innocence. Although most of
us instinctively
scattered like birds, sauve qui peut, at her ap-
proach, she managed to catch
a few of the more trusting ones
who had lingered behind. She made an
unusually friendly ges-
ture without arousing any suspicion and invited them
to have
tea in town. The girls accepted with pleasure. The next thing
they knew, instead of having tea and cakes at Rumpelmayer's,
they were
on a train bound for Germany! But of course the
rest of us at the pension
had no inkling of this forced abduction
till later.
"What do you mean by
saying my sister has stolen five
girls?" Isadora seemed terribly shocked by
this dreadful accu-
sation. Standing in the midst of a group of wildly
excited chil-
dren, she listened with growing amazement as we told our tale
of how, through a ruse, the five girls had been kidnaped. We
explained
how, when the girls failed to reappear and Tante
Miss returned without them
on the following day at exactly the
same time to try this trick on the rest
of us, we became sus-
picious; how, under the pretext of getting dressed for
the bogus
party, we locked ourselves in and refused to come out of our
rooms. As soon as she was gone, we had sent for Isadora in a
hurry.
"This is an outrage!" she exclaimed angrily. "How is it
possible that my
own sister should do a thing like that to me?
It is incredible!"
But it
was only too true. I had never seen Isadora so angry.
Her sister's
underhanded action had evidently come as a great
shock to her. She
contemplated us for a while in silence. Then
she asked whether the rest of
us wished to remain with her. We
assured her that we did. Visibly moved by
our sincere attach-
ment, she said, "Very soon I'll have a beautiful new
school
organized here. Just have a little patience."
104 DUNCAN DANCER
Then she turned to me. "Oh, by the way, Irma, I have a
nice letter here
from your mother. I received it this morning."
And she showed me the letter
in which mother asked her to
send me home for a long-overdue vacation and a
consultation.
"I think your mother made a good suggestion," she said.
"None of you has been home for over four years, and it is time
you went
back. You may visit your people for the summer
months and I shall send for
you when the new school is ready."
And she added, "That is perhaps the best
plan for the present,
as I shall myself be absent for a while." Neither she
nor her
adoring pupils could possibly foresee that "absent for a while"
would encompass the space of not only several months, but years.
For my
part, living at home with mot}'er was very agreeable
and a nice change from
school routine. Only after two months
of this, I became restless and, as
time went by, longed more and
more for a speedy return to Isadora and the
company of my
schoolmates. Life at the Duncan School, for better or worse,
had become so much a part of me that I could not envision any
other
existence. At home, delimited by my mother's narrow
horizon, I felt shut in.
My initiation into the art of the dance
had given me a need for beauty and a
sense of higher aspirations
that could no more be denied me than breathing.
So when July,
August, September, and most of October passed and I still had
not heard from Isadora, I was seized with despair, believing I
would
never hear from her again. On the other hand, we had
frequently received
word from Mr. Merz, who in his capacity
as director of the newly established
Elizabeth Duncan School
repeatedly begged me to join that organization.
Loyal in my
devotion to Isadora, I steadfastly refused.
I had been in
contact once with the eldest pupil, Susanna,
who also lived in Hamburg. She
wanted to know if I had news
from Isadora, because she too wondered at her
silence. We ex-
changed opinions, and that was all. But a couple of days
later
I told mother for the first time about the feud I had had with
Elizabeth Takes Over 105
Susanna at the chateau when she and the other
two older girls
had tormented the younger ones. Mother appeared shocked.
"To think that I received her here in my house and was nice to
her!" she
said. "Why didn't you tell me before? I would have
refused to let you
associate with such a nasty girl. She is a bad
influence, and I'm surprised
that they kept her at the school."
Then early one morning, when I happened
to be still in
bed, the doorbell rang. Mother went to answer. Who could it
be so early? I sat up in bed to listen. Never was I so surprised
as to
hear the familiar Viennese accent of Max Merz inquiring
whether I was at
home? Mother conducted him into the front
parlor.
During my stay with
mother I had discarded my Duncan
uniform so as not to appear conspicuous,
and had worn the type
of dresses and shoes used by other people. At the
sound of
Mr. Merz's voice, I jumped out of bed and reached for the
suitcase that contained my school outfit. I put it on in a jiffy.
When
mother came to my room and said, "Guess who is here?"
she was taken aback to
see me standing there in sandals and
tunic. I answered, "Yes, I know, and I
am ready to go with him."
Mr. Merz, a pleasant man in his middle thirties,
greeted
me warmly. "I knew you would never make the trip alone," he
said, smiling. "That is why I came to fetch you."
My resistance to
joining Elizabeth's school weakened the
moment I heard his voice. My deep
yearning to be within my
accustomed milieu again, where music and dancing
were of the
essence and nothing else really mattered, made me decide
im-
pulsively to go with him. But when mother heard that he in-
tended to
take Susanna back too, she strenuously objected to
my going. "You must make
a choice between my daughter and
that other girl," she told him.
Before
making a decision, Mr. Merz, who was pedantic and
given to lecturing on
sundry topics, wanted to consult with Pro-
fessor Hohle, who was a member of
the local committee for the
I06 DUNCAN DANCER
support of our school. He
and his family lived near us and knew
me quite well. We went there, and
Professor Hohle paid serious
attention to what Merz had to say, but seemed
surprised that he
needed advice. He told him to take me.
So Mr. Merz and
I on that same day took the train for
Frankfurt-am-Main, where Tante Miss
and the other five girls
were temporarily located. They were living in the
house of a
Dr. Kling, on the Bockenheimer Landstrasse. It turned out to
be a pleasant, old, musty-smelling house filled with books, for
Dr.
Kling, a bachelor and a learned man, had been a founder
of the Germanic
Museum in Nuremberg. His house, overgrown
with climbing roses and set in a
wooded plot where he main-
tained a bird sanctuary, had a mysterious,
enchanted air.
We arrived there late at night and I did not see the other
girls, who were already in bed. But when I awoke in the morn-
ing, with
the sun pouring through a window framed in climbing
roses in which birds
nested and kept up a constant twitter, I
thought I heard a different kind of
twittering besides. Without
turning around, I became aware of the other
girls clustered near
my bed. I heard them whisper excitedly:
"Oh, look!
there is only one girl in here!"
"\Vhich one is it, do you think? Irma or
Susanna?"
"I don't know. I can't see-she has her head hidden in the
pillow!"
"Gee, I hope it's Irma."
"Oh, so do !."
"Me too."
"Sh, sh. Suppose it is Susanna!"
"I don't care!"
That was all I
needed to hear to get their honest reaction.
Joyfully I cast away the
bedclothes and jumped out of bed. The
moment they recognized me, we had a
gay reunion. Laughing
and chatting at the same time, they told me how glad
they were
to see me instead of Susanna. "We all hate her so," Anna said,
and Theresa eagerly nodded assent. Both Lisel and Gretel
Elizabeth Takes
Over 107
chimed in, one saying, "We were afraid of her"; the other
asking apprehensively, "Is she coming later?"
I delightedly assured them
that neither of the two older
girls would ever be allowed to return. We had
got even with
our former tormentors at last. With Erica and Temple
sched-
uled to join us at a later date, we all rejoiced to be reunited
again. Pleased and happy to be forming a smaller but much
more congenial
group, we hoped to remain together to the end.
Two years elapsed before the
Darmstadt building could be
completed. In the interim, led by Tante Miss and
Merz, we
girls gave combination lecture-dance recitals to support ourselves.
These also served to make propaganda and drum up trade in
the form of
paying pupils for their newly founded institute for
Korperkultur. Here young
German girls would receive an edu-
cation based mainly on physical culture
and racial hygiene-a
chauvinistic ideology that had nothing in common with
Isadora
Duncan's theory of physical education for children, which was
founded on her dance art.
The motivating force behind all this
Rassenkultur business
was Max Merz. A fanatic on the subject, ambitious and
an op-
portunist, he managed to exert a kind of Svengali influence over
Elizabeth. Born in Vienna of Czech parents, he had studied
composition
and conducting at the Vienna Conservatory, finish-
ing at the Hochschule fiir
Musik in Berlin. Seeing Isadora
Duncan dance one day, he became so fired
with the idea of com-
posing music for her that he applied for a job at the
Grunewald
school toward the end of I 906. There he met not Isadora but
her older sister, and from that moment on they became close
friends and
allies. He acted as music director and conductor for
the school
performances. When Isadora decided to transfer her
establishment to Paris,
Merz prevailed upon Elizabeth to re-
main in Germany-the country he admired
more than any
other-and to open her own school there. Being more than
de-
voted to him, she agreed wholeheartedly.
108 DUNCAN DANCER
A
clever man, obsessed with a theory to propound, he devel-
oped a natural bent
for lecturing. He would get up and lecture
at the drop of a hat anywhere,
any time. His ordinary conversa-
tions invariably turned into speeches and,
once started, he would
harangue people for hours. In promoting the Elizabeth
Duncan
School for Physical Culture, he had at last found his true metier.
Affable in manner and attractive to women-with the well-
known Viennese
charm of K iiss-die-H and type of flattery-he
encountered little difficulty
in getting people to part with their
money for his pet project. It was
gradually taking form on a
hill near Darmstadt, Merz having first cajoled
the ruling grand
duke to donate valuable property. As a doctrinaire
preaching
physical culture and racial hygiene on the one hand, and
provid-
ing the musical accompaniment for our dance recitals on the
other, he managed to confuse many of his listeners. As one alert
Hamburg
critic observed:
The Elizabeth Duncan School for young girls of the
privileged
class purports to be an institution devoted to physical
culture-
and not the art of the dance. Then why, for heaven's sake, do
they distort the picture of their intentions by giving dance
per-
formances?
I am convinced that the majority of the public, despite
the ex-
planations of director Max Merz, left the theatre with the
im-
pression that this physical culture institution really represents a
dance school.
This is probably due to the name of Isadora Duncan, whose
spirit presides over the whole show.
No matter how hard Elizabeth and
Merz tried to wean us away
from Isadora's artistic influence, they did not
succeed in obliter-
ating the spirit of the dance as instilled by Isadora in
her former
pupils. To mold us into their concept of physical culture
para-
gons, they even resorted to the desperate means of engaging an
officer of the Swedish army to drill us in gymnastics. Isadora
had
expressly stated that "Swedish gymnastics is a false system
Elizabeth Takes
Over 109
of body culture because it takes no account of the imagination
and regards the muscles as an end in themselves."*
When, after such
rigorous physical training (resembling in
every respect the stiff drill of
soldiers on parade), month after
month, year in and year out, we still kept
the spark alive and
continued to dance the way Isadora taught us, they
continued to
disparage our efforts. If people happened to praise our
dancing,
Elizabeth would tell them that we only "imitated" her sister.
She was undoubtedly well aware of the fact that Isadora, as the
creator
and unique exponent of her art, was also our sole exam-
ple, and that she,
Elizabeth, had nothing whatsoever to con-
tribute in this particular field.
Her own pupils had to look
elsewhere for inspiration and guidance if they
wanted to qualify
as genuine exponents of the dance as Isadora envisioned
it. She
knew that Isadora from the very beginning intended to train
specially chosen disciples to carry on her art.
Her dancer's body being
the instrument, Isadora repre-
sented in her own person two not necessarily
related principles:
both the creative and the interpretative. To interpret
her chore-
ography correctly, from both the physical and the spiritual
points of view, we could not do otherwise than dance in her
image. For
reasons of her own, this was something Elizabeth
wanted to prevent at all
costs.
I for one, all the time I was a pupil of the Darmstadt school,
could not reconcile Isadora's spiritual teachings with the
materi-
alistic ideologies expounded by Elizabeth or the racial theories
advocated by Max Merz. Nor did I willingly submit to wearing
their
uncomfortable, unbecoming school uniform, consisting of
scratchy gray woolen
underwear, ditto clothes, and gray woolen
stockings shaped like long opera
gloves with a cot for each toe.
The latter were meant to fit specially
designed orthopedic foot-
wear with a separate compartment accommodating the
individual
toes. The excruciating torture I sustained walking around in
* Life, p. 189.
IIO DUNCAN DANCER
these modern instruments of the
Inquisition cannot be easily
described. Tante Miss had a knack for making
her pupils feel
miserable. Not that she set a fine example by using them
herself.
Oh no, her implacable Spartan attitude excluded her own
dis-
comforts.
Thus my education, which had started as a dancer and
follower of Isadora Duncan's lofty ideals, was persistently being
perverted. I was, against my will and natural inclination, ab-
ruptly
directed into channels alien to my artistic instincts. It all
culminated at
the Hygienic Exhibition in Dresden in I 9 I I. In
the great hall (where a
giant replica of a transparent heart
pumping red blood greeted the visitor)
we had an exhibit con-
sisting of white plaster casts of our torsos and
limbs. My own
contribution was a life-size replica of my arm from shoulder
to
fingertips. Models of our school uniform were also shown. Pre-
ceded
by lectures from both Mr. Merz and Elizabeth, we
girls daily gave free
demonstrations of our physical prowess
acquired under their guidance via
Swedish gymnastics. They
reached the high point of their endeavors in the
field of physical
culture in Germany with that exhibition. With the award of
the
gold medal, their greatest ambition was achieved.
One would have
thought that Elizabeth Duncan possessed
at least the intelligence, if not
the generosity of heart, to ac-
knowledge that we pupils of the original
school had contributed
largely to the success of hers; that as a group we
represented a
distinct asset to her and her work. More important, as far as
our
personal attitudes were concerned, she should have recognized
that
we could no longer be treated as children in constant need
of correction and
punishment. We were growing up (the eldest
being seventeen) and desired her
to establish a more amiable
student-teacher relationship. But her
unrealistic approach to her
growing pupils made the relationship even more
strained than
before. And thus matters stood between us when, in the fall
of I 9 I 2, the Darmstadt school was ready for our occupancy.
Situated
just outside the city on top of a hill, the new
Elizabeth Takes Over I II
building commanded a sweeping view of the valley below, with
the silver
ribbon of the river Rhine winding away in the dis-
tance. Built along simple,
functional, modern lines, the house
had large airy rooms filled with the
Grunewald furniture, which
Elizabeth had appropriated. The large central
hall was espe-
cially designed for such physical activities as the Elizabeth
Duncan School had to offer. The day of inauguration was
planned as a big
event, with their highnesses the Duke and
Duchess of Hessen-Darmstadt
participating.
Some of us had met this ruler a few years earlier, when we
had performed at the Hof Theatre. A grandson of Queen
Victoria and a
brother of the Tsarina, he was in his early forties.
He was informal and
democratic in manner, jovial of disposition,
and somewhat given to practical
jokes. He was also an enthusi-
astic patron of the theatre and often took
part in amateur the-
atricals. He and his wife organized a dancing class at
the palace
so that their two little boys could learn to dance, and some of
the older girls went there once a week to assist Tante Miss
with the
teaching. Under the benevolent patronage of the Duke
and Duchess, the
Darmstadt school was off to a good start. On
the day of the inauguration
they drove up in their horse-drawn
carriage in grand style and, seated in
the front row of the great
crowd of spectators, graciously watched the
ceremonies.
This was indeed the day of days for Max Merz. Triumphant,
with coattails flying, he supervised and conducted the whole
proceeding.
He was reception committee, conductor of the choir
singers, and main speaker
all rolled into one. He even com-
posed both the words and music for the
pageant. It seemed to
be entirely his show. His frenzied activity aroused my
risibility,
which gradually mounted to such a pitch that during the
inaug-
ural address I was suddenly seized with a terrible fit of the
giggles. I stood directly behind him among all the other pupils,
who
were dressed in purest white to form a striking background
for his slender
figure attired in a dark frock coat.
When, inspired by the brilliant October
sunshine and carried
112 DUNCAN DANCER
away by his own flamboyant
oratory, he started to invoke his
Teutonic gods, I could no longer control
myself. Neither ap-
parently could he, for without looking around he knew
quite
well whence these hysterical giggles originated. And so in the
midst of his impassioned evocation of "Baldur! Oh, mighty sun
god! I
implore thee cast thy golden rays upon our work!" he
suddenly stopped and
startled not only me but the whole as-
sembly by shouting, "Oh, Irma, shut up
l"
That effectively took care of me, but not the Grand Duke.
He pulled
his silk handkerchief out of his pocket and blew
his nose vigorously while
his shoulders shook with hidden
laughter .•.•
Following the official
opening, the Elizabeth Duncan School
settled down to its regular daily
routine of academic studies in
the morning and dance, music, or gymnastics
in the afternoon.
Many new pupils were enrolled, on both a paying and a
scholar-
ship basis.
In this school, once I had shown an aptitude for
teaching, I
was formally entrusted with all the dance classes for children.
Thus, at the youthful age of fifteen, I became a full-fledged
teacher
without pay. But what I gained was immense practical
experience (by
developing my own method of teaching) in in-
structing others, not only in
the fundamentals, but also in the
finer expressions of the true dance as
taught to me by Isadora
Duncan. But I am getting ahead of my story.
Lesson in the Temple
I HAD not heard from Isadora for two years when,
quite unex-
pectedly, she came to see us. This occurred in Dresden, where
we were attending a hygienic exhibition; and Isadora, on a
motor trip
with Paris Singer, happened to be passing through.
When she arrived to have
lunch with her sister, we hardly
recognized her. Her outward appearance had
undergone a com-
plete transformation. Gone were the simple tunic and sandals
she always used to wear, as well as the flowing cape and skullcap
that
were almost a trademark of hers. Instead, she appeared in
a very smart
outfit that Paul Poiret, the famous French coutu-
rier, had designed
especially for her in accordance with her
taste for simple lines. It was
quite a departure for him, who had
just launched the eccentric fashion of
the hobble skirt and cart-
wheel hat bedecked with ostrich plumes. And here
we have
proof of how Isadora Duncan influenced modern dress reform,
for
it was directly through Paul Poiret's designs copied from
her ideas that the
simple line of today's clothes evolved.
"How the girls have grownl" she
exclaimed when she saw
us. She held my hand in hers for a moment and
regarded me
fondly and then said to her sister, "Be sure to bring this one
along when you visit me in July."
Back at school I lived as in a dream,
counting the days from
then on till Tante Miss would get ready to leave. The
middle
of July came and went, and still I had not received the
impa-
tiently awaited sign from her. Had she forgotten? I was secretly
elated that Isadora had singled me out, and having missed her
for so
long I was naturally eager to be with my idol again. But
113
114- DUNCAN
DANCER
I also knew that Elizabeth suppressed favoritism, and judging
by
her former actions I did not count much on my chances.
Then suddenly, late
one afternoon, the governess came to
me, saying, "Can you get packed in five
minutes? Miss Duncan
is going to take you along. But only if you hurry!"
I got downstairs with my hastily packed wicker suitcase just
as Tante
Miss stepped into the waiting cab. I had no time to
say goodbye to the
girls. My heart was beating fast with ex-
citement in my joy to be with
Isadora again.
We arrived late at night in Ostend, and Isadora met us at
the station. At the hotel she softly opened the door to the room
where
her two children were fast asleep with their English
nanny. "You go and
sleep in that bed over there beside the
nurse, darling, and I'll see you in
the morning. Goodnight!"
Getting into bed beside her sleeping children, I
had the
sweet sensation of actually being one of her children too. With
this thought I went to sleep, feeling happier than I had for a
long
time.
I awoke the next morning in a daze, not realizing immedi-
ately
where I was. Bright sunlight filtered through the shutters,
and I could get
a whiff of tangy salt air and hear the waves
thundering on the beach. Then I
remembered we had come to
Ostend on the North Sea, and I jumped out of bed
and stepped
onto the balcony to have a good look. My movements must have
awakened Deirdre, for when I returned she was sitting up in
bed. The
last time I saw her she had been a mere infant. Now
five years old, she
looked me over carefully before asking tim-
idly, "Who are you?"
"I am
your new playmate," I said. "I hope we shall be
friends."
"Have you seen
my little brother?" she asked and pulled
me over to his crib. "His name is
Patrick and he is twelve
months old." The baby, who was the son of Paris
Singer, had
blond curly hair. He looked very delicate and spent most of
the time sleeping.
Elizabeth Duncan's school, Darmstadt. Irma at left
among her little
pupils; Elizabeth and Max Merz at right.
Deirdre and
Irma aboard ship
to Egypt, 1912: snapshot by
Isadora Duncan.
Isadora
with Deirdre and Patrick.
Lesson in the Temple 115
"It would be a good
idea if you taught Deirdre a few exer-
cises," her mother told me one day. At
that time I had never
taught anyone, and so Deirdre, Isadora's little
daughter, be-
came my first pupil. She also suggested I teach her some simple
piece of poetry like William Blake's "Little Lamb, who made
thee? /Dost
thou know who made thee,/Gave thee life, and
bade thee feed/By the stream
and o'er the mead?" Whenever
her mother asked her to recite the poem, the
poor child-
timid and confused-could remember only the first line. Her
mother would frown and scold, gently urging her to make
more of an
effort. Being a sensitive child, Deirdre would blush,
hang her head, and
start to cry.
To make her smile again, I dressed her in a pink
candy-
striped dress with a red sash, gave her a red pail and shovel,
and
took her down to the beach. There all the grownups sat in
tall wicker
chairs, which sheltered them from the stiff breeze
that made the water too
cold for bathing. The children, fully
dressed, built sand castles at their
feet. The band played in the
pavilion on the boardwalk. And the fashionably
dressed sum-
mer visitors-,-the women in hobble skirts with parasols, the men
in white flannel trousers and blue jackets-paraded up and
down. Few
people ventured into the water. When they did, they
entered a bathhouse on
wheels, where they donned bathing
suits that fully covered the body. Then a
team of horses pulled
the bathhouse out to sea. I found it a frightening
experience
and refused to do it more than once.
A most embarrassing
thing happened to me at Ostend the
day we boarded Singer's yacht, the Lady
Evelyn. We were
about to take a channel cruise. "If the weather is good,"
our
host had told us, "we'll sail tomorrow for the Isle of Wight
to see
the regatta at Cowes."
There was a crew of fifty on the luxurious yacht,
which had
a festive air with all its pennants whipping gaily in the wind.
She seemed to have more of them than any other boat lying
in the harbor,
especially on the afterdeck.
116 DUNCAN DANCER
The instant I stepped
aboard, Paris Singer came to me. "I
am so sorry this unfortunate thing has
happened," he said.
"Please don't be too upset. It was an accident-it
couldn't be
helped. You see, the handle of your suitcase broke when it was
carried across the gangplank, and it fell into the sea. The sailor
who
was carrying the suitcase jumped in and fished it out. But
I'm afraid your
clothes are ruined. I'm so sorry."
I gazed in horror at all my things
hanging on a clothesline
on the afterdeck, whipping madly in the breeze. It
wasn't so
much that they were wet as the dreadful fact that-since I had
packed my new red diary with them-they were all hopelessly
stained.
Uncle Paris, as we children called him, gently placed
his arm about me when
he saw my consternation. "I'm afraid
there isn't anything I can do," he said
apologetically. "I wanted
to telegraph Liberty's in London to send down some
new clothes
for you, but Elizabeth said not to do that. She said you could
make out all right with what you have."
That was typical of Tante Miss.
I was not surprised. It did
not, however, increase my affection for her. On
the entire cruise
I wore the same dress I had on when I came aboard, thanks
to
her. Finally, when we reached Plymouth, Isadora took pity on
me. She
bought me the few new things I desperately needed,
and everything took on a
more cheerful aspect.
On that cruise we visited the Channel Islands and
Mont-
Saint-Michel, then motored through a part of Devonshire where
Paris
Singer had an estate near Paignton. All too soon the sum-
mer holiday was
over. The trip had to be cut short because of
Patrick's illness. The baby
contracted a fever, and his mother
was in a rush to get to her own doctor in
Paris.
A week later I reluctantly had to say goodbye to Isadora.
She
came to see us off at the Gare du Nord where we boarded
the train back to
Germany. It was then she took me completely
by surprise by saying quite
casually, "Goodbye, dear. I'll see
you next winter in Egypt."
EGYPT! I
caught my breath. Had I heard correctly? I was
Lesson in the Temple 117
dying to ask Elizabeth a thousand questions but refrained out
of fear of
how she might react. She was often so peculiar in my
regard that I thought
it wiser to keep my fingers crossed just
in case and say nothing. From then
on, the fall and winter
months seemed to drag along endlessly. Christmas
came and
went without a word from Elizabeth about our coming trip.
And
then one day right after the New Year, word got
around that she was getting
ready to leave. I heard her hobble
down the stairs from her top-floor
bedroom, and anxiously I
asked "Froecken," our Swedish governess, "Has Tante
Miss
said anything about my going with her?"
"No, she hasn't. Are you
ready to go?"
I assured her that this time I was fully prepared. My bag
was packed and all I needed was to hear my name called. At
that instant
from down in the front hall I heard Elizabeth's
voice inquire impatiently,
"Where is Irma? Why isn't she down
here? If she isn't ready I shall have to
leave without her."
"I'm coming! I'm coming!" I shouted exuberantly and
flew downstairs.
"You lucky girl!" Theresa, my roommate, called after
me.
"Give my love to Isadora, and don't forget to write!"
I had only
time to wave to the other girls from the taxi that
waited at the side door.
As usual, we were off in a rush. But I
thought of my schoolmates left behind
in the winter snow when
the Simplon Express crossed the Alps into Italy, and
how lucky
I was indeed. For at Trieste we were to meet our host, Paris
Singer, and the rest of the party that sailed with us to Alexandria
and
the fabled land of the pharaohs.
Ancient Egypt has a fascination all its
own. To a young girl
of my age, it was something straight out of the Arabian
Nights.
As in the days of Cleopatra, we sailed leisurely up the legendary
river in comfortable houseboats. Arab servants in white caftan
and red
fez waited on us, bowing down to the ground exclaiming,
"Allah be with you!"
During the day we watched mud huts and ruined temples
II8 DUNCAN DANCER
glide by. At night, when the stars shone so brightly they looked
like
small moons, the air was filled with the curious native
chanting of the
crew. Dark shadows danced to the rhythmic
beat of drums around a campfire.
Most of our days under the
hot Egyptian sun were spent in sightseeing. On
donkeys or
camels, our party often started out before sunrise to visit the
ancient temples buried in the desert; each one different, each
one
remarkable.
In Egypt, everything I saw took on the aspect of a fata
morgana. Nothing seemed quite real. When, for example, after
hours of
sightseeing, one is tired and longs for a cool drink and
a light
collation-none of which can be obtained in the middle
of the Libyan
desert-then, lo and behold, a camel caravan
appears like a mirage from out
of nowhere. In a twinkling, like
rubbing Aladdin's lamp, the camel drivers
unload chairs and
tables laden with sparkling cloths, and glass and silver
are set up
in the shade of a colonnade. A succulent meal of cold chicken,
cold champagne, ripe dates, rae hat lukoum (a Turkish delight),
and
Arabian coffee is served. After this repast fit for a pharaoh,
all is
removed and the caravan, with the swinging gait peculiar
to camels, silently
vanishes over the horizon.
One day, while visiting the Osiris temple near
Abydos, I
had another eerie experience. The temple was then still
half-
buried in sand, being explored by Professor Whittimore, the
famous
archaeologist. I walked along a raised boulder to get a
better view of the
desert and suddenly discovered that I was
walking along one of the stone
beams that was part of the roof,
with a drop of fifty feet on either side. I
cried out in alarm and
was about to turn around in a state of panic, when I
heard a
quiet voice from way down below in the temple, saying, "Don't
turn! Keep steady; look straight ahead and walk to the end.
You can get
off there."
It was Isadora's voice guiding me to safety as, dizzy from
the height, I tried to step forward as firmly as I could. I felt
like a
tightrope walker in some kind of nightmare, scared to
Lesson in the Temple
119
death, never thinking I could make it. I did so, but only because
of
Isadora.
The temple that was destined to have special significance for
me was called Kom Ombo. Between Luxor and Aswan, our most
southern stop
before turning back, we passed through the
narrow gorge of Silsileh,
reaching Kom Ombo after dark. A
full moon illuminated the temple, splendidly
situated on a
bluff directly above the river. It stood so close to the river
that
the propylaea had been washed away, but the building was pro-
tected
by a high wall, and was the only ancient edifice erected
directly on the
banks of the Nile. Its other peculiarity was that
it was dedicated to twin
deities-Horus and Sobk-spirits of
good and evil.
After dinner that
night, I leaned against the railing on deck
and gazed long and thoughtfully
at the mysterious temple. All
life and purpose gone, for how long had it
brooded there in
calm grandeur throughout the forgotten centuries? As I
stood
gazing, the silence was suddenly broken by strains of soft music.
Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" came floating through the
warm air;
perfect music for a perfect setting. As if the great
composer had written it
especially for this scene, the beauty of
the music blended with the radiant
night and the mysterious
temple bathed in white moonlight. Lost in my
reverie, I was
startled when someone suddenly whispered in my ear, "Quickly,
come along with me."
I had not heard anyone approach. Elizabeth motioned
me to
join her. She conducted me to her cabin while Hener Skene,
Isadora's pianist, continued to play on the grand piano that had
been
especially installed on the open deck for this journey on
the Nile.
She
asked if I had brought my dance tunic along. Then I
knew. The last thing I
wanted to do was to dance for the com-
pany. As for dancing in front of
Isadora, the very thought made
me tremble. She had not seen me dance for
three years. In my
secret heart I did not wish to show her the result of
three years
120 DUNCAN DANCER
of Body Culture a la Elizabeth Duncan. I
dreaded the outcome;
and, hoping I would be let off, I said quite truthfully
that I
had not brought my tunic.
"Well, that doesn't matter," Elizabeth
said. She took her
silk nightgown off a hook. "Here, wear that," she said.
When
she had arranged the gown to look like a short tunic, she said,
"There, that's not too bad. No one will notice. Isadora wants
you to
dance."
Imagining that I would dance on the open deck, which was
luxuriously covered with deep-piled Oriental rugs, I asked,
"Is Mr.
Skene going to play for me?"
Elizabeth shook her head. "No," she said,
"Isadora wants
you to dance in the temple."
Quickly grasping at another
excuse to get out of it, I asked,
"How can I dance barefoot in the temple
when the floor is
covered with stone and rubble?"
"Wear your sandals.
No, they make too much noise scraping
the stone floor; wear your sneakers."
Again I grasped at a straw and told her I hadn't a pair with
me, only to
be disappointed when she said, "Here, take mine;
they'll do."
When she
said, "All right, let's go," I cried in alarm,
holding back, "Oh, no! Tante
Miss, I really cannot go!"
"Why not?" She gave me a sharp glance and clicked
her
tongue, a trick that always irritated me.
"Because," I wailed
unhappily, "I really don't know how
to dance any more-that's why!"
"Nonsense! Who ever heard of such a thing! Just do as I
tell you to and
let's have no more fuss."
With these words she led me by the hand into the
temple,
like a lamb to the sacrifice. The ancient shrine with its two altars
dedicated to the deities of good and evil, which only a moment
ago I had
found so beautiful, now looked frightening. I was
forced to dance here
against my will and better instinct by the
Lesson in the Temple 121
twin
personalities who so far had shaped my life. What would
the outcome be?
"Ah, here she is," I heard Isadora say as I entered the
forecourt where
the whole party sat on broken columns and
other bits of ruins strewn about.
"Are you going to dance for
us, my dear?"
"I don't know what to dance,"
I murmured sullenly, "with-
out music and everything ...."
"On such a
wonderful moonlight night," Isadora enthused,
"in this beautiful temple
surely inspiration should not be lacking.
Dance anything you fancy, whatever
comes to mind."
Only one thought came to my mind and that was to run
away as fast as I could. But my training as a Duncan pupil pre-
vailed,
and I automatically reacted to the old belief that the
performance must go
on. With a feeling of "Well, let's have
it over with as quickly as
possible," I started to move as grace-
fully as I could without stumbling in
my too large sneakers
over the broken masonry and rubble littering the
floor. To
keep some kind of rhythm, I silently hummed a familiar waltz
melody to myself. To this unheard tune, I turned and swayed
and leaped
around in front of my audience for a few seconds
in a perfunctory mood,
simply to comply with Isadora's request
until my sense of the utter
inadequacy of the whole performance
struck me dead in my tracks. That it
must have seemed even
worse to Isadora I could guess without being told.
The instant I stopped, the immemorial silence my scraping
feet had
disturbed settled once again over the ruined temple.
No one had moved or
clapped their hands or made any com-
ment. Embarrassed, I sat there waiting
for the verdict that
was inevitably to come from my idol.
Slowly rising
from her seat, Isadora spoke in gentle tones,
but deliberately and
distinctly:
"Have you noticed how entirely unrelated her dance
move-
ments were to these extraordinary surroundings? She seemed
122
DUNCAN DANCER
to be completely unaware of them. What she just did consisted
of some pretty little dance gestures she has learned-very nice,
very
light-hearted, but not in the slightest degree in harmony
with the almost
awesome sense of mystery that pervades this
place and of which you are all,
I am sure, deeply aware."
In the pause that followed I felt like sinking
into the ground.
I realized how true her criticism was. But why did she have
to
make it in front of all these people? My pride was hurt, and in
stupid, girlish fashion I resented this action, especially since I
had
been made to dance against my better judgment. I was
about to get up and
rush from the temple when Isadora re-
sumed her impromptu lecture.
"Any
dance movement executed in a place like this"-and
she swept the vast
enclosure with a majestic gesture of her right
arm-"must be in close rapport
with the mystical vibrations
these temple ruins generate. Let me show you
what I mean."
Adjusting her flowing white shawl, she strode across the
court and disappeared into the shadows in the background. The
members of
our party regrouped themselves, seating them-
selves closer to watch what was
going to happen. Among Isa-
dora's and Singer's guests were the French artist
Grandjouan *
and the composer Dupin. There was also an elderly French
couple, the Count and Countess de Berault, whose given names
were
Tristan and Isolde. All of them were great admirers of
Isadora's art.
Presently, as we peered into the background, we saw her
emerge from the
deep shadows cast by a peristyle of such mas-
sive proportions that it
dwarfed her white-clad figure. But as
soon as she started to move in and out
of the tall lotus columns
she seemed to grow in stature. The long shadows
cast by the
columns on the floor of the court formed a symmetrical pattern.
And each time she stepped in her state! y dance from the
* Grandjouan's
sketches of Isadora were all made from life and give a
true impression of
her movements-which is not the case with those artists
who depicted her from
memory, in some instances even after her death.
Lesson in the Temple 123
shadows into the strip of bright moonlight in between, there
was a
sudden flash created by her appearance. Alternating in
this manner the
entire length of the colonnade, slowly in one
direction and faster coming
back, she created a striking rhythm
of brilliant flashes, which in a strange
way suggested the beat
of music. It was a piece of magic that held her
onlookers
spellbound.
When Isadora returned to her friends, they voiced
their
admiration. The French countess embraced her crying, "C'etait
magnifique, magnifique!"
Chatting animatedly about the phenomenon they
had just
witnessed-one that only an artist of genius could produce-
the
company slowly wended their way down the narrow path
to the houseboats
below. I remained alone in the temple. I, her
pupil, had not seen Isadora
dance for years. For me, this dem-
onstration of her great powers was like
manna from heaven.
Once more I wished, as I did when I first saw her, that I
could
dance like that. To my now more adult eyes, this was a revela-
tion
of what the true art of the dance should be. I had been
taught a great
lesson, one I would never forget, this moonlight
night in the temple of Kom
Ombo.
You Must Be .My Children
MY holiday with Isadora in Egypt came to
an end on my fif-
teenth birthday. The next day Elizabeth and I started on
our
long trip back to Darmstadt. We would have continued on to
the Holy
Land with the others had we not received an urgent
message from Max Merz to
return immediately. He had ar-
ranged a command performance to be given for
the Grand Duke
and Duchess of Weimar.
Coming from ancient Egypt, where I
had danced like some
pagan priestess on the rough stones in a temple by the
Nile, I
was now to dance on the polished parquet floor of an
eighteenth-
century palace. We performed for the Duke and his court in a
lovely music room in the old Amalienpalast, illuminated by
hundreds of
candles burning in golden chandeliers. Here we
went through the same dance
exercises Elizabeth had taught us.
But the memory of Kom Ombo, still fresh
in my mind, made
her unimaginative physical culture drill even harder to
bear.
Oh, how I longed for just one more lesson from Isadora! Little
did
I realize then how soon my ardent wish would be fulfilled.
Ever since her
liaison with the man who could provide her
with luxury and every mundane
distraction money could buy,
Isadora's career had been neglected. But
suddenly, upon her
return from Egypt, she experienced an upsurge of her
creative
impulse. She once said of her constant struggle between her
physical and her spiritual natures, "The woman in me and the
artist are
always fighting for the upper hand. But the artist
always wins in the end."
She retired to her house in Neuilly and set herself to work
124
You
Must Be My Children 125
with renewed vigor, composing a whole program of new
dances.
She remarked at the time:
There was a time when I filled my
copybooks with notes and
observations when I, myself, was filled with an
apostolic senti-
ment for my art. When all kinds of naive audacities were
mine.
In those times I wanted to reform human life in its smallest
de-
tails of costume, morals or nourishment.
But ten years have passed
since then and I have since had the
leisure to prove the vanity of my noble
ambitions. I now occupy
myself entirely with the joys of my work and the
preoccupation of
my art. One can speak better of the dance by dancing than
by
the publication of commentaries and explanations. True art has
no
need for them, it speaks for itself.*
Entering her beautiful three-story
studio in Neuilly was
like entering a cathedral. The long blue drapes
covering the
walls and hanging down from the ceiling in heavy folds
sug-
gested a Gothic interior. The soft light filtering through
ala-
baster lamps overhead lent a mystic atmosphere. An open stair-
way at
one end led to her private apartment upstairs, which
was lavishly decorated
by Paul Poiret. In this Parisian retreat
the American dancer lived and
worked alone. Her two children,
with the nurse and servants, lived in a
separate adjoining
dwelling.
She took her work very seriously. Like
other great creative
artists, she craved solitude to work out her ideas.
Nobody ever
watched her doing it. Aside from the indispensable musician
who acted as her accompanist and usually played in a corner
with his
back to her, no one was present. Not even her pupils
were there unless she
was choreographing special dances for
them. That was the only time I ever
saw her at work creatively.
Otherwise, her studio was sacrosanct, and not
even members of
her family could enter. "My dance is my religion," she had
often said; and she meant it. Of course, occasionally when she
*From a
program note, Teatro Costanzi, Rome; cf. Art, p. I oo.
!26 DUNCAN DANCER
gave some of her gay parties in the studio, she would improvise
on the
spur of the moment if her guests asked her to dance. But
then it would be
something light and frivolous; never anything
senous.
Another detail
connected with her method of work I want
to explain: she never practiced her
dances before a mirror. She
used the large wall mirror hidden behind the
curtains only to
check on her gymnastics and exercises at the barre, which
she
vigorously engaged in every morning. But when it came to
dancing,
she rejected this method of self-observation, claiming
it only interfered
with her inner concentration and expression.
None of her pupils used a
mirror in her work. Her credo when
it come to expressing music, as she often
told her pupils, was
"to look within and dance in accordance with a music
heard
inwardly."
She claimed that there were three kinds of dancers:
first,
those who consider dancing as a sort of gymnastic drill, made up
of impersonal and graceful arabesques; second, those who, by
concentrating their minds, lead the body into the rhythm of a
desired
emotion, expressing a remembered feeling or experience;
and finally, those
who "convert the body into a luminous fluidity,
surrendering it to the
inspiration of the soul." This last she saw
as the truly creative dancer.*
In the spring of r 9 I 3 Isadora asked her sister to bring the
older
girls, her original pupils, to Paris to appear with her in
a series of
performances at the Chatelet Theatre. The last time
we had entered her
beautiful studio on the Rue Chauveau was
in I 909, as children. We now
returned as young girls, eager to
resume our studies with the only person in
the world who
could teach us to progress in our art.
Our happy
anticipation was dashed to the ground the day
of our first lesson. It was
only natural that Isadora (whose
brain-children we represented) should be
disappointed with our
* CЈ. Art, pp. 5 r-sz.
You Must Be My Children 127
manner of dancing. Four years of regimented training under
the tutelage
of her sister had left their mark on us.
"They are terrible, simply
terrible! Impossible! Whatever
shall I do with them?" she wailed
disconsolately, addressing
her pianist Hener Skene.
Her reaction, though
not quite unexpected, was neverthe-
less a shock to her doting pupils, who
stood there speechless
and with long faces, wishing they could crawl under a
stone
and hide. Her words cut deep. "What has happened to them?
They
dance without animation, stiff, without expression, with-
out inner
feeling-like automations! "
With these words she pronounced her verdict on
the Eliz-
abeth Duncan School of which we were only the pitiful products.
But we girls, or rather victims of Max Merz and his obsession
with his
Korperkultur and racial hygiene, had to bear the brunt
of Isadora's
condemnation in silence. We swallowed hard,
choked back our tears, and tried
with all our might to do better,
hoping that under her inspired guidance we
would soon re-
capture her spirit and come closer to her ideal.
Unfortunately, she turned out to be a very impatient teacher.
Her method
consisted in demonstrating the sequence of a dance
perfectly executed by
herself. Then, without demonstrating it
step by step, she expected her
pupils to understand immediately
and repeat it. Impossible, of course. She
danced the sequence
again and again without obtaining any result and then
gave up in
disgust. When her pianist politely suggested she repeat the fast
dance movement at a slower tempo so we could get the steps,
she readily
consented.
And then a curious thing happened. She floundered and
found
herself incapable of demonstrating the movement step
by step. She looked
surprised and then annoyed at several un-
successful attempts to come to
grips with the situation. Wearily,
she leaned against the piano and said to
Skene, "How perfectly
extraordinary! This is quite a revelation to me. I am
apparently
unable to dissect my own dance in order to teach it to others. I
128 DUNCAN DANCER
had no idea how difficult this would be for me. I can
dance my
own choreography, but am unable to analyse any part of it for
the benefit of others."
"That often happens to creative artists," Skene
interposed.
"The methodical approach is not a basis for inspiration.
Teaching
is an art in itself. Your own style of teaching is entirely by
ex-
ample and inspiration. There is nothing wrong with this method,
only
it is more difficult for the pupil, that's all."
Difficult was right. She
continued to train us in this "catch
as catch can" fashion, repeating the
dance movement until at
least one of us caught on. Then she would say, "You
have got
the movement correctly. Now teach the others and I expect
everybody to have it right by tomorrow." And that was that.
Our dogged
determination to master the advanced technique
she had developed over the
past years, while we were deprived
of her teaching, paid off in the end.
Seeing us work so hard
every day, eager to make up for so much time lost,
she took
note of our progress and eventually devoted much of her time
to
teaching us a whole series of new dances, most of them set to
the music of
Schubert and Gluck. The audience, when they
watched us perform in the
theatre and admired our dancing be-
cause it seemed so effortless and
spontaneous, imagined that all
they needed was a few yards of chiffon and
they could do the
same. They had not the slightest conception of the amount
of
work and technique involved.
Finally came the day when we once more
danced with Isa-
dora on the same Chatelet stage where we had last performed
together in 1909. The French writer Fernand Divoire, who first
coined
the expression "Isadorable," wrote at the time:
Six slender young girls
appeared on the scene attired in rose-
colored scarves and crowned with
flowers. Bare-limbed and
light-footed they throw themselves joyfully into
the dance. They
are the little Isadorables we used to see dance when they
were
children. They are grown up now. Tall, supple and graceful,
they
combine their erstwhile naive gaiety with all the charm of
You Must Be My
Children 129
young girls. No painting of Botticelli or Angelico, no Greek
fresco depicting the vernal season expresses as much beauty,
chastity
and artlessness as these youthful dancers.
Isadora dances with them and is
part of them. And the de-
lighted audience applauds and applauds, freed of
all everyday
worries and care, left with no other thoughts but those of
grace
and youth eternal.
Such a performance rarely happens where, the
orchestra gone,
the lights extinguished, the ushers waiting to close the
doors, so
many of the audience remain to applaud frantically and acclaim
the artist they worship. They insist on recalling the Isadorable
one
again and again, unable to part from her. After masses of
flowers have been
presented she gives the enthusiastic audience
one last dance.
Joining
hands with her six young girls they dance silently,
without music, around
the flawers heaped in the center of the
stage--a ring around the roses-such
as children play. This
charming improvisation as we watch it unfold is
unforgettable.
Oh, garden of happy spirits!
Later that spring season we
also danced with Isadora at the
Trocadero, taking part in her Orpheus
program. I still recall
the thrill I experienced when she taught me the solo
part in the
dance depicting the scene of the Happy Spirit, a part she had
always danced herself. To make matters even more exciting,
she gave me
the tunic of pale blue Liberty silk that she herself
had always worn. I
treasured it for many years.
During this particular period Isadora was at
the zenith of
her career. At the age of thirty-five she had everything any
artist or young woman could wish: fame, success, money, two
lovely
children, and a man who was not only devoted to her
but willing to put
himself and his fortune to work for the cause
of her art. He planned to
build a theatre of the dance in Paris
that would bear her name. It was to
outshine the recently com-
pleted Theatre des Champs-Elysees, which in its
exterior archi-
tectural decoration-as well as in its interior, painted
frescos-
had been inspired by her dances. The two artists who executed
130 DUNCAN DANCER
the decorations, the sculptor Bourdelle and the
painter Denis,
both admired Isadora's art profoundly and admitted to being
greatly influenced by her. Among the dance decorations done by
Maurice
Denis is a gilded bas-relief panel on the mezzanine
floor representing the
six girls who appeared with her at the
time.
The future seemed bright
for me and my schoolmates, too.
Our dream had come true at last-to be
studying once more
with Isadora. This had been our secret wish all along,
while
marking time at the Darmstadt school. When all looked so
promising
for the future that lovely month of April in Paris,
in that "garden of happy
spirits" the poet spoke of, who could
have foreseen the unspeakable calamity
hovering menacingly in
the background, ready to pounce on its innocent
victims, destroy-
ing them in a flash, and with them, our innocent dreams.
The nineteenth of April, that tragic turning point in Isadora
Duncan's
life, dawned wet and cold. We girls went as usual
from our pension around
the corner from the Rue Chauveau for
our morning workout at the studio. A
pleasant surprise awaited
us. We found Deirdre and her little brother
Patrick there play-
ing games. They had come in that morning from Versailles,
where they had spent the winter months. At the age of three
Patrick
could not yet talk except for a few words, but he under-
stood quite well
when his nanny coaxed him to show us how his
mama bowed to the audience at
the end of a performance.
Deirdre always acted bashful when asked to do
something, but
not Patrick. Like a real actor he gave a cunning imitation of
his
famous mother acknowledging the applause. As we laughed and
asked
him to do it again, Isadora came in. She joined in the
laughter and told us
that we would all have luncheon at an
Italian restaurant in town as the
guests of Paris Singer. It was
the last time we would all be so happily
together.
We girls returned to our pension after lunch for our daily
music lesson. Professor Edlinger, our teacher, had a nice bari-
tone
voice and loved to sing entire scores of operas, doing all the
You Must Be
My Children 131
parts. That particular afternoon, while the rain continued
un-
abated, he chose the stirring music of Wagner's Die Walkiire
for our
lesson. All devout music lovers, we could sit and listen
to him for hours.
While he sang Sigmund's impassioned "Winterstiirme
wichen dem W
onnemond," I watched the heavy rainstorm
bending the budding trees outside
on the lawn, tearing off the
tender green shoots and scattering them about
in its fury. With
branches wildly waving, the trees seemed to be dancing
gro-
tesquely to Wagner's music.
The room felt cold and damp. I shivered
and drew my
woolen jacket closer about me. The hours passed. Twilight was
descending when we reached that state of repleteness which
beautiful
music engenders and which is accompanied by a mild
state of drowsiness. Then
suddenly, like one of the great com-
poser's own leitmotifs, we were all
roused from our lethargy by
a frantic knocking at the front door. We heard a
door slam and
rapid footsteps approached our room.
Temple's father
appeared pale and haggard-looking like a
phantom in the twilight. In a
frantic state, his clothes dripping
wet, he rushed to his daughter and held
her tight. Frightened,
she cried out in alarm, "What is the matter, father,
what has
happened?"
In a broken voice that sounded hollow in the gloom
he
announced the dreadful news: "Isadora's children are dead."
After a
night of terror in which I for one found little sleep,
we all welcomed the
sight of Mary Sturges who came to see us
early the next morning. She
described in detail the automobile
accident that had caused the drowning of
the two dear little
children and their nurse in the river Seine. She told us
to pack
our things, since we would leave for Darmstadt immediately.
But
first we must say goodbye to Isadora.
The storm had passed during the night.
Walking the short
distance to Isadora's house in the sunshine, listening to
the
chirping of the birds, my mind was filled with the saddest
132
DUNCAN DANCER
thoughts. At sixteen one believes death happens only to older
people. It is quite incomprehensible to see innocent children
struck
down. I was frightened at the thought of having to look
at them in death,
while remembering their laughing faces of
the day before.
We entered by
a side door. The house was shrouded in si-
lence, and only the blue alabaster
lamps were lit, shedding an
eerie light over everything. With fear in my
heart I entered the
downstairs library. There, on a couch covered by a black
silk
shawl embroidered with many small flowers, reposed the lifeless
forms of the two children, lying close beside each other, their
blond
heads touching. Deirdre had her right arm curved lov-
ingly about her baby
brother as if to protect him even in sleep.
How often had I seen them
together like this. I could not be-
lieve that they were dead despite the
tall flickering tapers and
the flowers heaped all around them. Seeing them
thus I was
more shocked than sad, and unable to shed tears. A black velvet
rope stretched across the room separating us from them, and we
stood
there in silent contemplation for a few minutes. Then I
heard someone
whisper, "Come along now, girls, and say good-
bye to Isadora."
We parted
the long blue curtains and entered the vast stu-
dio. This was the moment I
dreaded most. In the semidarkness
I could at first barely see her. Immobile,
like a statue, her head
thrown back and eyes closed, she sat in an armchair.
Tears
flowed down her face. Her usually smiling, engaging counte-
nance
had, through unbearable grief, been distorted into a tor-
tured mask. The
picture of martyrdom incarnate, she resembled
a Gothic saint carved in wood.
The moment we beheld her silent agony we all started to
cry. Standing
close beside her, I could not control my wild
sobbing when she looked at me
and, taking me into her arms,
held my head close to her breast. Through my
sobs I heard her
say in a gentle, pitiful voice, "You must be rny children
now."
I doubt if there are many women in the world, including
You Must
Be My Children 133
myself, who would be capable of expressing so humane and
generous a thought at so tragic a moment. That she could find
no
bitterness in her heart toward a fate that left her foster
children unharmed
while these of her own flesh and blood lay
dead beside her proves the
greatness of her soul. If all human
beings are ultimately judged by their
acts on earth, I would
say this was Isadora Duncan's finest hour.
PART
II. I9IJ-I92I
Dionysion
WouLD Isadora ever dance again? That was the
question upper-
most in our minds. It did not seem likely. She once confessed
that in those dark moments she thought of committing suicide.
She left
her house in Neuilly after the funeral, never to return.
In her subsequent
restless wanderings through Greece and
Italy, all that summer, she found no
peace. At the beginning of
September she settled for a long stay in
Viareggio, where her
friend Eleonora Duse lived. Since Isadora did not have
a tele-
phone, Duse would leave little penciled notes for her at the
hotel whenever she came to call and did not find her in.
These notes,
written in French, expressed Duse's concern and
devotion for a friend and
fellow artist she so greatly admired. La
Duse scrawled them in her large
handwriting, three or four
words covering a whole page. The first note,
dated September 13
(1913), was delivered by hand to the hotel where Isadora
was
staying.
Chere-My heart has been awaiting you for a long time-
am
here within two steps of you and shall come to you as soon as
you
desire-yours with all my heart.
This morning at the Grand Hotel I left a
letter and some
flowers for you. C here Isadora, des roses de la campagne,
flowers
from my garden. Tell me that you are not too sad to be in a
hotel room. Dear, all day I hoped to be with you and tomorrow
morning
early I shall come and fetch you. But forgive my not
coming this evening. It
is raining too hard and I am not feeling
well. I embrace you and thank you,
de tout ame, for having
137
DUNCAN DANCER
come and searched me out
at this moment which is without life,
without art for you.
Dear, I have
called four times today at the Grand Hotel to
see you. The last time they
told me you had moved to the Regina.
I would like to see you this evening
but a headache and the
thunderstorm prevented me from going out again. I
hope the
sojourn at the seashore, so lonesome for you, will not be too
painful. Shelley will speak to you there. Dream, work, and be
valiant in
your beautiful strength.
Of seeking out Eleonora Duse to comfort her in this
tragic
moment of her life, Isadora has said, "If I had not been able to
bear the society of other people it was because they all played
the
comedy of trying to cheer me with forgetfulness. But
Eleonora said: 'Tell me
of your children' and she made me
repeat all their little sayings and ways."
In another note left at the hotel for her friend, Duse said:
Forgive my
fatigue the other night. I could not speak to you,
my heart pains me when I
see you suffer. Be of good cheer
tomorrow! I hope the view of the sea and
the mountains will
bring you peace. My thoughts watch over you and wish you
courage, Chere loyale amie. To regain my own strength I must
rest a
little while longer by my doctor's orders. But I shall see
you again soon
and we will talk some more about the children-
and art.
Isadora loved the
sea, having been born near the Pacific
Ocean, and she enjoyed swimming in
salt water. She always
used to go bathing wearing a black one-piece suit.
Those were
the days when women entered the water fully covered, even
with stockings and shoes. In her simple, sensible attire, then
considered outrageously scant, she naturally attracted much at-
tention.
Besides, she was a celebrity who only recently made
tragic headlines the
world over and photographers stuck to her
heels and pestered her no matter
how much she tried to evade
them and other curiosity-seekers. When she
complained of this
Dionysian 139
to Duse, the latter said, "You cannot
escape the crowds, they
will always search you out."
Tired and annoyed
by the curious throngs who trailed her
wherever she went, Isadora rented a
villa with a high wall
around it, in a pine forest. Living there all alone,
she had only
the presence of Duse to comfort her. That great Italian actress
was a devoted admirer of Isadora's art and encouraged her to
find solace
in her work. As the foremost tragedienne of her day,
Eleonora Duse
appreciated the noble sentiment of sorrow. They
always spoke French
together. Duse would say, "N e perdez pas
la belle douleur."
She advised
Isadora to incorporate this ennobling experience
into her art; to
transfigure grief into a dance. And so Isadora
wrote to her musician Skene:
Life is nothing but chaos and terror; only music, beauty and
art exist.
Everything else is but a confused dream.
Have you found a chorale or hymn by
Bach or Palestrina on
which I could work? I completely despair of life •••
but per-
haps I could create something beautiful in movement grown in
the
midst of a requiem which might comfort some people on
earth sad as myself.
Please search for me.
In Cesar Franck's Redemption she found the inspiration
to
translate her tragic experience into movement, guided by the
Biblical
words, "Thou hast turned for me my mourning into
dancing."
Years later,
after Isadora's death, I asked Mary Desti (who
had been with her that tragic
day in I 9 I 3) whether Isadora had
actually danced at her children's
funeral as some newspapers
reported at the time. She said, "No, Isadora
never even entered
her studio where the funeral service was held. She only
listened
to the music (played by the Paris Symphony Orchestra) below
while sitting upstairs in the narrow gallery fronting her private
apartment. But everybody watched her intently, and every time
she as
much as raised her head or moved her arm-since all her
q.o DUNCAN DANCER
movements were beautiful-they thought she was dancing! Only
I could see
that she was numb with grief."
Duse encouraged her with tender words to
continue working
as a form of salvation. Living in enforced retirement
herself for
lack of engagements, Eleonora knew from personal experience
how it felt to be deprived of the exercise of one's art. Watching
her
dance one day and admiring Isadora's capacity to lose herself
in the
expression of music, feeling envious not to be able to do
this herself, she
told her friend:
"You, who can flee reality, chere genereuse! So courageous
in life and gentle and submissive before death, how I wish I too
could
escape from reality! Without work, without risks life is
nothing-a dream
empty of dreams. What joy to see you take
up anew the flight toward the
light! May a beautiful dream of
art carry you far, far away from here. Man
coeur et man iime
sont remplis de votre grandeur. For all the beauty I
perceive in
you, I thank you."
A deep-seated restlessness embedded in
her nature, aug-
mented by that constant torment gnawing at her vitals,
impelled
Isadora to leave the villa and her work. She had a sudden desire
to go to Rome. St. Peter's with its great art works, the many
fountains,
the ancient ruins, the tombs along the Appian Way,
all breathed eternal
peace and calm. When Duse heard of this
plan, she wrote:
Dear Isadora,
Since we must say farewell, I beg you not to say it tonight
but rather
tomorrow in the full light of day at noon. C here
Isadora, how sad to see
you leave! But you must find your
wings again all by yourself, then you will
re-enter a state of
grace which is your art, your strength, your
nobility-for sorrow
is everywhere in this world .... My thoughts are with
you, re-
cuperate, have a good rest, do not despair. Your benevolence and
all the illusions of your heart will never be lost.
Adieu, et au revoir.
Eleonora Duse
Dionysian J4.1
Isadora later confessed that when she
was in the depths of
despair only the thought of her school, "my other
child" as she
called it, saved her reason. A supernatural voice seemed to
whisper to her to continue to teach little children to dance in
beauty
and according to the divine law.
Paris Singer, concerned for her welfare,
did everything in
his power to help her regain an interest in her work. With
this
aim in mind, he presented her, around Christmas time, with a
magnificent building of palatial proportions to house her new
school. He
had bought the former Paillard Palace Hotel, com-
pletely furnished including
silver, linen, and china. A fifteen-
minute drive from Paris, it was situated
in the rural hamlet of
Bellevue-sur-Seine, close to the forests of Meudon
and Saint-
Cloud. On a bluff directly above the river, where the Seine
makes a big loop, the sixty-two-room house had a magnificent
panorama of
Paris in the distance and the Seine valley in the
foreground.
Soon
Isadora was busy remodeling the house to suit her
purpose and preparing it
for the influx of new pupils whom she
expected.
In the meantime, we
girls in Darmstadt had no inkling of
these interesting developments. As
usual, not a word concerning
Isadora reached our ears. Early in the summer
Augustin Dun-
can paid the school a visit, bringing with him his second wife,
Margherita, and their little boy, Angus. As upon former occa-
sions
"Uncle Gus," as we called him, soon had an artistic project
under way. In
Grunewald he had taught us to recite and act
small parts of Shakespeare's
plays, such as A Midsummer
Night's Dream. This time he wanted us to dance
and mime the
opera Echo and Narcisse by Gluck. He always took a great
in-
terest and an active part in furthering the artistic education of
his
sister's pupils-the only one of her brothers to do so.
While we were on tour
with our new show, Augustin wrote
to Isadora, who was then still living in
Viareggio. In the hope
of arousing her interest in our activities and thus
taking her mind
J4.2 DUNCAN DANCER
off her sorrow for a while, he wrote
from Hamburg on October
18, 1913:
My dearest Isadora,
We have
received some beautiful notices for "Echo and Nar-
cisse," that show an
appreciation of what I have been trying to
realize. The lighting effects
have been especially appreciated.
We opened in Darmstadt with very good
results. The Grand
Duke and Prince Henry of Prussia attended with their
wives.
We repeated it in Mainz and had much better music.
Now we are
here for two evenings. The first performance is
bought out by the Lessing
Society and the second is a public eve-
ning. It is being given in the new
Opera House where they have
a very good orchestra and a director from the
Stadt Theater in
Leipzig. This director is a famous man in Germany and is to
give a fifteen-minute conference to the press to prepare them.
We travel
from here to Munich on November 4th, and are in
Stuttgart Nov. 5th. Can't
you come and see us at one of these
places? We are to appear in Zurich on
the 27th.
Margherita is corning on to see us at Stuttgart. The baby
[Angus J is splendid and runs about the place his nose scratched
up from
tumbling. I do wish you would come either to Munich
or Stuttgart because we
have a beautiful plan if you would like it
-without you it is unrealizable
and must then remain a
dream ....
I will write again more fully, am
hurried this morning. We
have just arrived here and there is a great deal to
attend to. I
will send you some clippings. It is a great success and a great
advance and a tiny step forward towards your great idea.
Love from us
all,
Gus
Our tour ended in Berlin. The recently opened Hotel Eden
on
the Kurfuerstendamm then represented the height in luxuri-
ous
accommodations. We spent several weeks there over the
Christmas and New
Year's holidays. Gus, who was well aware
of our love for Isadora and our
antipathy toward his older
Dionysion 143
sister, gave us the best
Christmas present in the world when he
surprised us with the wonderful news
that Isadora wanted us
six older girls and her niece to join her immediately
in Paris,
where she had founded a new school.
We shouted for joy and
could hardly restrain our happiness,
when the door opened and Tante Miss
walked in, accompanied
by Max Merz. Our faces fell, and solemnity descended
like a
pall over our exuberance. She showed us Isadora's telegram,
saying, "I have no objection to your going to my sister for a
while to
help her get started with the school in France. After
all, the main thing is
that she finds a renewed interest in life.
And we must do everything we can
to help her."
Mr. Merz, who had been impatiently stalking up and down
the room, interrupted her. "This is absurd, Elizabeth, utterly
senseless. Why must we send all the girls at the same time?
Can't we
simply send one or two, and keep the rest? You know
very well that we have a
command performance to give for the
Crown Prince and his wife in Potsdam in
a few weeks. And
what about our plans for appearing at the Salzburg festival
this
summer? Have you thought of that?"
"Yes, Merzl, yes, they will be
back for that," Elizabeth re-
assured him. She always called him "Merzl" when
she wanted
to have her own way. Red in the face with fury, he stormed out
of the room shouting, "You don't know what you are doing!
This is ruin
for us! "
He went out, slamming the door behind him, and that was
the
last we girls saw of him for many years. He fully realized
that, given a
choice, we older girls without exception would
prefer to remain with
Isadora.
Elizabeth later came to Paris and tried to force us back for
the command performance and Salzburg festival-without suc-
cess, as far
as I was concerned. I happened at the time to be ill
with influenza. She
found me in bed with a nurse in attendance.
I had a high fever, but she
imagined I was shamming and-dis-
regarding the nurse's shocked protest-yanked
me bodily out of
DUNCAN DANCER
bed. In my weakened condition, I fell
down in a dead faint at
her feet.
Isadora did not want us to go, and we,
of course, resisted
with all our might. The two or three girls that
Elizabeth cor-
ralled for the command performance for the German Crown
Prince insisted on coming back to Paris afterward. And that was
the end
of our association with Tante Miss. She functioned on
her own from then on,
with Max Merz beside her. For a few
years she was in America, but most of
her time was spent in
Austria and Germany till her death in Stuttgart in
1948.
The night in January, 1914, when we arrived at the gates of
Isadora's school on top of a hill overlooking Paris, our jubilance
at
being reunited with her cannot be imagined. In the train
coming from Berlin
to Paris, we practically sang all the way.
And now, when we saw her again
after her terrible tragedy,
waiting for her "other childrenn at the top of a
flight of stairs,
we rushed up two steps at a time into her outstretched
arms. I
felt I had come home at last.
Life took on a fresh meaning for
all of us, working here
together in harmony in this "Temple of the Dance of
the Fu-
ture" she had named Dionysian, after the ancient Greek god
of
creation. Since Isadora did not teach beginners, the instruc-
tion of the new
pupils (mostly French and Russian children)
devolved upon us older girls.
She expressed herself most pleased
with the knowledge and confidence with
which we passed on
her teachings.
Because she was expecting the birth of
her third child (it
was to die a few hours after birth), she herself would
teach the
older group while reclining on a couch, using only her hands
and arms. She had changed much in appearance. She had cut her
hair, and
with this simple act set a fashion soon to be copied by
other dancers and
women all over the world, chalking up an-
other reform to her credit.
Immersed in her work and surrounded by happy, laughing
children, she
made a valiant effort to overcome the effects of
Dionysian 145
the
recent tragedy whose memory haunted her day and night.
We six girls had
nothing to offer her but our youthful enthu-
siasm for the dance, and our
devotion. She said, "In the morn-
ing, when I entered the dancing room and
they saw me, they
would shout, 'Good morning Isadora!' It sounded so joyful.
How could I be sad amongst them?" *
In April she sent Anna and me to
Russia to choose some
Russian children for the school. Her brother and
sister-in-law
accompanied us. And here I ran into an unexpected and curious
experience. One had to have a passport to visit Tsarist Russia.
The
regulations demanded a baptismal certificate in order to
obtain a visa. This
necessitated my going back to Hamburg, as
I had no documents with me and Mr.
Merz refused to be co-
operative. When Margherita, who chaperoned me,
discovered
by talking with mother that I had never been baptized, it did
not faze her in the least. I myself had been completely ignorant
of my
heathen status all these years, and could not have been
more surprised.
Fearing this would prevent my going to Russia,
I said to Margherita, "I am
afraid we are out of luck and must
return to Paris. There is nothing we can
do about this now."
"Oh yes there is," Margherita retorted firmly. "We are
go-
ing to have you baptized right away!"
In her breezy American style
that would not admit to being
thwarted in any undertaking, she picked up the
phone and called
the nearest Protestant church to arrange an interview with
the
pastor. The St. Petrikirche, consecrated in the twelfth century,
is
the oldest church in Hamburg. The pastor received us kindly
in his study
and, though sympathetic to our request, gravely re-
fused to baptize me in a
hurry merely to let me get a Russian
visa. He insisted on a minimum
three-week course of preparation
and instruction in the Lutheran faith.
We persuaded him that this was impossible. Margherita ex-
plained in
English that it was now or never. I suppose it was to
save my soul that he
then agreed to do it on the spot. While he
* Cf. Life, p. 302.
DUNCAN
DANCER
retired to don his vestments, I entered the old church, where
someone began to light the candles by the altar. The very mo-
ment Pastor
Poppe gave me the benediction, a ray of sunlight
pierced the beautiful
stained-glass window and fell directly· on
my head as I was kneeling by the
altar rail. I suddenly felt very
sanctified. I heard mother crying softly
into her handkerchief,
and then the pastor solemnly shook hands with us as
we de-
parted. Half-way up the aisle he called out, "Wait a minute!
Haven't you forgotten something?" And he waved the precious
baptismal
certificate for which Margherita, who acted as my
godmother, had paid ten
gold marks. We rushed to get it,
jumped into a taxi, and drove to the
Russian consulate.
And here occurred the most ironic thing. When I handed in
my passport, the clerk stamped on the Russian visa without de-
manding to
see my certificate of baptism! Annoyed at his dis-
interest after all I had
gone through to get it, I asked him why.
He answered blandly, "Not necessary
in your case. One can see
at a glance you belong to the Aryan race."
Margherita and I met Anna and Augustin in Berlin and
gaily continued on
our mission to St. Petersburg. We stayed at
the new Hotel Astoria, opposite
the grand St. Isaac cathedral.
Anna and I gave a small dance recital in the
ballroom of that
hotel. I remember how terribly thrilled we were to have the
great Constantin Stanislawsky of the Moscow Art Theatre con-
sent to
introduce us to the audience and give a lecture on Isa-
dora's art. At the
end of our performance he personally pre-
sented each one of us with a lovely
bouquet of :flowers. Im-
mensely proud and :flattered, we took a snapshot of
each other
holding his :flowers and posing with them on the window sill of
our hotel room with the huge cathedral looming in the back-
ground. A
nice souvenir of our only joint performance anywhere.
We remained in Russia
for two months. Later, some of the
other girls and Hener Skene joined us so
we could give a few
performances before returning to Paris with a group of
newly
recruited pupils.
Dionysian
We all led a happy, wonderful life
with Isadora in that
beautiful school. The fact that she treated us like
adults and
allowed us each a room to ourselves started things off to our
entire satisfaction. She told us of her plan to build that theatre
of
the dance and drama so long dreamed of, and how she in-
tended to make us
members of a company patterned after the
Comedie Fran~aise. Our artistic
future seemed assured. Isadora
too firmly believed that Dionysian had taken
permanent roots
and that she would live there for the rest of her life,
continuing
to do creative work. .
All these noble prospects came to an
end when disaster
struck once more-this time on a gigantic scale. In August
the
First World War set cannons to roaring over most of Europe,
and the
millions of soldiers wounded in battle needed help.
Isadora gave her temple
of the dance to the Red Cross for a
hospital. She and her pupils fled to
America, via London and
Liverpool, where the streets were crowded with
soldiers going
off to war singing, "It's a long way to Tipperary."
The
wild excitement engendered by those stirring times,
added to the intriguing
adventure of crossing the ocean to an-
other continent, prevented my
realizing what sad consequences
the war would have for our school. In years
to come, I have
often looked back with deep regret that Dionysian existed
for
only seven short months. For it represented Isadora Duncan's
ideal
school, the perfect center and environment-now lost to
posterity-for
preserving the results of her work. And I regret
also that she did not make
more of an effort to keep it function-
ing despite the world-wide
catastrophe. For wars have come and
gone, and life is short, but art lives
on forever.
Growing Up
WE reached New York on September 13, 1914, after
an un-
eventful voyage on the Cunard liner Lapland. But the moment
we
landed, all sorts of unforeseen and startling things happened
in quick
succession.
As soon as the immigration officials discovered that Isadora
Duncan's school had arrived without the protection of a legal
guardian,
they barred our entry. To the great consternation of
Mr. and Mrs. Augustin
Duncan, who had safely brought us
through war-torn Europe to America, we
were not permitted
to disembark, though their children were allowed to go
ashore.
With Alicia Franck, the school secretary, and Miss Baker, our
English governess who volunteered to remain with us, we were
locked up
in that ignoble detention pen called Ellis Island. For
this reason, my first
impression of the United States was not a
favorable one.
We remained
incarcerated under armed guards, like a bunch
of criminals, for two
interminable weeks before the necessary
formalities could be straightened
out. I used to gaze in amaze-
ment at the heroic Statue of Liberty standing
in the harbor
nearby and wonder: Is this the land of the free?
New York
at the time was in the grip of a formidable heat
wave. This circumstance
contributed no little to our extreme
discomfort, for eighteen of us were
crowded together in one
small room with bath, sleeping on the bare floor
like animals,
without any covers or bedding. At that, we considered
ourselves
lucky when a kind immigration commissioner by the name of
F.
C. Howe placed his private quarters at our disposal, thus
148
Growing Up
149
eliminating our having to sleep in the barrack-style dormitories
with the rest of the unfortunate immigrants. We had also been
accorded
the privilege of eating in the public restaurant instead
of having our meals
at the community table, where fork and
knife were chained to the tin plate
in front of each person.
On the day of our release, I learned what a
condemned per-
son must feel when suddenly granted freedom. That first free
breath of air tastes like ambrosia. After that unpleasant experi-
ence,
nothing seemed more wonderful than Ellsworth Ford's
house near the water in
Rye, where we found a hearty welcome.
Under the giant elms and maples, late
summer flowers still
bloomed in profusion. Mrs. Ford, whose husband had
owned a
large hotel on Forty-second Street, was a lady of some literary
pretentions and loved to be in the company of writers and poets.
Through
her we met the poets Witter Bynner and Percy Mac-
Kaye. And it was here that
MacKaye wrote the following poem
about the young guests, refugees from
war-torn Europe:
THE CHILD-DANCERS
A bomb has fallen over Notre Dame:
Germans have burned another Belgian town:
Russians quelled in the East:
England in qualm:
I closed my eyes, and laid the paper down.
Grey ledge
and moor-grass and pale bloom of light
By pale blue seas!
What laughter
of a child world-sprite,
Sweet as the horns of lone October bees,
Shrills the faint shore with mellow, old delight?
vVhat elves are these
In smocks gray-blue as sea and ledge,
Dancing upon the silvered edge
Of darkness-each ecstatic one
Making a happy orison,
With shining
limbs, to the low sunken sun?-
See: now they cease
DUNCAN DANCER
Like
nesting birds from flight:
Demure and debonair
They troop beside their
hostess' chair
To make their bedtime courtesies:
"Spokoinoi note hi!
-Gute N achtf
Bon soir! Bon soir!-Good night!"
What far-gleaned lives
are these
Linked in one holy family of art?-
Dreams: dreams once Christ
and Plato dreamed:
How fair their happy shades depart!
Dear God! how
simple it all seemed,
Till once again
Before my eyes the red type
quivered: Slain:
Ten thousand of the enemy.
Then laughter! laughter from
the ancient sea
Sang in the gloaming: Athens! Galilee!
And elfin voices
called from the extinguished light:
"Spokoinoi notchi!-Gute Nacht!
Bon
soir! Bon soir!-Good night!"
Isadora turned up unexpectedly in October. None
of us had
been sure she would come to America. By that time we were
cozily and comfortably settled for the winter in an old brown-
stone
house on Gramercy Park. We lived there under the benign
supervision of
Margherita and Gus, with a Southern mammy in
the basement kitchen to serve
up real American cooking. I had
a room of my own on the top floor; it looked
out on the small
square called a park, to which we had a key though we never
used it.
The one thing that stands out in my memory is Miss B:1ker's
presenting me with a pink silk nightgown for my birthday. For
a strictly
brought up European girl, this was a sure sign-like
the first kiss on the
hand-that I had definitely grown up. I did
not wear it for a long time, but
kept it wrapped in white tissue
paper, naively believing this to be the
beginning of a hope chest.
Our days, as usual, started with early morning
workouts
Growing Up
over on Twenty-third Street and Fourth Avenue, where
Isadora
had fixed up a studio in an old loft. Mary Fanton Roberts, a
very good friend and editor of the art magazine The Touch-
stone,
described it:
A great space, silent and high, separated from the world by
curtains of blue; soft lights streaming down rose scarves; back
in the
shadows low couches in brilliant colors-this is the setting
for Isadora
Duncan's school in the heart of New York.*
Into this setting one day marched
the Mayor of New York,
to a meeting arranged by a group of writers including
Mabel
Dodge, Walter Lippmann, John Collier, and others, who repre-
sented
the Greenwich Village intelligentsia of that era. For
some reason, Isadora
was in a bad mood that day and refused to
dance. She did, however, have the
pupils parade in front of
Mayor John Purroy Mitchel in their school
uniforms. As an
ardent advocate of dress reform, she tried to persuade the
Mayor
to make our costume official for all the children in New York.
He
gravely assured her he had no authority to enforce any
attire on the
populace, healthy or otherwise. Yet what no edict
could enforce, the passing
of time has successfully accomplished.
Mayor Mitchel would be surprised if
he lived today to see the
many women and children on the sidewalks of his
city clad in
simple, sleeveless sheaths and with bare feet in sandals!
On a rainy November afternoon at the Metropolitan Opera
House, Isadora's
European school made its American debut.
Since this was her first public
dance performance after the death
of her children, the program had a
religious character. It opened
with a requiem march and her premiere
presentation of Schu-
bert's "Ave Maria," the huge audience listening with
profound
reverence. Her hold on the mind of her spectators had not
diminished with the years. Her older pupils did most of the
dancing. As
Minna Lederman commented later in the Mail,
June 27, 1918:
*Art, p. 28.
DUNCAN DANCER
I see them now, circling on the immense stage, six girls,
the
light falling yellow over their young heads and along their arms
so
gently linked. Something idyllic, something innocent, tender,
something
indefinably grave was the slow movement of these
young people together.
Under Isadora's guidance we made much progress that sea-
son. Early in
the spring of the following year, she undertook a
very ambitious project. A
New York financier and art patron,
Otto H. Kahn, made it possible for her to
use the former Cen-
tury Theatre on Central Park West as an experimental
Greek
theatre. "The Greek was essentially a democratic theatre,"
Isa-
dora once stated in a pamphlet she wrote on the subject.*
She
removed the orchestra seats and covered the boxes
with long draperies to
make the old-fashioned theatre conform
more closely to her ideal. Here she
presented that spring season
several shows composed of "Drama, Music, and
Dance."
For me personally, the outstanding event remains my taking
part
in the speaking chorus of an English version of Euripides'
Iphigenia in
Tauris, written especially by Witter Bynner for
Isadora's presentation. It
was staged by Augustin Duncan, who
persuaded me, much against my will, to
take part in the chorus.
The stage directions say: "The great bell rings.
One by one the
Temple Maidens assemble." As the first chorister I had the
opening lines, and can still hear myself proclaiming:
0 ye who dwell
upon these Clashing Rocks
That guard the Euxine Sea,
Keep silence now
before Latona's Daughter,
Artemis, Goddess of the pointed hills!
The
whole thing was to be a wonderful surprise for Isadora
-so Gus assured me
when I voiced my qualms about accepting
the speaking part. "I am sure she
won't like it," I kept repeat-
ing, while he kept insisting, "Nonsense, she
will love it; you
are very good in the part."
* Cf. Art, p. 87.
Growing Up 153
And so I let myself be persuaded against my better
judg-
ment. At the initial rehearsal, the curtain went up on the big
stage, where I suddenly stood revealed in solitary splendor high
on a
scaffolding representing the "Clashing Rocks." I had no
sooner finished
speaking when Isadora's voice rose in an angry
pitch from the front row of
the orchestra: "Take her away!
Take her away! What is this, Gus? She can't
do that; take her
away!"
At her unexpectedly vehement outburst, I fled
from the
stage. Back in my dressing room I had an attack of hysterics.
No sooner had I vanished than both Gus and Mr. Bynner
rushed backstage.
Both tried to console me and assuage my hurt
feelings by telling me how
effective my recitation had been.
Bynner even threatened to withdraw his
verse unless Isadora
permitted me to act.
"I told you, I told you," I
repeated over and over again to
Gus, who had brought all this about. He
urged me not to give
up. He said very earnestly, "Isadora is jealous. She
thinks I am
trying to make an actress of you." I could not quite believe
this.
But it must have been true, because a year later, when Attmore
Robinson-who owned the Philadelphia Opera House at that
time-sponsored
my singing lessons with an Italian maestro and
offered me operatic parts a
la Mary Garden, she reacted in ex-
actly the same way. She accused him of
trying to alienate me
from her school and make an opera star of me-something
I had
never considered seriously. As a matter of fact, I gave up my
singing studies altogether after that scene with Isadora.
But to return
to the Century Theatre: the upshot of it all
was that she gave in and I
continued to perform the speaking
part. As one of the four actresses (the
others were Margherita
Sargent, Helen Freeman, and Sarah Whitman), I had to
have
my name printed in the program. So far we all had performed
anonymously whenever we danced with Isadora. She herself
suggested that
I use the name IRMA DuNCAN, and so it has
been ever since.
154 DUNCAN
DANCER
Because we spent all our waking hours in the Century The-
atre for
rehearsals and matinees and evening performances, Isa-
dora decided to give
up the Gramercy House and have us
actually live there. The huge theatre had
a complete set of
private rooms, including a library and a kitchen, on the
mezza-
nine floor. A Greek chef was hired and everything seemed very
comfortable and most convenient. But there was one big flaw in
this
ideal situation that no one had reckoned with: namely, the
Fire Department.
One dark night after the show, when the
lights were doused and all of us
were fast asleep, a whole
brigade of firemen forced their way in without
warning and
rudely evicted us. The next day (April24, 1915) the New York
Tribune related this story in detail. Here are a few excerpts:
Twenty
sleepy little girls, pupils of Isadora Duncan, the
dancer, were routed from
their beds in the Century Theatre
last night and were forced to find
sleeping quarters elsewhere.
Art and the Fire Department had clashed.
Shortly before midnight the youngsters were safely quartered
in the
Hotel Empire, Broadway and Sixty-third Street. Miss
Duncan was at her
apartment in the Hotel Majestic, Central
Park West, ill and suffering from
the nervous strain attending
the ousting of her little dancers from their
cots, and vowing she
would leave New York forever.
Yesterday afternoon,
Commissioner Adamson declared that
the Century Theatre could not be used as
a dormitory under the
law and that the girls quartered there would have to
lay their
curly heads somewhere else than on cots in the theatre building.
The dancer was ill when the edict from Fire Headquarters
was brought to
her by Frederick H. Toye, her manager. She
promptly gave way to her
emotions. She refused to take the order
to quit the improvised dormitories
seriously, however and at eight
o'clock last night, shortly before the
curtain rose on "Oedipus
Rex," in which she and some of her older girls
danced, the little
ones were tucked into their beds in the pressroom on the
prom-
enade. Three hours later the nurses in charge awakened them
with
orders to dress quickly. Sleepy, and not knowing where they
Growing Up 155
were going, they were bundled into taxicabs and taken to the
Hotel
Empire to complete their night's rest.
Miss Duncan was beside herself with
indignation. She could
not comprehend why she was forced to remove her girls
from
the Century Theatre building which she said was as safe as any
hotel or apartment house in the city, merely because there was a
building law that forebade their sleeping there. Furthermore, she
said
she would terminate her appearance in New York this eve-
ning. She declared
she was being persecuted by the city officials.
Lieutenant Gallagher of the
theatre inspection squad of the
Fire Department unearthed the violation of
the law. Wednesday
afternoon Lieutenant Gallagher took a stroll along the
second
floor promenade. He pushed open a door and found himself in a
room that bore evidences of being a dormitory, although a sign
above his
head proclaimed it a library .... Right before Gal-
lagher's eyes were seven
neatly covered beds in an orderly row,
with as many dressing-tables littered
with the appurtenances of
feminine adornment.
On the lower floor he
found nineteen cots in the pressroom.
The tearoom had been converted into a
dining room and the
kitchen bore signs of being used not many hours since.
The larder
and ice.:box were well stocked. Wishing to be sure of his grounds
before reporting to headquarters, Gallagher bode his time. He
waited
till after the night performance.
Making his way along the darkened
corridor, he approached
the room where the seven cots stood in a row. He
stepped inside
and, hearing soft breathing, switched on the electric light.
Seven
curly heads lay upon seven white pillows. Seven pairs of sandals
stood beside seven little beds, while from the wall hung seven
Greek
togas. Here and there were seven times seven flimsy
articles of attire.
\Vhen seven pairs of sleepy eyes opened and
gazed in astonishment and seven
startled "Ah's!" escaped from
the awakened dancers, Lieutenant Gallagher
blushed and fled in
confusion.
When our eight months' sojourn in the
United States thus
came to a sudden dramatic end, Isadora decided to turn
her back
on America and as one paper headlined it, "leave New York to
DUNCAN DANCER
Philistine Darkness! " She made good her threat; we sailed
late
in May on the Dante Alighieri for Naples, Italy, hoping to
find a
safe haven in one of the neutral countries. As ill luck
would have it,
immediately after our arrival Italy entered the
war. So Isadora had to look
elsewhere to shelter her school.
Her next choice was Greece, where her
brother Raymond
lived close to nature, weaving cloth in the mountains.
Wanting
no part of that, we put our collective foot down on the
proposi-
tion. But it took a real mutiny on her pupils' part before she
would change her mind.
"Then where would you like to gor" she demanded,
dis-
pleased with our insubordination, for Isadora always had her
own
way. "To Switzerland!" was our answer.
For a year and four months, she
settled her refugee school
in a pensionnat des jeunes fiZZes, first in
Lausanne, later in Geneva.
In the latter establishment, called "Les
Hirondelles" (all Swiss
pensionnats have floral or bird or insect
nomenclature), Madame
Dourouze, the headmistress, had her hands full. When
the
monthly check stopped coming in regularly, her sixteen new
pensionaires presented a real problem. Wartime communica-
tions,
difficult at best, failed completely when the checks had to
come all the way
from South America, where Isadora was on
tour. In the end, when her own
resources failed to take care of
all of us, Madame Dourouze and others
suggested we give a
benefit performance to make up the debt. I immediately
agreed
to that plan enthusiastically. But some of the other girls had
grave doubts whether we could engage in a performance of that
sort
without authorization. Anna especially had misgivings and
would not consent
to the plan without consulting our friends,
among them the composer Ernest
Bloch and his wife, who then
lived in Geneva.
But each and every one
urged us to do it. In this way we
pupils of the Isadora Duncan School
undertook our first inde-
pendent venture.
The successful outcome
encouraged us to organize a tour
Growing Up 157
through Switzerland,
which we did under the management of
Augustin Duncan, who had meanwhile been
dispatched by Isa-
dora from Buenos Aires to rescue her school. She had given
him
strict instructions to discourage us from returning to America,
as
we all fervently desired to do. The ten younger pupils, when
funds ran low,
were forced to go back home to their respective
parents. Thus only we six
original Grunewald pupils (myself,
Anna, Erica, Lisa, Margot, and Theresa)
remained. And noth-
ing, no edict from Isadora or anyone else, could turn us
from
our firm determination to return to New York.
We arrived at that
crucial moment in world history when
America was about to enter the war. New
complications now
arose because of our German nationality. Isadora, who was
really delighted to see us again, said, ''I have decided to adopt
you
girls legally as my daughters." And she added, "I should
have done this long
ago."
However, because of the war, the necessary papers from
abroad
could not be obtained. And so we only changed our
names to Duncan * as she
suggested, legalizing this act in the
New York court. We also applied for
American citizenship.
From this period dates the more intimate association I
had
with the woman who was now my foster mother. A growing,
affectionate
friendship would forge the already existing bond
between us into an even
closer one. This opportunity to get to
know each other better arose after
her break with Singer. His
financial assistance had ceased abruptly, leaving
her short of
funds. Suddenly she found herself unable to keep up the style
she was accustomed to. Nor could she maintain a school for
grown-up
girls. She gave up her elegant suite at the Ritz and
reluctantly moved to a
cheaper hotel. The six of us found tem-
porary homes with relatives and
friends.
"Irma, you come and live with me," she said. "We'll make
out
somehow."
So I roomed with her at the Woolcott on the west side of
* My
original name was Irma Dorette Henriette Erich-Grimme.
DUNCAN DANCER
town. We managed to share the same room for a while until
things became
too cramped and, flinging economy to the winds,
she engaged a three-room
suite. We now each enjoyed a room
and bath with a nice sitting room between.
She had a knack for
transforming a banal hotel room with a few deft touches
here
and there, using a Spanish shawl or an embroidered cloth to
hide
some ugly piece of furniture; creating an attractive, per-
sonal atmosphere.
She always carried certain personal belongings with her on
her travels.
There was, for instance, the handsome Tiffany
vanity set of vermeil silver
and the tall fla~on of "Ambre An-
tique" by Coty-her favorite perfume. On the
bedside table was
a photograph of Paris Singer and their little boy Patrick
in a
red leather frame, beside a small cluster of books, her constant
traveling companions-The Bacclzae, Electra, The Trojan
Women, and other
plays by Euripides. Also there was a slim
volume of Sappho's poems in a
French translation and Gabriele
D' Annunzio's Contemplatione della Morte
with the inscription,
"To the divine Isadora Duncan who dances along the
lines of
immortality." On the writing desk was her red leather case
con-
taining her personal note paper, a small bottle of black India
ink,
and an ivory pen with a very broad nib. And, of course,
always the
photograph albums of herself and her children,
bound in striped leather.
Living and sharing things together, as any mother and young
daughter
would, I got to know her well. For the first time I
got acquainted with the
human side of the great artist who had
always-from the beginning when I met
her in that other hotel
room in far-away Hamburg-been my sole inspiration.
Being temporarily deprived of the services of a personal
maid, she was
sitting on the bed sewing on a button when I
happened to come in one day.
Seeing her occupied with such a
domestic chore gave me quite a start. It
struck me for some
reason as being very funny, and I started to laugh. "Why
do
you laugh?" she asked. "Do you think I am incapable of doing
Growing
Up 159
this sort of thing? I want you to know that I can also bake a
very good peach pie. I bet that is more than you can do!"
She was right.
We had been taught housekeeping at school,
but not cooking. Our hands had to
be beautiful for dancing.
Since then, however, I have made up for that
deficiency.
We also discovered we had much in common. "Have you
noticed
that we both react to things in the same way?" she
would ask.
"I have
noticed that we laugh at the same things, if this is
what you mean."
"Yes, but there is more to it than that. It is curious how one
often
finds a closer relationship with people to whom one is not
related by flesh
and blood."
"I once read a book by Goethe," I said, remembering my
literary class at Madame Dourouze's pensionnat, "in which he
expounds
the same idea. It is called 'elective affinities.'"
She did not generally
take life too seriously-only her art.
She had a nice sense of humor and
liked to tell amusing anecdotes
that had happened to her. My own sense of
humor is fairly acute
and I could not live for long with anybody who totally
lacked it.
As for that anecdote which connects her name with George
Ber-
nard Shaw, he himself admitted that the "dancer" in question
was not
Isadora. The latter had no occasion to meet G. B.S. nor
did she correspond
with him. Her letters and writings give ample
proof of her own native
intelligence and wit.
That summer Isadora rented a small beach cottage on
Long
Island. We girls, reunited once mo.re, had an apartment next
door.
I remember coaxing her into a movie house one evening
when I discovered she
had never seen a moving picture. "What,
me! Set foot in there?" she
exclaimed, horrified, but went in
anyway. "How did you enjoy it?" I asked
when it was over.
She laughed and said, "It was more fun than I imagined-but
what an awful picture 1"
Soon thereafter a movie company offered her a
contract for
a dance film. They were willing to pay a high price for it, and
16o DUNCAN DANCER
though she needed the money badly she adamantly
refused.
No one could persuade her to sell her art to the "flickers." In
those jumpy pictures she was afraid her art would appear like a
St.
Vitus' dance. "I would rather not be remembered by poster-
ity like that,"
she said.
She had a great craving for speed and for being constantly
on
the go. She liked to ride in her open touring car, a Packard
with chauffeur,
en grande vitesse (in those days, forty-five
miles an hour was fast), over
the narrow, dusty road all the way
out to Montauk Point and back. The fresh
air soon aroused her
healthy appetite and she would say, "Let's stop at the
Inn and
get a nice rare steak and a bottle of red wine-unless you would
rather have some steamed clams and Guinness stout."
Her enormous
vitality and energetic stamina often left me
completely worn out. I weighed
only a hundred pounds then
and did not feel very strong.
A continuous
flow of visitors came to her beach cottage that
summer of 1917. There we met
such avant-garde artists as
Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, Edgard Varese,
and the
Russian diplomats Count Florinsky and Baron U ngern-Sternberg.
A
frequent visitor was Elsa Maxwell, who played tangos for us
that she had
composed herself. The famous Belgian violinist
Eugene Y saye came, and
Andres de Segurola of the Metropoli-
tan Opera, and of course always our old
friend Arnold Genthe
with Stephan Bourgeois, in whose Fifth Avenue Gallery I
saw
the first abstract sculpture. At about the same time we made
friends
with Wienold Reiss, the painter of Blackfoot Indians,
in whose Greenwich
Village studio we met such artists as Fritz
Kreisler. And then of course
Olga and Hans von Kaltenborn
when the latter was still with the Brooklyn
Eagle. Then there
were Stuart Benson, editor of Collier's, and his friend
Bill Ham-
ilton. Later also our acquaintances included Max Eastman and
Eugen Boissevain, who eventually married Edna St. Vincent
Millay. It was
a cross-section of the "people about town" during
the war years. Most of
them were more or less contemporaries
Growing Up
of our foster mother.
The marriageable men of our age-alas-
were all in uniform "over there,"
fighting in the muddy trenches
of the Argonne.
I suppose the most
important factor in the process of growing
up is the age-old story of
falling in love. The sheltered life we
girls had led so far, despite our
many public appearances (and
this was during the innocent years when the
word "sex" could
never be mentioned openly), prevented us from coming in
con-
tact with young men of our own age. We did not attend social
affairs
or organized dances as young people do nowadays. I
imagine our professional
existence acted as a hindrance. Every-
where advertised as a highbrow concert
attraction, we had little
opportunity to run into even that common garden
variety called
a stage-door Johnny.
But never underestimate the power of
love. Love always
finds a way. In my case, stringent wartime circumstances
un-
fortunately imposed a long separation. In the end, it turned
out to
have been an ill-starred romance, which caused me a great
deal of
unhappiness.
In order to find a few moments of forgetfulness and
dis-
traction at that time, I used to frequent a small nickelodeon at
the
intersection of Broadway and Columbus A venue on the
west side, where I
spent hours almost daily watching Lillian
Gish, Norma Talmadge, Theda Bara
or Pauline Frederick
emote. And my favorite, the one I considered the most
beau-
tiful of all (though not the moving picture) Priscilla Dean in
The
Darling of Paris. Watching these stars of the silent pic-
tures, I became
quite screen-struck and harbored a secret
ambition to become a moving
picture actress. However, that
youthful ambition is buried with the past
together with the
heartbreak of my young and romantic days. That nickelodeon
is no more. In its stead, like Phoenix rising from the ashes, on
that
same spot there now stands the magnificent monument
dedicated to the
performing arts-Lincoln Center.
Despite our close relationship Isadora knew
nothing about
162 DUNCAN DANCER
this unhappy state of affairs that put a
blight on my youth.
Though she and I talked freely on many subjects, I did
not
care to discuss so private a matter concerning one's heart emo-
tions
with anyone. I put on a brave front. Outwardly I main-
tained a cheerful
attitude in the company of others and so suc-
cessfully learned to hide my
tears.
This, I also learned, was one of the sad penalties for having
at
last grown up.
Isadora Duncan Dancers
Bv the above title the Isadora
sextette eventually emerged as
an independent group. Because of Isadora's
constant opposition
to our ambitious aims, it proved not at all an easy
matter to
accomplish. Our successful Swiss tour, where we appeared on
our own and gave ample proof of being able to support our-
selves, had
encouraged us to continue in that path and had also
bolstered our youthful
self-esteem. We had reached a point of
no return.
Much as we loved
Isadora and venerated her as an artist
and teacher, knowing she would spare
nothing to keep us well
and happy, we nevertheless ardently wished to be
independent.
Not merely financially but also artistically independent. With
growing maturity, we came to realize that our franchise con-
stituted a
vital development in our character as creative artists
and self-respecting
human beings. A God-given right, so to
speak. This overwhelming motivating
force in our new relation-
ship with Isadora, unfortunately, placed us in
opposition to our
mentor. It unavoidably became a constant cause of friction
and
contention between us which, with the passing of time, threat-
ened
to come inevitably to a head-on collision of wills. For she
continued to
treat us like children, subject to her every whim. I
found it irritating
that she persisted in looking upon her grown-
up group of young girls as her
"little pupils" from the Grune-
wald School, and not as individual artists
developing to what-
ever degree each one could hope to reach. Whenever we
aired
our opinions on this subject of greater freedom and independ-
ence,
she invariably voiced her objection. She insisted we stay
163
DUNCAN
DANCER
away from the city and urged us to continue our studies. "New
York is no place for young girls," she said.
The same old story of
children rebelling against parental
authority repeated itself; the big city
exerted a powerful fas-
cination and drew us like a magnet. In the fall,
while Isadora
toured the West Coast, our wish was granted. Before leaving,
she rented a large studio on the top floor of the newly con-
structed
Hotel des Artistes on the upper west side, just off
Central Park. Artists
such as Alia Nazimova, James Mont-
gomery Flagg, and the eccentric Russian
timpano player Sasha
Votichenko, also had studio apartments there. vVe got
to know
them well.
Here I resumed teaching children's classes, with
little Marta
Rousseau as my first American pupil. The idea of devoting my
entire time to teaching had no particular appeal to me then.
Most of the
other girls were in complete accord. We confided
our discontent to dear old
Uncle Gus, who as ever had our best
interest at heart. He warmly sympathized
with our longing for
greater freedom of expression in the art for which we
had been
trained since childhood. Our education as "dancers of the future"
needed to find fulfillment, even as Isadora promised years
ago. Now the
time had come.
Without special authorization by his sister, Gus organized
some performances for us at the Booth Theatre, in the heart of
New
York's theatrical district, under Charles Coburn's manage-
ment. When the
news reached Isadora in California, she in-
stantly voiced her severe
disapproval of Gus's action. This caused
a serious disagreement between them
for a while. I believe it
left a wound that never quite healed on the part
of Augustin
Duncan. She sent a terse wire saying: "I forbid it. The girls
are not yet ready for performances of their own in New York."
She chose
to ignore completely the inescapable fact that her
pupils, ever since the
early Grunewald days, were used to giving
public performances on their own.
Had she forgotten the special
matinees at the Duke of York's Theatre in
London in 1908?
Isadora Duncan Dancers
And, much more recently, the
memorial performance she her-
self organized at the Trocadero in Paris before
the outbreak
of the war, when she occupied the stage box and proudly
watched her pupils dance? Or the performances she permitted
us to give
in Russia in the spring of that same year? Hardly
possible. Whatever her
motives, the Booth Theatre engagement
came to an abrupt end, placing Gus in
an awkward position for
having negotiated the whole thing with Coburn. And
there was
our displeasure. If she did not consider us ready now at the
age of twenty, she probably never would, we told ourselves.
Her
explanation always remained the same. She had "not trained
her pupils for
the stage."
Fate often has a way of accomplishing what cannot other-
wise
be changed. One need only cultivate enough patience. Dis-
illusioned with
life in her native land, ever homesick for
France-though the war still raged
there-Isadora decided at
the end of her California tour to return to Paris.
"I am going back to France, because I find conditions here
more than I
can bear," she announced one day in February of
1918. "My struggles to
establish a permanent school here have
been to no avail. I feel utterly
disheartened and much too dis-
couraged to continue. Perhaps in France, where
I have certain
properties left, I may be able to raise some money and return
in the fall."
Here it was again-that eternal question of finding the
money to finance the school. Why would she not let us support
ourselves?
I began actually to resent my utter dependence on
her for sustenance and
support. Her objection to our making our
own way and contributing to the
school, rather than being a
burden, was incomprehensible to me. Feeling just
as discouraged
on our own part, we queried, "What shall we do while you are
abroad?"
Her answer really floored us and left me dumbfounded.
She
gave us a searching look and said nothing for a minute or
two. Then came the
bombshell, as far as we girls were con-
166 DUNCAN DANCER
cerned. She
announced in a serious tone, "I want you all to re-
turn to Elizabeth's
school here in Tarrytown."
We were up in arms at once at the very thought of
having
to come under Elizabeth's thumb again. We all refused, point
blank. "Oh, no! Isadora, not that!" we shouted angrily. "That
is
impossible!"
"I for one won't do it!" I pronounced flatly, stamping my
foot. "You can bet on that! "
"Don't be impertinent! " she flashed back.
"This is my
earnest wish, because I know you will be safe there until I
return."
We angrily argued back and forth, really frightened at the
thought of having to submit once more to the unreasonable dis-
cipline of
Tante Miss, especially now when most of us had
come of age. The proposition
seemed utterly preposterous. Re-
senting our foster mother's treachery-as we
called it-we fu-
riously stomped out of her room. Our adamant refusal to obey
aroused her anger too, for her word had hitherto been law.
Our
insubordination made her so furious that she left a few
weeks later for
France without seeing us or saying goodbye. It
was most unusual for her
generous, kindhearted nature.
Gus once again stepped into the breach.
Finding ourselves
suddenly completely penniless and on our own, we listened
to his sage advice when he suggested that we find shelter at
Elizabeth's
school for the present, just long enough for him
to get us another
engagement.
"I know how you girls feel about Elizabeth. I have spoken
to
her and she is quite agreeable to the idea that you merely
board with her as
paying guests, not pupils."
That clinched the deal, and we moved to
Tarrytown with-
out further protest. Hearing of our move, Isadora wrote to
her
sister:
Dearest Elizabeth:
The first letter I received from any
of you was Apn1 20th-
so you see I was more than two months without news. If
the
Isadora Duncan Dancers
girls had only told me the last evening that
they would go to
Tarrytown we could have enjoyed four weeks of pleasant
work.
But human beings, contrary and cussed-and such a pity. It
would
have been such a comfort to know.
Our citizenship papers had not yet become
final and, theo-
retically at least, we could still be considered "enemy
aliens."
Very conscious of this twilight-zone status as far as patriotic
sentiments were concerned, with the red-lettered headlines
screeching
hatred for the enemy every day while General Foch
and his valiant army made
a desperate stand on the Marne, our
utter surprise can be imagined at the
news Gus brought to us.
"Guess where I have booked you," he asked with a
twinkle
in his eye. "On a tour through the soldiers' camps!" And he
added, "With the full approval of the War Department Com-
mission on
Training Camp Activities, of course."
In this way we were happy to be able
to contribute our mite
to a patriotic cause and to do what we could through
our art
to make the American doughboy happy. Camp Dix, Camp
Upton, and
all the other camps had their first cultural enter-
tainment. I am afraid not
many soldiers had a hankering for
this spiritual sort of uplift; for the
halls were nearly always
half-empty. But we girls, on our way to becoming
full-fledged
citizens, got a great kick out of it and a wonderful sense of
belonging.
We had engaged the well-known pianist George Copeland
to
accompany us. Isadora Duncan was not at all aquainted with
George Copeland,
nor had she ever heard him play. The only
thing she had heard about him was
his reputation as the fore-
most interpeter of modern music, especially
Debussy, in this
country. Under the erroneous impression that we too
inter-
preted Dubussy's music and being ever so watchful of our artis-
tic
presentation of her dance, she wrote to her pupils the
following epistle:
Please don't let anyone persuade you to try to dance to De-
bussy. It is
only the music of the Senses and has no message to the
168 DUNCAN DANCER
Spirit. And then the gesture of Debussy is all inward- and has no
outward or upward. I want you to dance only that music which
goes from
the soul in mounting circles. Why not study the Suite in
D of Bach? Do you
remember my dancing it? Please also con-
tinue always your studies of the
Beethoven Seventh and the Schu-
bert Seventh; and why not dance with Copeland
the seven
minuets of Beethoven that we studied in Fourth Avenue? And
the
Symphony in G of Mozart. There is a whole world of
Mozart that you might
study.
Plunge your soul in divine unconscious Giving deep within it,
until it gives to your soul its Secret. That is how I have always
tried
to express music. My soul should become one with it, and
the dance born from
that embrace. Music has been in all my life
the great Inspiration and will
be perhaps someday the Consola-
tion, for I have gone through such terrible
years. No one has
understood since I lost Deirdre and Patrick how pain has
caused
me at times to live in almost a delirium. In fact my poor brain has
more often been crazed than anyone can know. Sometimes quite
recently I
feel as if I were awakening from a long fever. When
you think of these
years, think of the Funeral March of Schubert,
the Ave Maria, the
Redemption, and forget the times when my
poor distracted soul trying to
escape from suffering may well have
given you all the appearance of madness.
I have reached such high peaks flooded with light, but my soul
has no
strength to live there-and no one has realized the horrible
torture from
which I have tried to escape. Some day if you under-
stand sorrow you will
understand too all I have lived through,
and then you will only think of the
light towards which I
have pointed and you will know the real Isadora is
there. In the
meantime work and create Beauty and Harmony. The poor
world has need of it, and with your six spirits going with one will,
you
can create a Beauty and Inspiration for a new Life.
I am so happy that you
are working and that you love it.
Nourish your spirit from Plato and Dante,
from Goethe and
Schiller, Shakespeare and Nietzsche (don't forget that the
Birth
of Tragedy and the Spirit of Music are my Bible). With these
to
guide you, and the greatest music, you may go far.
Isadora Duncan Dancers
Dear children, I take you in my arms. And here is a kiss for
Anna, and
here one for Therese, and one for Irma, and here is a
kiss for Gretel
(Margot) and one for little Erika-and a kiss
for you, dearest Lise!. Let us
pray that this separation will only
bring us nearer and closer in a higher
communion-and soon we
will all dance together Reigen.
All my love,
Isadora*
DuNCAN DANCERS oN THEIR OwN AT LAST read the head-
line of
an article written by the distinguished music critic Pitts
Sanborn of the
Globe. He went on to say:
It might seem incredible that one of the rarest
and most en-
chanting events of all the musical year should be reserved for
the
twenty-seventh day of June, but in time of war, at any rate, the
Isadora Duncan Dancers gave last evening an entertainment
truly
exquisite in its charm and artistic quality. For the nonce let
comment stop
with the general impression of a ravishing per-
formance-altogether a
memorable evening.
And Sigmund Spaeth wrote for the Mail:
It may
truthfully be claimed that no dancing in the world to-
day has more of truth
and sincerity in its appeal than has the
dancing of these six adopted
daughters of Isadora Duncan. When
people thronged about the stage of
Carnegie Hall waving hats
and handkerchiefs with loud shouts from the
gallery and no
inclination or any desire to go home, it was a spontaneous
demonstration of approval. There can be no doubt of the fitness
of the
Duncan Dancers to carry on the unique art created by
Isadora Duncan. It
makes little difference whether they appear
singly or in groups, always they
impart the same involuntary
thrill that comes only when art is based on
something very real.
Whether it is Anna's interpretive art, or the rhythmic
certainty
of Theresa, or Lisa's airy leaps, or the dramatic eloquence of
Irma ..• there is always the effect of a youthful spontaneity,
*Isadora,
by Allan Ross Macdougall, pp. 173-174.
170 DUNCAN DANCER
a direct
challenge to everything that is artificial and insincere.
There are no cut
and dried methods in this art and there is little
evidence of the stupendous
technique that underlies it. A tech-
nique of which one becomes aware only in
seeing the clumsy
efforts of untrained and uninitiated imitators. This
individualizing
of the dancers is making them for the first time in their
careers,
distinct artistic personalities.
I would like to stress here
that his last remark proves what
Isadora years ago predicted and hoped would
come to pass. Ob-
serving her apprentice pupils in Grunewald developing her
new
idea of the dance, she said, "While forming part of a whole, they
will preserve a creative individuality."
We lived at the time in a large
studio on the top floor of
the Carnegie Hall annex which we sublet from Alys
Bently. To
have emerged finally from our chrysalis (from "a moving row
of shadow shapes in imitation of Isadora," as one severe critic
remarked
of our previous joint appearances with her), and to
have, at long last,
gained individual recognition, was a great
source of satisfaction to each
one of us. Now that we were free
to dance to the music of our own choice
(apart from the modern
composers), the music of Chopin especially afforded
us a wider
scope for individual interpretations, some of them based on our
teacher's choreography, some on our own. For she had previ-
ously-on the
advice of Hener Skene-encouraged her pupils
to compose their own dances.
I still recall the initial lesson in dance composition she
gave me
privately and how miserably I erred in interpreting
the Brahms song she had
chosen. It began "If I were a bird,"
so I flew about the room as if I were a
bird. When I stopped,
I saw "that look" on Isadora's face. I was terrified.
No, she
explained, the song did not say "I am a bird," it said "If I were
a bird." It meant, "I wish I could fly to you, but I am earth-
bound."
From her couch, she demonstrated with beautiful ges-
tures how the dance
should have been done. She had really
thought out the language of movement.
There and then she
Isadora Duncan Dancers 171
taught me a valuable
lesson, which I subsequently used as an
example whenever I tried my hand at
choreography.
We six Duncan girls knew we had definitely "arrived" as
a
distinct artistic ensemble when-the day after our successful
New York
debut-a lady reporter asked for an interview. As
an outsider's point of
view, it may be of some interest here to
show how each girl impressed her:
Modest and charming are these young women, ranging in age
from a little
under to a little over twenty, with a pleasant affec-
tion for one another
and single in their ambition to dance any-
where, everywhere, so long as they
can appear uncompromisingly
as interpreters of music ..•.
They speak
many languages. • . . Anna, the black-eyed, the
black-haired, is the leader
in their lives as in their dancing. She is
practical, she always plans. She
has a way of saying "We chil-
dren," and her voice carries great authority.
And she is very
beautiful, beautifully made, with a most exquisite modeling
of
chin and neck and shoulders. Though she is not tall there is
something heroic in her structure.
All of them are rather small,
surprisingly fragile to see after
their dancing, which leaves the impression
of long bodies. Lisa of
the famous leapings, and Margot, both unusually
slender, are still
more delicate in repose than in motion ..•. Erica is the
young-
est, a quiet dark-eyed child, who looks upon the world with great
solemnity and on rare occasion smiles.
Theresa is to my mind the
loveliest of all-a simple maiden
with long, blond braids wound round her
head. She is complete
in her response to music, and when she dances, her
face, alight
with joy, gives me great pleasure. Waltzing, she is more than
anyone like Isadora, lost ecstatic, whirling through an immense
quiet
....
Irma is another very slight girl, perhaps the most distinctive
member of the group, in whose mocking grey-eyed face there is
mingled
wisdom with a mischievous gaiety. She has an amusing
wit. She is gifted; the
others speak of a singing voice which she,
however, has neglected. To see
her dance is to have a feeling
that some day she may make of herself an
actress. . . •
DUNCAN DANCER
When Isadora passes, nothing of her will
remain but these
young girls. After her own dancing they are her greatest
contri-
bution to art. They are the mould into which she has struggled
to
pour her genius. . . . Through their magnificent bodies,
Isadora has
projected a new ideal of woman's beauty .•.•
Today, Isadora, who assembled
and brought them here, is far
from them. • . . And today they are making
their first large
venture unguided by her. From under the protecting wing of
genius they emerge to test themselves, to feel their own weight
and the
space about them.
Though they are the offerings of Isadora's spirit, each
one be-
gins now to measure her lot and her fame alone.
One engagement
led to another and eventually to a trans-
continental tour. We also did our
bit for various war charities.
The major event of this kind was an open-air
recital with the
Barrere Orchestra for Italian war relief that was staged at
Kenilworth, the George Pratt estate in Glen Cove on Long
Island Sound.
Mr. Pratt, an amateur color photographer, took
many pictures of us the week
end we stayed with him and his
wife. He posed us in graceful attitudes
holding aloft garlands
of roses or standing among the tall Madonna lilies
and among
the blue iris reflected in the limpid pool of the sunken garden
where we danced.
Even while dancing for Allied war relief, I could never
quite forget the "other side." In my mind's eye I saw mother
living in
Germany, now an enemy country and my homeland
no more. With a heavy heart, I
wondered what her fate might
be, for I had not heard from her since America
entered the fray.
I worried a great deal over her. And then one glorious
morning
I awoke to the ringing of bells and blowing of whistles. The
shrieks of sirens brought me rushing to the window. There, in
the
street, was the strangest sight. Grown-up people holding
hands like children
and dancing for joy down the avenue! Then
I knew. The war was over, the
armistice had been signed. Over-
Isadora Duncan Dancers 173
come with
long-pent-up emotion and utter relief that the hor-
rible, bloody nightmare
was terminated, I sank down on my
bed and cried, thanking God for PEACE.
That same day, the
eleventh of November, I wrote two letters; one to my
German
mother, the other to my dear foster mother. Weeks later I
received answers from both. Mother had survived the holocaust
but was
very ill. I sent her money and food packages, doing
what I could from that
distance to help. Isadora wrote from
the Riviera Palace Hotel in Nice:
Dearest Irma,
If you knew how happy it makes me to receive letters from
you, you would all write oftener. Now you must admit I am a
good
prophet-since the beginning I predicted the Republic of
Germany. What good
news! And think how wonderful, for you
all can now hope to dance the Marche
Lorraine at Munich!
I started bravely to make a tour of the French provinces
but
after three evenings was stopped by the Grippe closing all the
theatres so have come back to Nice where, as usual, am living on
Hopes.
I think now, if you wish it, I can arrange for you all to join
me very
soon. Passports etc., will be simplified.
I have given up writing to
Elizabeth and Augustin as they
never answered even once-it is true many
letters are lost. Tell
me your plans, how far is your tour booked and what
prospects,
and send me your programmes. Everything you are doing
in-
terests me. I have the promise of a beautiful large hall to work in
here. Perhaps you would all like to come in the spring1 But tell
me
frankly your ideas and wishes.
It is a beautiful morning the sun is
sparkling on the sea and
warm. I take long walks by the sea and my heart
goes over to
you. Do write me news of all our friends. • . .
If you were
here we would study the 9th Symphony [of
Beethoven] to celebrate the Peace.
Here is a kiss of Peace and
Hope for each of you.
With all my
love-
Isadora
DUNCAN DANCER
Our reunion had to be postponed for more
than a year. We
girls had contracts for a second tour. During the season of
I 9 19-
1920 our tour brought us all the way across the country to
California, Isadora's birthplace. She had been born in San Fran-
cisco,
and that lovely city exerted a special appeal for her pupils.
We tried to
dance our very best at our first matinee at the Col-
umbia Theatre to make
her fellow Californians proud of us. We
must have succeeded, for Redfern
Mason of the San Francisco
Examiner wrote:
One goes to see these six
girls in a mood that has a note of
reverence in it. During the trials of the
war they have not yielded
to the voice of those who would commercialize
their art. They
have closed their ears to the gilded seduction of
vaudeville. Their
ideal has remained inviolate and uncheapened. . . .
Gluck, Chopin and Schubert; that is the lyre of three chords
from which
they drew their inspiration .... The Chopin group
brought out the
personality of each individual dancer. Anna
danced a mazurka and a valse.
Irma gave us the "Minute Valse."
In another life I think she danced at the
Feast of Reason during
the French Revolution. She has the tenseness and
clean-cut emo-
tional suggestiveness of Yvette Guilbert.
Lisa of the
golden locks is kin to Undine of romantic legend.
In the Schubert dances we
saw the other girls. Nothing is more
beautiful than are those Schubert
waltzes with their old-time
memories and their sentiment of "Heimweh." The
girls put their
hearts into the dancing and the house simmered with
content-
ment.
In the audience was Mrs. Duncan, the mother and first
teacher
of Isadora, happy to see her daughter's art pulsating and young
in another generation. It is wonderful to have revitalized an art
and
that is what Isadora and her disciples have done .••. To-
day the Isadora
Duncan girls dance in Oakland, next Sunday
they will again be seen at the
Columbia. Not to see them is a mis-
fortune; carelessly to miss them would be
a crime.
We had not seen Isadora's mother since we were children
in
Grunewald. She used to sit on the garden steps in the pale
Isadora Duncan
Dancers 175
northern sun and tell us about her home-California; of the
abundance of flowers and fruit growing there, and the glorious
hot sun
shining every day, and of her longing to go back. "Some
day you will go
there and love it too," she said. Her prediction
had now come true. She
seemed happy to see us. A very ancient
lady then, she nevertheless accepted
with pleasure when we in-
vited her and her Norwegian companion (who in the
old Grune-
wald days had been our governess for a while) to spend the
two
weeks of Christmas with us at the St. Francis Hotel.
We received a hearty
welcome everywhere in the larger
towns of California. The only prudish place
was Santa Barbara,
where the mayor refused us permission to dance with bare
legs.
When I think of the bikini suits currently en vogue there, I feel
quite proud of having been a martyr for the adoption of a more
enlightened attitude by the present generation. Not only that,
but
considering that we encountered nowhere a real dance
audience such as exists
nowadays, we Duncan girls can be proud
also of having contributed our share
toward bringing about a
greater appreciation of that art in this country.
I am not able to recall the many details of our grand tour
through the
States. I kept a little diary at the time, and a few
pages from it may give
a better idea of what was involved in
such one-night stands as it mostly
turned out to be. Our return
trip started with the end of the holiday
season.
Saturday, Jan. 3, I920.
Goodbye California! We are taking 6
o'clock train to Colorado
Springs.
Tuesday, Jan. 6.
Arrived 1 :30
Colorado Springs. Antlers Hotel. A health resort
kind of a place. Surprise!
Wienold Reiss showed up, he is on his
way to paint Blackfoot Indians in
Montana. In the evening saw
a vaudeville show at the Burns Theatre.
Wednesday, Jan. 7·
A nice day. Took a motor drive out to the Garden of
the Gods,
huge, red water-washed rocks in various shapes of corrosion. 8:30
DUNCAN DANCER
performance at the Burns Theatre. A very small but select
audience.
Thursday, fan. 8.
A magnificent day, snow on the mountains
and sunshine. Took
a train to Denver and arrived at 5 o'clock. Brown Palace
Hotel.
A horrible place. 8:30 performance at the Auditorium with an
enormous stage and a correspondingly large audience. Had sup-
per
afterwards at the hotel with Judge Lindsey and his wife.
The Judge, of
course, was Ben B. Lindsey of the Juvenile
Court, whose ideas about
"companionate marriage" caused some-
thing of a national sensation when he
published them in book
form several years later. Our Denver performance
seemed to
impress him, as it did at least some others of the audience. But
we were working against a real handicap. The Denver Times
reported the
circumstances the next day:
Those who did not attend the performance of the
Isadora
Duncan dancers and George Copeland, pianist, last night at the
Auditorium missed a rare combination of the terpsichorean art
with that
of the musician and deprived themselves of a share in
one of the most
restful, refreshing evenings that has been offered
Denver concertgoers this
season. The Lions Club of Denver
sponsored the event. . • •
The huge
stage was so effectively draped and curtained that
it gave the impression of
unlimited space, and the slender figures
stole from its recesses like nymphs
slipping thru wondrous woods.
So carefully are the dances and the music
blended that the
portrayal of emotion is absolute and distinctive. One of
the most
effective was the "March Funebre," by Chopin, in which five of
the graceful figures draped in purple robes glide forth in slow,
steady
rhythm truly typifying a funeral cortege, while one of the
figures in a
filmy shroud portrays the dead for whom they mourn
and the resurrection. . .
•
Unfortunately the Auditorium grew so cold during the per-
formance that
it was impossible to sit thru the entire program with
any degree of comfort
and many left before the end for that
reason. One shivered in sympathy for
the bare-footed dancers in
their filmy attire.
Isadora Duncan Dancers
Friday, Jan. 9·
Judge Lindsey invited us to visit his court this
morning. Only
Theresa, Margot, and I went. He is presiding over the "Stokes
Case." Mrs. Stokes is suing for the custody of her children and
she will
get custody too if Judge Lindsey wins out. After lunch
listened to more
Juvenile cases of boys and girls in trouble with
the law. Very, very
interesting. It gives one a different slant on
life. Had dinner with the
Judge and his lovely wife.
Saturday, Jan. IO.
The Lindseys invited us to
see Trixie Friganza in "Oh Mama!"
We met her backstage. She is amusing off
as on stage.
Sunday, Jan. II.
The Judge and his wife called on us this
morning and drove us
up through the mountains covered with snow for a
wonderful
view down on Denver. We all lunched together at our hotel.
Leaving at 8 o'clock for Kansas City.
Tuesday, Jan. IJ.
Kansas City
is a big, sooty town. Had a 3 o'clock matinee at the
Schubert Theatre. A
lovely audience, very appreciative but we
had to rush our performance on
account of the Sothern-Marlowe
show that followed immediately.
Wednesday, Jan. I4.
In St. Joseph. All hotels overcrowded because of
convention. Had
to stop at a second rate Station Hotel. 8:30 performance on
a
rotten stage. No more St. Joe for mel Tomorrow we dance in
Topeka.
Friday, Jan. I6.
Arrived late in Newton and on account of a train wreck
had to
motor over to Hutchinson. 8:30 performance at Convention Hall
with a fine, big stage but a very noisy audience. Dogs barking,
children
screaming, first George made a speech asking them to
be quiet and then Anna
did the same.
Saturday, Jan. I7.
Leaving for Wichita on the Interurban.
Catastrophe! Found
there was a strike on and our stagehands are not allowed
to
work. The Theatre manager himself and several other gentle-
DUNCAN
DANCER
men volunteered to help set the stage (lay the carpet, hang the
curtains, set the lights, move the piano) and work during the
performance at Forum Hall. For some reason the lights worked
only on one
side the other pitch darkness but we didn't care the
audience was large and
most enthusia!'tic.
Sunday, Jan. z8.
We spent all day in a day coach on
the Santa Fe which is in-
variably late and uncomfortable. Arrived after
midnight in Okla-
homa City. Hotels had no vacancies-drat those
conventions--
and so we were forced to spend the night in what looked
suspi-
ciously like a disreputable house, dirty as Hell.
Monday, Jan. I9.
A perfectly glorious day, warm and sunny spring-like weather.
We decided
to enjoy it and rented an open car for an hour's drive
to get some fresh air
in our lungs after those long train rides and
soak up the sunshine. Evening
performance at Overhulser (what
a name! ) Opera House and leaving
immediately afterwards for
Tulsa, another big "oil town."
One had to be
very young and healthy for that kind of a
life. The dancing was always a
pleasure but oh, those train
rides! And the incessant packing and unpacking,
since we had
no maid and had to do everything ourselves. We always envied
George Copeland, whose traveling companion acted as his valet.
He went
through none of the frenzy of having to change cos-
tumes while performing.
He always appeared cool and col1ected.
His favorite pastime during the
interminable train rides con-
sisted in a game of cards; he was also a
collector of fine antique
jewelry. In the end, he came out far ahead of us
girls financially.
We had to pay not only our own traveling expenses but his
and those of a stage crew of three men. We carted our own
decor with us
everywhere.
From Tulsa we proceeded to St. Louis, and from there to
Ohio, via Hamilton, making large jumps through the Middle
\Vest. When we
arrived in Detroit on January 27, we discovered
to our great annoyance that
we had a whole long week to wait
Isadora Duncan Dancers •79
before our
performance there. A full week's delay meant more
expense, and it also
increased our impatience to return home
as soon as possible.
Wienold
Reiss had been commissioned by Otto Baumgarten,
the owner of the new Crillon
Restaurant on East Fifty-~hird
Street in New York, to paint our individual
portraits. On his
way north, he told us that they had been installed in the
blue
and gray "Duncan Room" at the fashionable restaurant. We
were dying
to see this, for fame seemed to have caught up
with us.
Wednesday, fan.
29.
Snow and very cold here in Detroit and found an influenza epi-
demic
raging. Oh, how I long for sunny California! We shall
have to stay at the
Tuller Hotel for a week, with nothing to do
but go to the movies. They are
showing Theda Bara in "The
Blue Flame" and "Don't Change Your Husband" with
Gloria
Swanson and my favorite-Tom Meighan.
Tuesday, Feb. 3·
Evening
performance at the Powers Theatre in Grand Rapids.
A sold-out house! Erica
became suddenly very sick; we called
doctor and he says she has to have her
appendix out at once!
Erica went to the hospital alone, for the rest of us
had to leave
for Toledo. Poor Erica!
Wednesday, Feb. 4·
Toledo. We
received a wire from Erica's doctor. The operation
was successful and she is
O.K. Gave a performance at Coliseum
Hall. It is freezingly cold here and for
that reason had not a big
audience.
Thursday, Feb. 5·
In Cleveland
at the Hotel Statler. Danced to a sold-out house at
the new Masonic Temple
with a nice ample stage but, alas, poor
lighting. Many of the music critics
here are Copeland's friends.
Saturday, Feb. 7·
The critics wrote only
about George; didn't mention us girls at
all. Heard from Erica. She is quite
out of danger and sitting up
ISO DUNCAN DANCER
in a chair already. I see
in the papers that they are having terrible
blizzards in New York. Am not
too anxious now to return would
much rather go back to California. Depart
for Utica on Sunday.
Monday, Feb. 9·
Encountered a heavy snowstorm in
Utica. Tonight we are giv-
ing our 62nd performance on this trip. Full house
and a nice
audience. Left for home.
Tuesday, Feb. 10.
We arrived an
hour late at Grand Central Station. Back at last!
Nearly all our friends
there to greet us. Gus and Margherita,
Stephan, Bill, Arnold, Stuart etc. We
all had dinner together in
the famous "Duncan Room" at the Crillon. Otto
Baumgarten
gave us a fine dinner with wine and liqueurs. Grossing
seventy-
five thousand dollars on this tour we only deposited twelve
thou-
sand to our credit at the Guaranty Trust.
We rented a small
furnished apartment on West Fifty-
eighth Street near the Plaza. Our former
English teacher from
Geneva, Miss Annie von Stockhausen, acted as chaperone.
Here
we often entertained our various friends for tea, cocktail parties
being unknown in those days. We were celebrities in our own
right and
attracted much attention wherever we went as a
group. The fashionable,
glossy magazines frequently repro-
duced our photographs, most of them by
Arnold Genthe. Like
other attractive young women in the limelight, we too
had a
number of admirers; some with serious intentions, others not.
Of
the latter species Isadora, who always acted much as any
bourgeois mother
toward her adopted daughters, would warn
us by saying, "They are men who
only care to profit by your
youth and give you nothing in return. It sickens
me when I think
of it and raises my indignation."
However, none of us
had any immediate plans for mar-
riage. Too immersed in our burgeoning
careers, anxious to
build a little financial security for ourselves, we were
quite con-
tent to turn all our efforts in that direction. Everybody made
Isadora Duncan Dancers 181
much of us on our return from a successful
tour. For a while
we led a gay social life, as can be seen from my diary
notes:
Feb. I2.
We had tea at Stuart Benson's place. Johnny Aubert
[Erica's
beau from Geneva] is in town. He has already given several
piano recitals. We shall hear him on Saturday.
Feb. I4·
Went over to
Brooklyn to hear Johnny Aubert with the Sym-
phony Orchestra, Stransky
conducting. A concerto by Grieg. He
seems to have put on some weight but
otherwise looks the same.
He is a good musician and very charming young man,
I like him.
He is going to dine with us on Thursday, the day Erica returns
from Grand Rapids.
Sunday, Feb. IS.
The other girls have all gone to
Tenafly for a visit with the
Rousseaus and their two little children Marta
and Theodore Jr.
I have the blues and remained at home. Freddo Sides who
works
for Alavoine's called and invited me to luncheon. We talked
about
Isadora, he admires her tremendously. Likes my dancing
too.
Feb. q.
Expected ] ohnny for tea but he never showed up. W.R. came
instead.
Freddo sent me two seats for the Opera to see the Sak-
haroffs dance. They
used an exact copy of our stage setting.
Their dance had no continuity of
movement-nothing but poses.
Feb. 25.
We all had dinner at Albert
Rothbart's. He engaged an Egyp-
tian necromancer to amuse us with tricks
evoking spirits, etc.
Quite funny.
Feb. 26.
I received a lot of
flowers for my birthday. Miss Annie served
tea. Arnold presented me with a
new dance photo of myself.
Feb. 28.
Gave a children's matinee at 10:30
A.M. over in New Jersey at
the Lyceum Theatre with Beryl Rubenstein at the
piano. Miss
DUNCAN DANCER
N., the manager, a beast of a woman, spoiled
the whole show by
insisting on interrupting our dances in order to explain
things to
the children. When Anna objected she insulted her in front of
the audience. Oh, it was dreadful. The stage and lights were
pretty
awful too and Beryl didn't play too well either-anyhow,
what can one expect
at ten in the morning!
Sunday, Feb. 29.
Rosenbach, Genthe, the Sigmund
Spaeths, came to tea with us
here at our diggings. Our primitive way of
making tea on a
spirit lamp is quite interesting to watch. In the evening we
girls
had dinner at Billy and Mary Roberts' apartment on East I 8th
Street. (How their wooden stairs do creak!)
March I.
Johnny Aubert
played for us tonight at our studio in Carnegie
Hall. Bach, Mozart, Schumann
and Chopin, very beautifully. He
has much improved since we heard him in
Geneva .... To-
morrow afternoon we have a dress rehearsal at Aeolian Hall
with
our conductor Edward Falck. We are going over the orchestra
mUSIC.
Sunday, March 7·
Rosenbach, Ordinsky, Johnny, Max Eastman and Eugene
Bois-
sevain for tea. Afterwards we girls had dinner at Max Eastman's
apartment in Greenwich Village that he shares with Boissevain.
He
recited poems all evening by the fireside.
March zo.
Worked at the
studio. Gene and Max came around later, and
Lisa and I went for a drive with
them out to the Bronx Zoo.
March IJ.
At 8:30 performance at Carnegie
Hall with orchestra. A won-
derful performance to a capacity house. The
audience actually
cheered at the end. Supper party at Voisin's with friends
after-
wards.
The following day all the New York papers carried rave
notices. Just for the record, it may not be amiss to quote a few
lines.
Heywood Broun, writing in the Tribune, said:
Isadora Duncan Dancers
The
Isadora Duncan Dancers made their first appearance of
this season. • . .
They have just got back from the Pacific coast
and in the year of absence
have made great steps towards artistic
maturity .... The program was largely
of ensembles from
Gluck's Iphigenia, the Schmitt waltzes and a war horse of
Johann Strauss's called "Southern Roses." For encores there were
Chopin's Polonaise and the Marche Lorraine.
In the ensemble dancing the
personal idiosyncrasies of the
dancers were properly subdued, but that Lisa
must needs show off
her jumping. • . • The dancers in the Gluck Amazon dance
and the two encores gave the finest thrill that the present stage
in
this country can afford. . . .
A capacity audience first applauded, then
cheered, then sat
motionless at the end of the program till it got more
dances.
These children, who two years ago were pleading at our door-
step
for attention, have gone in with tremendous blessings.
Another reviewer,
writing under the pseudonym The Lis-
tener, observed:
Without the aid of
Isadora, the Isadora Duncan Dancers have,
in a swift, hard working year,
become the chief champions of that
art which she revived. Today they are
undoubtedly its most in-
spiring interpreters too. Youth, Grace, Beauty, a
thorough school-
ing in aesthetics; a year ago they had all these as their
assets. To-
day they have that one thing more necessary-a power of
imag-
ination which enables them to create, actually to create a sheer
and independent beauty from out of the moments of their faith-
fullest
interpretations.
Carnegie Hall held an audience of amazingly large size on
Saturday night to see these young dancers . . . an audience
which
thundered and thirsted for more through a blue darkness
and which found in
the dances, both separate and ensemble, to
Chopin's music a succession of
glowing explanations. No explana-
tion of Chopin alone-for that would be a
sorry task to ask of
youth-but for life itself and all it hides of poetry
and beauty.
Sunday, March 2 I.
Gene has sent me a lovely Java Batik. He
and Max invited Lisa
DUNCAN DANCER
and me to lunch at Longue Vue by the
river. A sunny day, the
first day of spring. Band I heard Jascha Heifetz at
Aeolian Hall.
We all had dinner together at St. Luke's Place and then went
to
another concert at the Hippodrome with the Ampico piano • • .
March
27.
Margherita and Angus went with us to Boston, at the Copley
Plaza. We
gave a 3 o'clock matinee at Symphony Hall. Full
house, great success. Beryl
Rubinstein made good music at the
piano for us. Many prominent people in
audience including Sena-
tor Lodge. Leaving on the midnight train.
March
28.
We arrived early in New York on a beautiful day. Had luncheon
at the
Crillon with Otto, Miss Annie came too. Later we heard
Galli-Curci at the
Hippodrome.
Sunday, April 4.
Left early this morning for Croton with
Anna, Lisa and Margot.
A nasty, rainy day. Had lunch with Max Eastman at his
bunga-
low and went for a drive afterwards, called on Isabelle and her
baby. She is the same as she always was at school. After dinner
went up
the hill to Dudley Field Malone's house. Had drinks and
danced. Motored back
late at night. It was fun.
April 6.
Performance at the Metropolitan
Opera House with orchestra,
danced Symphony by Schubert. A big success. What
a thrill it
was to dance again at the Met, what memories of our
appear-
ances together with Isadora l Had supper party at Reiss' studio in
the village.
April IO.
We received a cable from Isadora. She wants
us to come over and
work with her in France from June to October on new
programs
and also give performances.
Happy in the thought of seeing
Isadora again and craving
the fresh inspiration working with her would bring
us, we girls
nonetheless found ourselves in a quandary. Should we accept
her offer or decline it? We had several important factors to
Isadora
Duncan Dancers
consider. Knowing our foster mother as well as we did, we had
no assurance that she would let us return to the States at the
appointed
time. Sol Hurok, our new manager, had signed us
up for another season, a
commitment we intended to keep at
all costs. Our newly won emancipation and
financial independ-
ence had to be maintained, come what might. There was
also
the question of citizenship papers. Would the State Department
allow us to leave? I especially held back from committing
myself to this
trip abroad. I voiced my doubts to Gus, who
wrote his sister: "All the girls
are willing to accept your offer.
Only Irma is 'holding out.' "
I
insisted on a written contract from Isadora, stating the
conditions and
guaranteeing our release at the end of the season,
so we could return in
time for our winter engagements. Being
a bit psychic, I could not suppress a
distinct feeling that, once
in Isadora's grip, we would not be able to
extricate ourselves.
To my utter surprise, she readily agreed to signing a
contract
with us. But once I held it in my hands, I instantly realized
the complete futility of this gesture. It was just a piece of paper.
In
my diary for May 15, I noted, "Our last performance
of the season at
Carnegie Hall"-not suspecting in the least
what my inner voice kept trying
to tell me: namely, that this
was indeed the end of the Isadora Duncan
Dancers as a group
of six. The first link in the chain would be broken by
Erica.
She and Margot never having been particularly outstanding
in the
dance, Erica decided to make an end of her own dance
career. Her ambition
now was to study painting with Wienold
Reiss. This she did after a summer
vacation in Switzerland. As
for myself, little did I dream that with destiny
pulling unseen
strings, I would not set foot on American soil for many
years.
Here are the last entries of my diary before I left:
April2o.
To Baltimore. It is always lovely in Baltimore, but we had a poor
house.
And this was a Benefit performance for our manager Mr.
Hurok at the Lyric
Theatre.
186 DUNCAN DANCER
April 2I.
Took an early train to
Washington. Gus went with us. Matinee
at Poli-Schubert Theatre-an old place
but a good house. The
audience not quite so enthusiastic as last year. Here
we met Mr.
F. Howe again former Immigration Commissioner when we
landed
on Ellis Island. He wants to help us with obtaining pass-
ports for France.
We have still two years to go before we become
citizens. So it is necessary
to get special permission in order to
leave the country.
April 22.
It is so lovely in Washington, everything green and in blossom.
Went for
a long drive into the surrounding country, after a bit of
sight-seeing.
Leaving on the midnight train for Altoona. Saturday
we dance in Lancaster,
Pennsylvania. And then home.
Sunday, May 2.
Got up early to go to
Yonkers by train where Gene and Max met
us with their car. We motored over
to Connecticut to visit Art
Young than back to Croton for lunch, out of
doors picnic style.
Dudley Field Malone came. He promised to help with the
pass-
ports.
May 27.
Anna returned from her trip to Washington where
she had an
interview with Secretary of State Polk. He gave her a letter with
permission to leave the country only temporarily for the purpose
of
engagements abroad. So all is well. This is Isadora's birthday.
May 29.
Motored out to the U ntermeyer estate in Yonkers to have our
pictures
taken for Vogue in the Greek Garden by Arnold Genthe.
We have another cable
from Isadora saying she sent the contracts
for us to sign.
June 22.
Goodbye America. Sailing at I o'clock on the S.S. Leopoldina for
France.
Demeter and Persephone
EvER since she went to Greece in 1904, when she
thought of
founding a school, Isadora had dreamed of bringing her pupils
there some day. Soon after we joined her in Paris, she said,
"Let us all
go to Athens and look upon the Parthenon. I may
yet found a school there."
With the sale of her property at Bellevue-sur-Seine to the
French
government (something she had been trying to nego-
tiate unsuccessfully for a
long time), her dream was to be real-
ized. Her plans called for our
departure at the end of July. I
remember Paul Poiret giving a fancy farewell
party for us
with some of his beautiful models at the Oasis Club-a very
chic place. As bad luck would have it, that same night poor
Anna was
stricken with an inflamed appendix. This necessitated
a change of plans.
Isadora had to stay, but she sent Lisa and me, chaperoned
by Christine
Dallies, ahead to Venice. She told us to wait there.
The rest, including her
friend and pianist Walter Rummel,
intended to follow when Anna could make
the journey. Once
again, exact details of our trip to Italy and Greece
escape me,
and I must needs consult my faithful diary.
July JI, I920.
Departing for Venice tonight via Milano. Arrived on Sunday
Aug. 1, in a
downpour. To make matters worse I caught a pain-
ful cinder in my eye. Eager
to catch my first sight of the Queen
of the Adriatic, I leaned too far out
of the train window com-
pletely disregarding the warning below, "E
pericoloso sporghesi!"
A motorboat whisked us out to the Lido and the Hotel
Ex-
r87
188 DUNCAN DANCER
celsior. Got only a glimpse and even less
because of the cinder
which inflamed my eye. But what a mysterious,
fascinating place
is Venice!
Aug. 2.
Sasha and Dolly Votichenko are
also staying at the Lido. Could
hardly wait to get back to Venice. St.
Mark's is perfectly ador-
able, the Palais des Doges lovely. I am crazy about
Venice and
its atmosphere of an operatic stage setting. Had tea at Florian's
on the piazza. Did some shopping and had dinner at Bonevechiat-
ti's.
Wonderful moonlight ride in gondola along the Grand
Canal.
Aug.j.
Went bathing in the blue Adriatic at Lido Beach directly in front
of
hotel. After lunch returned to town. Tea at Florian's. Some
more shopping
and a lengthy promenade around town. Dined
again on the little open terrace
of Bonevechiatti, an excellent
restaurant. The risotto is superb, exactly
the way I like it.
Aug. 5·
To Venice and stopped at Florian's for an ice
cream. Then down
the canal to the station to meet Margot and Theresa. The
others
won't be long in joining us, they said. Anna is rapidly mending.
Aug. 7·
Visited the church of San Marco and the Palais des Doges. At
Florian's as usual. We expected Isadora today but no sign of her
yet.
Sunday, Aug. 8
They came today. We all went bathing together except Anna
who still looks frail and very pale. Isadora invited me for a gon-
dola
ride. We dined at the Danieli and watched the Tom bola
on the piazza
afterwards. She appeared to be in a state of shock.
Very taciturn and
morose. It seems she and the Archangel
[Walter Rummel] had a serious
quarrel.
dug. IO.
\Vho would surprise us today but George Copeland and
his
friend Arthur. Both have been in Venice for weeks. \Ve intro-
Demeter
and Persephone
duced him to Isadora since they had not met before. We
invited
them to luncheon. There is dancing on the terrace tonight.
George made a date with us for tomorrow's lunch at Vapois in
Venice
including Sasha, Dolly and Isadora.
Friday, Aug. 13.
Unlucky Friday! And
how!! Seems that Anna and the Arch-
angel have fallen in love. Isadora is
awfully jealous. She made
us all move to the Danieli, forsaking the
Excelsior and the Lido.
I told Christine: ac ette histoire avec Anna et l'
Archangel est
vraiement embetante. ll parait qu' elle est amoureuse de lui,
mais
lui aime encore beaucoup Isadora. Grande tragedie!"
Aug. 14.
After a good luncheon at our favorite place-Bonevechiatti-we
went,
accompanied by Sasha to show us the way, to the famous
Fortuni Shop. We each
bought a different color dress. Mine is
rose-colored. I love it.
The
pleated Fortuni gown came into existence in 1910,
when Signor Fortuni
designed the first one for Isadora, in the
hope she would display it in her
performances and help to
make him famous. She did not, however, consider his
gowns
suitable for dancing professionally, and never wore one on the
stage. She did invariably wear them at home or to parties and
frequently
was photographed in one of Fortuni's creations made
of fine India silk,
often gold-stenciled and with Venetian beads
along the sides.
It amused
us to see how the gowns were twisted together
and tied with a belt-an exact
imitation of the way we treated
our dance tunics. To achieve the same
pleated effect observed
on Greek statuary, we started out by sprinkling the
tunics with
water. Two girls then got hold of the ends, folding one tiny
pleat upon the other, and then gave the whole thing a twist,
held
together by a ribbon. This had to be repeated after each
performance, so the
tunics would be in proper shape for the
next one. ·with so many tunics
involved, it was a laborious and
patience-demanding process. Isadora herself
taught us this trick.
DUNCAN DANCER
She must also have shown it to
Fortuni, who invented a secret
process to keep the gowns artificially though
not permanently
pleated.
We girls always longed to own one of these
long, clinging
tunics that give women the beauty of archaic Greek statues.
Only now could we afford to buy them. We soon discovered
their one big
flaw. It was absolutely fatal to sit down in these
gowns-the pleats all
disappeared! If I may be allowed a bad
pun: an un-fortuniate situation,
indeed, which permanent pleat-
ing corrects in modern dresses.
Society
ladies with an artistic bent eventually took up the
fad of wearing F ortuni
dresses, another instance of the influence
exerted by Isadora Duncan on the
world of fashion.
Monday, Aug. I6.
After luncheon we rented a gondola
for the Lido where we met
Isadora. At sunset we returned and had dinner on
Isadora's
balcony at the Hotel Britannia. Steichen arrived tonight. We are
getting ready to leave for Greece tomorrow.
Aug. I7·
We got up at
six A.M. only to find that all the motorboats are
on strike. Were obliged to
rent gondolas with all our baggage and
row way out into the middle of the
harbour in order to board
the Austrian vessel, S.S. C anonia. Luckily it was
a lovely warm
day. The Adriatic's deep blue color is quite startling to see
after
the dull, muddy waters of the canal.
Aug. I8.
Reached Bari
late in the day. A hot little town. Had dinner and
went to the hot little
theatre where we saw a Neapolitan group
of actors perform a completely
incomprehensible play with all
the exaggerations of a Polichinelle show.
Didn't like it. Tomorrow
we expect to reach Brindisi.
Aug. I9·
Brindisi looks exactly the way I remembered it from my last
visit on our
way to Egypt. Same old place with same old stairs
leading up to an
uninteresting town.
Demeter and Persephone
Aug. 20.
Stopped at Corfu
for a few hours, visited the former German
Kaiser's villa-the Achillion. \V
onderful view from up there.
The sea so blue and the islands in the distance
like rosy clouds.
Sunday, Aug. 22.
Passed the Isthmus of Corinth very
early in the morning. At
high noon in ferocious heat set foot on Attic soil.
Landed at
Piraeus and immediately motored out to Falerone near the sea.
Not much of a place. I didn't care for it nor did the other girls.
We
returned to Athens and engaged rooms at the Grande
Bretagne. The ones that
face the square and open into a long
balcony-terrace. Isadora occupied the
end suite on the right.
At the Zappeion Garden we bought the fragrant white
jasmine
blossoms for our hair from the boy flower vendors who followed
us-shouting with shrill, high voices: "Smeen! Smeen!" until we
gave in.
Had a gay dinner there. Greek food-caille aux riz,
black olives, stuffed
eggplant washed down with Resin wine and
to the accompaniment of Greek
zither music. Afterwards looked
at the Temple of Zeus in the moonlight.
Beautiful!
Aug. 23.
I forgot to record yesterday that the first thing
Isadora did after
we unpacked at the hotel was to show us Copanos, the Greek
house she started to build in 1904 when she first visited Athens.
It was
never finished and only one room has a roof over it.
There is no water, and
goats were stabled here, by the looks of
things. She wants to have it
cleaned and to furnish it with a
grand piano for a studio. What optimism.
The heat is atrocious,
I nearly succumbed to it. Only the marvelous view of
the
Acropolis opposite made it all worth while.
Aug. 24.
Modern
Athens is not particularly attractive, I noticed going
shopping. Saw some
lovely Amazon statues at the National Mu-
seum. Isadora and the rest went up
to the Acropolis to look at
the Parthenon. I refused to go. She was
displeased. I intend to
wait till there is a full moon and, if possible, go
up there alone.
At a moment like that I don't relish crowds.
DUNCAN
DANCER
Aug. 27.
Full moon! As luck would have it, the nice young man I
met
on the boat coming to Greece called on me after dinner. He
asked me
to see the Parthenon by moonlight. By a strange co-
incidence, no other
visitors were up there.
Overcome himself by the glorious sight, he let me
wander off
in silence as I wanted to be alone. An unearthly vision of beauty
-no words can describe it. In the moonlight the marble shim-
mered snowy
white, the way it must originally have appeared.
Its daytime color is
orange.
Sunday, Aug. 29.
Early this morning, Isadora, showing herself
very restless,
suddenly ordered an open touring car. She invited Edward
[Steichen], Lisa, Margot and myself to accompany her on a
trip to Aulis
and Chalcis. We rushed northward raising a cloud
of dust behind us. Coming
down the mountain near the island
of Euboea we stopped to gaze at one of the
most surprisin~Iy
beautiful views in the world-the seashore of Chalcis.
There, in
Euripides' legend, Iphigenia and her handmaidens played on the
shore. How often, in our imagination, had we simulated their
Attic games
there in our dances to the music of Gluck! What a
thn11 actually to see it
there below us in the sunlight.
Were in time for luncheon at the hotel. In
the evening walked
along the shore where Iphigenia and her maidens trod of
yore.
Had a nice dinner at San Stephan by the sea.
Aug. 30.
Continued down the coast to view the Temple and Theatre of
Dionysos.
Just a few stones left, and overgrown with vegetation.
Steichen, having
forgotten in the hurry of sudden departure to
bring his camera along, asked
me to lend him my little Brownie.
He snapped a few pictures of us three
girls and Isadora in the
ancient theatre.
After lunch we motored back to
Athens via Thebes. There is
great excitement in Athens over the arrival of
Venizelos. We
watched him pass from the hotel balcony.
The month of
August had passed pleasantly. But in Septem-
ber all sorts of unpleasant
things occurred. To begin with,
Demeter and Persephone 193
Theresa had a
nearly fatal sunstroke. I nursed her day and
night applying cold compresses
over her feverish body till a
doctor could be summoned, it being a holiday.
He said my
treatment saved her life. Then Anna had to go to the hospital
with an infection and Margot, too, was unwell. Lisa caught a
bad cold,
and later I myself came down with a strep throat.
The Greek doctor told me
to gargle with lemon juice. Isadora
suffered mostly from bad humor on that
never-to-be-forgotten
trip to Greece.
So it happened that she only
started to work with us on
September 25, in the Zappeion Museum, where the
government
provided her with a large hall. Three years had elapsed since
last we worked together. She started on the Seventh Symphony
of
Beethoven, parts of which we knew and had performed with
her in New York.
Following that, she taught us the Scherzo
of Tchaikowsky's Sixth. Two weeks
before we began to work
with her, she told us quite frankly that she opposed
our return
to the States. This was my turn to say to the other girls, "I
told
you so!" It did not exactly come as a surprise to me.
Several days
later, when we failed to show up in New York
on the prescribed date, we
received a cable from our American
manager. He threatened us with breach of
contract and heavy
costs. Lisa and I offered to come immediately, but he
wanted
all six or none. A huge argument resulted with Isadora. I
sug-
gested quite logically, so it seemed to me, in order to evade a
lawsuit, that we fulfill our contract and then return to her. But
she
would have none of this.
"I did not bring you up and teach you my art, only
to have
you exploited by theatrical managers," she admonished us.
She
wanted us to perform only under her guidance and to
help her found a school
for a thousand children in Greece.
Most of the other girls had meekly given
in to her wishes. I
made the big mistake of growing more obstinate and
infuriated
by the minute. And when I do, I am bound to say almost
any-
thing. This unreasonable attitude of hers aroused all my ire. In
the
heat of the argument, which developed into an angry
194 DUNCAN DANCER
dialogue, the other girls not saying a word, I really lost my
temper.
She said I had an ugly Broadway spirit and if I felt
that way I had better
return to America. With that, I stormed
out of her suite and rushed
straightaway to the steamship office,
still smarting from the verbal blows.
Back at the Hotel d' Angle-
terre, where we girls lived, I sat down and tried
to be calm.
My anger is soon spent; I seldom harbor grievances for long.
I regretted the vehemence of my unguarded utterances. On
calmer
judgment, I sat down and wrote her a letter, trying to
explain my motives
and all those things one really can't explain,
that remain the secrets of a
human heart.
Hotel d' Angleterre, Athens, Sept. 30, I 920.
Dear Isadora:
I inquired at the steamship office and there is a very good
boat sailing
for New York on the I oth of October. I think I
had better book a passage on
it-this will be the most con-
venient way to get rid of me. I quite
understand that a "cheap
Broadway spirit" has nothing to do with your art.
Because, if
that is all you see in me, I should certainly not remain another
day with you.
Words are futile. I really cannot explain my true nature
to
you. It is, at times, even too complicated for me. Your art which
is
the highest expression of all that is pure and divine in man,
makes those
who practice it-if they are pure at heart-purer.
And if they are
great-greater. But a spirit that is fundamentally
not simple and naive
cannot so easily be molded. I cannot change
my inner self, nor can you.
One thing I am unable to comprehend: How is it that you,
with your
intelligence and intuition, have not been able correctly
to judge my
character before? I think it is rather too late now.
What a waste and what a
crime! For another person might have
profited in my stead and been of real
help to you. Someone to be
proud of, and of real value to you, who could be
a fine example
to those hundreds who are going to follow.
I don't feel I
can thank you for what you have done for me,
since it has apparently all
been in vain. On the contrary, I would
Demeter and Persephone 195
rather
curse the day you took my hand and led me to your school.
Your hand has
always pointed upward. This made us sense there
is something
beyond-something more important than life. And
willingly I wanted to be led.
Now, you turn around with a
frown on your face and point a finger of scorn
at me and say
that you see into my soul and what you see is • • . Isadora,
do
you really think you have the eyes of God?
Maybe only very earthly,
petty things are obscuring your vi-
sion. Perhaps, if you had tried to peer
into my soul with a little
more understanding, you would truly have been
able to see. I
am a queer girl, one must take me as I am. If you could have
done so, who knows, I might have been of genuine service to you
until my
death. But I don't believe in sacrifice. You did not
sacrifice your life
either for the sake of your school. The idea of
the school has always been
your salvation. In your worst mo-
ments of anguish and misery it has been
your only joy and in-
spiration. But it has not been everything in your life!
How then
can you expect that I should devote mine entirely to the future of
the school?
Two days later I received a message delivered by hand:
Dearest Irma-
! have just received your letter. I can't answer it now but
will
tomorrow. I think there is a great deal of misunderstanding. At
any
rate, you must confess that the things you say sometimes
would make a saint
angry. Whatever you decide and whether
you really want to go back to New
York or not, please don't
doubt of my very great love for you who are to me
exactly like
my own little girl. And if I become so furious it is only that
I
want your future to be splendid. I am probably stupid to take the
small things you say in earnest.
I will answer your letter tomorrow.
With a kiss and all my
love-
Isadora
I waited anxiously for her
letter, glad that she held no
rancor and much comforted by her nice note.
When the mes-
senger appeared next day at my hotel, he handed me an envelope
DUNCAN DANCER
that contained not only her letter of explanation but also
a
picture. The picture was self-explanatory. It portrayed the
Greek
goddess Demeter, Mother Earth, handing on a torch
to her young daughter
Persephone, the new life, bringing
light to the world.
Dear Irma-
!
answer your letter. In the first place, do not believe the
words which were
wrung from me in anger by your extraor-
dinary exasperating attitude. Blot
out the "Broadway" phrase,
it has nothing to do with you or me. And as for
"Getting rid of
you," it is because you are so precious to me and to my art
that I
have made such an effort to tell you the real future of the work,
which is not for you or me but for the generations to come.
As for
sacrifice-take one example. When in December, 1914,
Paris Singer said to me,
"If you have the courage to start your
school now, I will give you the house
in Bellevue and 1oo,ooo
francs a year to do it with," I hesitated, for the
idea of seeing
little children at that time meant absolute torture to me.
But I
answered, "yes," for the thought this opportunity might never
come
again and it would be a crime to deprive those children.
No one will ever
know what it cost me to teach those children
at Bellevue. Often, in the
midst of a lesson, I went upstairs and
cried with agony, "No, I can't look
at them!" But the next day
I tried again.
I think in fact it was this
fearful struggle that killed the little
Baby that was my only hope. And you
know since then I have
not been able to look at a child without bursting
into tears. And
yet, I am willing to take them again and teach them. Is not
that
sacrifice?
And such a useless sacrifice, as all Bellevue is gone
and the
little children that were there have come to nothing.
I only
have a few more years to do it. Won't you help me?
Before I die, at least
one hundred beings must understand the
work and give it to others.
You
irritated me the other day by the stupid things you said
until I would have
said anything. But my expression and tears
often when you dance must have
proved to you that I found it
Demeter and Persephone 197
beautiful. I
want it to be more so and glorious, especially the
Beethoven.
I don't
ask any of you to sacrifice all your life for the school.
I only want you to
give me a part of each year to helping me.
The rest of the year you may tour
as you like. And above all, I
want you to learn the Iphigenie, the Orphee,
the Beethoven and
all to a state of perfection, or as near it as possible,
before dancing
it in a theatre.
Come this morning to work. Forgive
anything I have said that
wounded you-1 did not mean it. You are for me
always my
little Irma whom I love most dearly. And I am for you-your
friend.
Isadora
Dear, dear Isadora:
I read your beautiful letter
and I think if we don't speak to
each other we understand each other better.
I also want to ask
you a hundred times pardon for everything I have said-it
must
all have been very insulting to you. For there is nothing in this
wide world too beautiful that I could say or do to compensate
you for
all that you have given me spiritually and materially. I
do want to aid you
in every way possible so that your wonderful
idea shall be realized. And on
the day we actually see a hundred
children dance, I too will shed tears of
joy. You are right; we
should all agree to work part of the time together as
you sug-
gest. I am willing to wait and not perform till we have perfected
our work. \Ve look up to you to guide us and let us know when
the time
has come.
I want you to know that I love you more than my own
mother. I
cannot show you my affection but it is all in my heart.
-Love,
Irma
October 1, 1920.
Dearest lrma-
y our letter has made me happy. Now,
hand in hand, we will
go forward and conquer the world in harmony and love.
-Isadora:
The School Is Dead, Long Live
the School
THE bite of a
pet monkey that killed the King of Greece decided
our departure. The
performances we planned to give in Athens
had to be canceled. \V e left
toward the end of October for Paris.
There is a street in Passy, which
George du Maurier de-
scribes in his Peter lbbetson as the "Street of the
Pump," wind-
ing its way to Paris through the Arc de Triomphe at one end
and to the river Seine at the other. He called it a delightful
street
where the "butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker" still
had their
boutiques within the residential quarter. Here Isadora
bought a house
because of the large room in the rear, called
"Salle Beethoven," where
intime concerts could be given. She
converted it into a studio with the same
blue curtains and carpet.
We girls had rooms in a small hotel nearby.
What little money we had saved from our tours in the States
dwindled
alarmingly. In order to economize, we rented a small
furnished apartment on
the Rue Eugene Manuel, in Passy, a
short distance away from Isadora's house.
Here we were left to
struggle along financially as best we could; for one
moment our
foster mother lavished everything on her adopted children, the
next she withdrew her support. That is why we were so eager to
give
performances. As always, we had to wait for Isadora's con-
sent. We chafed
under this inactivity, having no outlet for our
pent-up energies. But, being
young, we managed to enjoy life
from day to day, whatever it might bring.
\Ve hired a cook from
the provinces, a bonne at oute faire, who went on her
daily er-
rand dressed in a black shawl with a market basket on her arm.
The School Is Dead, Long Live the School 199
Like all French women, she
had the culinary touch with a
Gallic flavor, and I can still see us girls
sitting at the round table
in our tiny salle a manger, relishing every
savory morsel. The
lamp with a green shade suspended from the ceiling
directly
over the dining table created a warm, homey atmosphere. As
soon
as the table was cleared, with no neighborhood movies
available to attend,
we sought amusement in a game of whist.
Working at the studio on Rue de la
Pompe, we frequently
lunched with Isadora and Rummel. On those occasions she
would take the precaution of drawing the dark velvet curtains
over the
windows to shut out the brilliant spring sunshine,
which left us in the dark
except for a red Japanese lantern
burning on the side table. She said it
created a more restful light.
But it also erased all those fine encroaching
lines and wrinkles
on the face of any woman in her forties, a little vanity
on the
part of the famous dancer that fooled no one. Sunday was her
day
at home when friends dropped in for tea. I often went with
her to shop in an
American bakery on the Rue de Bac for her
favorite-coconut cake. Afternoon
tea was a daily habit with her.
That winter and spring of I 921 turned out
to be quite a
social season. We attended the theatre frequently, concerts
ga-
lore. The Ukrainian Chorus was the big attraction in Paris that
season, and the elegant Bal Noire et Blanc at the Champs
Elysee Theatre.
We often had friends take us to night clubs
such as the Peroquet, where the
American Negro entertainer
Josephine Baker held forth.
I must interrupt
my story here to point out and correct some
popular misconceptions. In all
my life with Isadora I never
attended a so-called "orgy," staged either by
her or by anyone
else, as the newspapers loved to misrepresent. A champagne
party and supper where guests dance, cut funny capers, and gen-
erally
enjoy themselves in public cannot exactly be termed an
"orgy"! That happened
every day in the social world I used to
know and is a festive occasion most
people have enjoyed at least
once in their lives.
200 DUNCAN DANCER
Outside of an occasional cocktail before meals, none of us
girls, nor
Isadora, ever indulged in drinking or especially crav-
ing hard liquor. Our
European tastes were conditioned to wines.
Only in her late forties, after
her marriage to a Russian and
under his malign influence, did she acquire a
habit for stronger
stuff. But no one who ever knew her intimately in her
day-by-day
existence could ever honestly accuse her of becoming an alcoholic
in her last years. That, to my certain knowledge, represents a
gross
calumny.
Now to go on: Afterward we continued on to Joe Zelli's
opening
with Maurice and Hughes, the popular ballroom
dancers of that period.
Maurice had lately dropped his former
long-time partner Florence Walton,
which created a sensation.
Isadora, in a short Chanel gown covered with gold
beads, liked
to dance to tango music rather than the fox trot. She knew none
of the conventional steps; she always improvised her own, much
to the
confusion of her male partners.
I recall her telling me that once in San
Francisco in 19 r 8,
when she appeared there in a Chopin recital with the
pianist
Harold Bauer, the audience as usual clamored for an encore at
the end. Tired of hearing more Chopin she decided on a sudden,
whimsical
impulse to dance a tango. The tango was then the
latest craze in popular
dance. Harold Bauer protested, not know-
ing any popular tunes as a concert
pianist of the first order. He
considered it below his dignity but Isadora
urged him along
saying, "Oh just improvise on the rhythm and I'll do the
same,"
adding slyly, "The public won't be able to tell the difference!"
She was right, they loved it and wanted her to repeat the
"Duncan Tango"
but she never did that again.
In Paris that year the tango was still very
popular, thanks
to the expert ballroom dancers who specialized in this
Argentine
dance like Maurice and the American movie star Rudolph
Val-
entino. A place called El Garron on Montmartre caught her
fancy. It
was a small room, with banquettes upholstered in red
velvet along three
walls; the fourth was taken over by two rows
The School Is Dead, Long Live
the School 201
of sixteen Argentine accordion players in red coats. And how
electrifyingly they could play those exotic Latin tunes. I learned
to
dance the Argentine tango very well, with a professional
partner as tutor.
Even today, my feet can't resist beating the
measure whenever I hear one
played. We usually danced
through the night and at dawn sped over to Les
Hailes for the
traditional reveler's soupe a l'oignon and crusty French
bread
warm from the oven. Ah, sacree jeunesse! What exuberant
fun we
had! Curiously enough for one so young, those diversions
did not make me
forget the more serious ambition then nagging
at my psyche-to make a name
for myself as an artist.
The year before, in the fall of I 920, it all had
seemed so
promising when Isadora and Rummel and we girls worked in
artistic harmony and enthusiasm on a new project, the study of
Parsifal.
She taught us the Flower Maiden Scene, while she
portrayed Kundry in her
bewitched garden enticing Parsifal.
And a beautiful etherealized
choreography for the Holy Grail
mustc.
The world premiere took place on
November 2 7, 1 920, at
the now-vanished Trocadero. That evening, at the
theatre, she
summoned us to her dressing room a few minutes before curtain
time. It was an event for her pupils, because this joint appearance
was
the first in two years. Her dressing room had the familiar
look I had seen
so many times since my childhood, for she
always liked to say a word or two
of encouragement and give us
inspiration. She sat in front of her dressing
table which was
covered with a lace cloth and littered with an assortment of
makeup. Leaning against the frame of the mirror and pinned
above it were
reproductions of Greek sculpture and friezes. On
a table beside her, still
partly wrapped in green tissue from the
florist's box, lay the fresh flowers
she used as wreaths or decora-
tions for her various dances. The open
wardrobe trunk spilled
over with a profusion of tunics and scarfs needed for
the per-
formance. The chaise longue in a corner held her white and red
Indian shawls, so she could stretch out and rest during the inter-
202
DUNCAN DANCER
mission. A three-hour program of uninterrupted dancing is a
most strenuous affair. The throat gets parched, and to quench
one's
thirst with water is fatal. Aqua pura has a funny way of
jumping around
inside with every lively step, a horrid sensa-
tion. For that reason, to ease
the maddening thirst, she pre-
ferred a glass of champagne during the
intermission. She never
touched a drop of anything stronger.
A pleasant
perfume of flowers and cologne enveloped us six
girls as we entered, dressed
in flesh-colored Flower Maiden
attire with blooms in our hair and a garland
from shoulder to
waist. Each one was different. My floral adornment
consisted of
large anemones in a combination of vivid red, purple, and
white.
She smiled and looked us over critically. "You all look
ravish-
ing," she whispered. Then she fixed her glance on me with a
small
moue of dissatisfaction and said, "I do wish, Irma, that
you would not wear
your hair so low over the forehead. It hides
your nice wide brow." She got
up and brushed my forelocks
back as far as they could go, tilting my anemone
wreath to the
back of my head. Inwardly I seethed with annoyance, just
wait-
ing to push it all forward again as soon as I left her dressing
room. She insisted in having her own way even in such trifles.
Then she
did something she hitherto had refrained from doing.
She offered us a large
goblet of champagne and urged each of
us to take one sip. "It won't hurt you
and may put you in the
right mood for the seduction scene," she whispered.
(It was her
habit to keep complete silence for hours on the day of a
per-
formance.) She herself looked like the Goddess of Seduction, in
a
long cream-colored satin gown, a flowing red velvet cape, and
a crown of red
and white roses in her auburn hair.
She reminded us that we had a truly
magnificent orchestra
of a hundred musicians to play Wagner's glorious music
for our
dancing, so we must give our very best performance that night.
She changed after the intermission and donned the gray, drab
shift of a
penitente to pray for divine grace and forgiveness. She
danced to the Good
Friday music-and danced it as no Wagne-
The School Is Dead, Long Live the
School 203
rian Kundry of the great master's imagination ever interpreted
this role. The program ended with the Venusberg and Bac-
chanale from T
annhiiuser in which she danced the part of Venus,
with rose petals floating
down over her throughout that sensi-
tively imagined scene. Here all the love
and sensuality inherent
in the score were merely indicated by her, brought
to life in the
imagination rather than the flesh. It was one of her most
perfect
choreographic masterpieces.
Thrilling as was this experience at
the Trocadero-it eventu-
ally proved to have been the culmination of our
artistic collabo-
ration-it left me strangely dissatisfied. Isadora tolerated
no
solo dancing by her disciples in our joint appearances. However
humble my own efforts compared to her genius, I chafed at re-
maining
part of the chorus all my life. The artist in me longed
for self-expression.
Isadora arranged several performances during the winter
season-the
opening one, with an all-Wagner program, took
place on November 27 as
already mentioned. It was our first pub-
lic appearance since we girls had
come abroad five months before.
The famous contract we signed with Isadora,
being of no further
value, we tore up and threw away. Dissension was in the
air.
One of the causes, which we resented and which disrupted the
harmony that should have prevailed, was the discovery that she
had tried
to enter into negotiations with Hurok, our New York
manager, without
consulting us. Her secretary, Norman Harle,
inquired of Augustin Duncan what
the prospects might be. Gus,
still annoyed about the contract which he had
once arranged for
his sister and which she did not keep, answered:
Nov.
25, 1920
My dear Mr. Harle:
Your letter received, but I have had no
opportunity of replying
to it until now. I had occasion to see Mr. Hurok the
other day
and he asked me to write you the following and to give you his
address in case you cared to write to him. He expresses a willing-
ness
to arrange some appearances in this country, with or without
204 DUNCAN
DANCER
the girls, after the first of January. Even as late as March
run-
ning into April and May provided the negotiation was com-
pleted by
Christmas time.
Orchestra is only possible for New York (Metropolitan) ;
piano on the road. Isadora could get a large fee, possibly $2,000
a
performance, if she appeared with piano. But even $I ,ooo is
unlikely if
orchestra is insisted upon, outside of New York. In the
latter case Hurok
would not guarantee but only share on per-
centage. However, I advise you to
write to him direct and leave
me out of the negotiation. Do not ask less
than $2,000 guar-
antee with piano. You can get it. Turn that into francs at
the
present rate of exchange and realize what that would mean.
H. also
offers a tour of the Orient. My advice is that you deal
with him direct and
not any representative, as they do not rep-
resent him.
My own opinion is
that Isadora should not come to this coun-
try. The conditions are worse than
ever before and I do not be-
lieve she would fulfill her contract. No one
else in the business
is more hopeful than I am on that point and therefore
she could
not make advantageous terms. For instance, payment in advance
and steamer fares paid-entirely out of the question. She would
be forced
to stand all the risk of failure to carry out the bookings,
as confidence in
the likelihood of fulfilling a contract once made,
is down to Zero.
Very
truly yours,
Augustin Duncan
Nothing came of this plan. What little
money we had saved
from our American tour, even changed into francs at the
then
favorable rate of exchange, soon came to an end. The only way
we
knew to earn a living was by giving public performances,
though every time
we did, we ran counter to our teacher's wishes.
Naturally we resented this
situation, which caused much un-
happiness. Money matters are notoriousfor
causing trouble and
ruining the best of friendships. To make up for our
financial
deficiency, we entered into negotiations with a French concert
manager, who was willing to arrange a tour of the provinces
The School
Is Dead, Long Live the School 205
for us. Because of her personal
estrangement from Isadora,
Anna had left the group. Thus only four girls
remained-Lisa,
Theresa, Margot, and myself.
Being careful to obtain
Isadora's consent, I wrote to her.
She was at that time in London, giving
joint recitals with ·walter
Rummel. She agreed, providing she received 33
per cent of our
fees after expenses had been paid. Her wire to me stated:
"Pro-
gramme Lyon: first part selection Iphigenie; second part Schu-
bert
Waltzes, Marche Militaire. Pianist playing solos Bach,
Mozart, or Beethoven.
No Chopin or any modern music."
As artists in our own right, we did not like
her dictating to
us. We considered it unreasonable and unjust on her part to
interfere with our own mature judgment on such matters. We
could not go
on forever performing the same dances. She toler-
ated no solo dancing when
we girls appeared with her. To me,
the freedom of expression provided by a
solo dance was neces-
sary to my own artistic satisfaction. I suggested we
call the whole
thing off. Feeling frustrated and chafing under this constant
control, we foolishly let ofF steam by talking the situation over
with
close friends, such as Mary Desti (formerly Mary Sturges)
and Dolly
Votichenko. \Ve had no one else to help or advise us.
As usual under such
circumstances, where dissension is in the
offing, the inevitable gossips-who
simply itched to carry a tale
and to embroider it in the telling-came to the
fore. On hearing
these exaggerated reports about us, our foster mother
dispatched
a letter from London:
My dear Children-
This is a message
for all of you. Please reflect that all the
things you say to my discredit
reflect eventually on yourselves.
And the people to whom you give your love
and confidence have
never done for you and will never do for you one per
cent of
what I have done, and am still willing to do for you. But it is
discouraging when I hear from all sides that in return you only
try to
break all my relations in Paris and cut all my friendships.
I assure you
that this can do you no good and my patience is
206 DUNCAN DANCER
almost
at an end. If you could only learn a bit of discretion.
Please work and live
simply-read and study-and either be
true to me or leave me on your own names
and your own re-
sponsibility. Please write me. With love,
Isadora
In
our apartment on the Rue Eugene Manuel in Passy, we
immediately held a
council of war. Isadora had offered to pay
our rent but had failed to do so.
The landlord threatened to
evict us. Not knowing what to do, our own funds
being depleted,
Lisa managed to borrow enough to tide us over. Borrowing
money was not to our liking. We aspired only to achieve inde-
pendence,
to earn our own living as we had done in the States.
This could, under no
provocation, be construed as showing in-
gratitude to our dear foster mother.
I wrote her again of our
financial dilemma and the trouble with the
landlord, mentioning
the loan we had to get. She immediately sent word
through her
secretary for us to move into her house at 103 Rue de la Pompe.
But she sent no funds to pay off the loan.
Meanwhile Dolly Votichenko
made a special trip to Brussels,
where Isadora had a dance engagement.
Within a short space of
time, we received another sharp letter from our
foster mother,
written from the Hotel Metropole and dated April 30, I 92 I :
My dear Children:
I had a great joy and some hope in recervmg Lisel's
letter
which I confess has been rather dampened since meeting Dolly
Votichenko here who says that the way you all speak of me made
her think
that I was possibly some sort of monster. And in fact
she repeated to me
word for word what Mary had already told
me. This is really too much and my
patience is at an end. That
you should speak of me this way is simply
disgusting.
First, she says, you accuse me of having "left you to starve" in
Geneva. Whereas you know perfectly well that I sent you by
telegraph all
the money I had in the bank in Buenos Aires and
left myself not enough to
pay my hotel bill. When on account
The School Is Dead, Long Live the School
207
of the war conditions this money did not reach you, I sent Au-
gustin
from Buenos Aires to Geneva to rescue you, leaving me
alone and without aid
in a strange country.
Second, it seems you accuse me of having "deserted
you," in
New York. You will please remember that I sold all I had, even
my shawls, and only left New York when you were successfully
launched at
Carnegie Hall, with a lucrative contract before you.
I arrived in London ill
and penniless and telegraphed to Augustin
that I had no money to reach Paris
but received no answer from
any of you.
Third, it seems you accuse me of
not procuring you engage-
ments. On this score I am writing Mr. Harle to
write you an
account of money spent and time and cables amounting to Boo
francs, to America trying to fix contracts for you. Also he will
give
you the true account of the contract which you seem to
ignore.
Fourth,
it seems you accuse me of not teaching you, when I
have given you the very
secret and most holy of my art. And to
crown this you tell Dolly that I am
jealous of you as an artist.
Really, my poor children, I think you have all
taken leave of
your senses. And to comblc that you say I owe Lisel money.
This is shameful!
That I should hear all this from a stranger-really my
affec-
tion for you and my patience is about at an end. As for the way
Anna has spoken of me, I think she must be demented. My only
crime
toward her was a too great indulgence and affection for
her. But my patience
is at an end. If you can not understand
that talking of me in this way you
are doing me a great deal of
harm and in doing me harm, are doing yourself
harm . . .
In the meantime I beg you learn not to tell every little stupid
idea in your heads to strangers. If you wish your tickets to
America or
elsewhere, Mr. Harle will arrange them, as your
present attitude toward me
seems to me to make further rela-
tions very difficult. I am, as Harle says,
"fed up."
Isadora
Merely to set the record straight, I want to point out
that
Isadora left four months before we were "successfully launched
208
DUNCAN DANCER
at Carnegie Hall" in New York, and with "a lucrative contract"
ahead of us.
However, these recriminations were not getting us anywhere.
Isadora returned from her successful tour of England and Bel-
gium in
May. On the twenty-sixth, the day before her forty-
third birthday, the
French papers fairly brimmed over with the
news that she had decided to go
to Soviet Russia. Reporters
swarmed all over her house, jostling each other
in order to ob-
tain a first-hand interview. Apparently, while she was in
London,
the head of the Russian Trade Commission, Leonide Krassine,
hearing of her desire to go to Russia under the Communist
regime,
promised to help her obtain an official invitation. Her
idea of founding a
great school of the dance there appealed to the
Bolsheviks, primarily as a
wonderful piece of propaganda.
Her desire to go to Soviet Russia was no news
to us girls.
Her reason for this move was made quite explicit in an
interview
she had granted a woman reporter in Paris even before we left
America. The article, which appeared in an English paper, stated:
She
received us graciously, with all the ease and naturalness
which
characterizes her dancing. In a dark, loose-fitting dress,
her mink toque on
the table beside her and fur coat thrown back,
Isadora looked most charming.
Her bobbed coiffure is most be-
coming and harmonizes with the expression of
Irish sympathy
and humour alternating with the warm California sunshine
laughing in her eyes and mouth. There is in her face also--be-
hind its
vivaciousness-that indefinable mystic or spiritual quality
which is so
peculiar to great teachers. Asked, if she expected to
start a new school of
dancing this was her reply:
"Nothing would please me more, but this time it
must have a
government guarantee. There must be some protection against
the pupils of the school leaving and commercializing their knowl-
edge
before it has reached the stage of perfection. And this can
only come about
through the cooperation of a government. You
may recall how under the Czar's
regime that very thing was
accomplished for the Imperial Russian Ballet. It
is the only as-
surance of success."
"What about the French government!
The French have al-
The School Is Dead, Long Live the School 209
ways
been liberal patrons of art and they have admired your
dancing," was the
interpolated remark.
"Poufl It's a question of money. The state of French
fi-
nances ..." and she dismissed them with a broad comprehensive
gesture.
"And this story of your going to Russia to receive help from
the Bolsheviki, what about that?"
"I did say that it didn't matter to me
what the government
was and that if Russia offered me a school I would go
there and
accept it. But of the Bolsheviks and their politics I know
nothing.
So contradictory are the stories concerning the Bolshevist
atti-
tude toward art, that one doesn't have any conception what it
really is. I most certainly wouldn't hesitate to accept an offer
from
Russia .... Four fortunes have disappeared in this effort
of mine to
re-create dancing as the Greeks knew it-a natural
expression of the spirit
or the soul. Out of the twenty-five chil-
dren whom I trained, only six were
loyal. ... These six girls
could teach hundreds of pupils. But people say,
they are beautiful
and I suppose they will marry."
She smiled sweetly
though a bit sadly at this conclusion. Miss
Duncan, during the course of
afternoon tea related the history of
her school which has never before been
published. It is a fas-
cinating tale.
''Who wants to go to Russia with
me?" Isadora asked us
when she came back from London. I unhesitatingly said
I would.
The other two girls (Lisa and Theresa, for we were only three
now dancing with her) seemed less interested. She smiled at me
and said,
"I knew I could count on you."
"I'll go wherever you want to go," I assured
her. "I'll even
follow you to Mars, if that is the place you have chosen to
found
your new school. Providing you are serious and really mean to
go
through with it."
She triumphantly produced a telegram she had just received
from the People's Commissar of Education, Anatole Vasilief
Lunacharsky,
officially inviting her to Moscow. Overjoyed, she
immediately thought of
giving a party for her friends to tell
them the good news. Among them were
several Russian immi-
210 DUNCAN DANCER
grants who had fled from the
Revolution. When they heard that
Isadora had really made up her mind to go
to the land of the
Bolsheviks, they seemed terribly shocked. One of the
women
went down on her knees before Isadora and implored her by all
the
holy saints not to go.
"You don't know what you are letting yourself in for!
Food
is so scarce that the Communists are slaughtering four-year-old
children and eating them! Look, I have a letter here, smuggled
out of
Russia, telling us about this. Please, please, don't go, Isa-
dora!" she
implored her.
"Well, if this is true," Isadora responded, looking pale and
grim, "then I must go."
After the guests departed, and she and I
remained alone in
the studio where the planned festivity had turned ihto a
session
of horror tales, she looked ruefully at me, trying to gauge my
reaction. By way of laughing the whole thing off, she said as a
joke,
"Don't worry, Irma; they'll eat me first anyway. There is
a whole lot more
of me than you. In the meanwhile, you'll
manage to escape!"
I confess
the stories made my flesh creep. However, having
heard the worst about the
Communists, I still could not quite
believe that they officially sanctioned
cannibalism.
On the last day of May, Isadora gave another reception, a
far pleasanter one, for artists and writers. The pianist de Renne-
ville
played, Jacques Copeau read his poems, and we danced.
Cecile Sartoris, a
woman journalist who was present, later wrote:
This evening Isadora dances
for us; a dozen friends. It is her
adieu. She is off to Brussels, then on to
London. And after • . .
Here she is then, surging out of the shadow, she who
thought
to resuscitate in our midst the play of noble attitudes, the rhythm
of grace in the movements of life! Under the vaporous envelope
of her
veils she embodies, successively inquietude, melancholy,
doubt, resignation,
hope. Her face is like the surface of a lake
where the ripples pass, like a
mirror reflecting the rapid race of
clouds.
Isadora to Irma, October 1,
1920 : "Your letter has made me Happy-"
Irma Duncan: portrait photo by
Edward Steichen, Versailles, 1920.
Inscribed: "Gay dancing eyes of the eager
dancing faun girL With a
vi vat- Edward Steichen."
The School Is Dead,
Long Live the School 2 1 I
It is so beautiful that we do not applaud. Only
our oppressed
breaths reveal in the silence what our dumb enthusiasm bears
of
anguish.
Then she calls her pupils. There are only three, on this
eve-
ning before departure, but it seems as though the Graces of
Falconnet have left the pedestal where they have stood for more
than a
century. And these graces here have more than line;
they have the charm of
life. They come and go, dancing a rondo,
while over them and about them
floats the scarf with which
Proudhon encircled the delicate face of Psyche.
It is incomparably charming, youthful and gay. Isadora leans
over to me:
"And if they were five hundred, if they were a
thousand, don't you think
that they would be lovelier still; don't
you think that they would give the
people something to rest them
from their blackest care? For there will not
only be us; my pupils
will teach all the little ones. They will know how to
dance as
they know how to read: there will be joy for all! "
"And if you
are hungry?" asks a sceptic.
Isadora shrugs her magnificent shoulders, and
with an accent
made grave by conviction: "We will dance so as not to think
of it!"
0 cricket! Delicious cricket that puts to shame the ants!
Isadora sublet her house on the Rue de la Pompe, and two
days later we
got our visas. I noted in my diary: "June 3, 1921.
Leaving on the 4 o'clock
train for Brussels. Poor little Gretel
has to stay behind all by herself. I
don't believe we girls shall
ever live together again. Lisa, Theresa and
myself are all that
are left of the Duncan Dancers."
Isadora considered
Margot (or Gretel as we called her) too
frail to make the trip. The number
of Isadora's disciples was
rapidly dwindling. We gave several performances
in the Belgian
capital before proceeding to England. The London Observer
wrote of our recital at Queen's Hall:
Last night Isadora Duncan with her
three pupils, Irma,
Theresa and Lisa, appeared ... in a Grand Festival of
Music
and Dance. But Dance is surely hardly the right word; what we
212
DUNCAN DANCER
saw was Keats' Grecian Vase come to life-with some moving
tragedie added to its living grace. Tchaikovsky's Symphony
Pathetique
teems with emotion-not pure musical emotion-but
emotion that can be
expressed in bodily action and facial play. It
was very interesting to
observe the interpretation of this by the
great artist and her three pupils.
The first movement she took alone and made it a wonderful
example of the
beauty of slow motions . • . it became intensely
tragic rather than merely
"pathetic" as indeed it should.
On the five-four movement that followed the
younger artists
alone took the first section, the elder appearing and the
younger
disappearing as the second and contrasting section began. (The
effect was perhaps that of Care driving away the Graces) ....
In the
Scherzo all were on the stage together. The last move-
ment (the Lamentoso)
Isadora Duncan alone ...
The experience last night was a very interesting
one, and as
the music was played exactly as in a fine concert performance,
one did not feel the objection that one docs when one hears some
of
these Chopin and Schumann ballets that have become so popu-
lar, where music
is rhythmically and orchestrally sacrificed in
order that set forms of
bodily movement and an arbitrary story
may be made of it. . . .
It was
really in every way a great evening and one is amazed
that the hall should
be half empty. Will it be full next Saturday?
This will be the last
opportunity of seeing Isadora Duncan be-
fore she goes to her work in
Russia-to return when?
Thirteen years had passed since we girls had last
danced in
London in the Duke of Y ark's Theatre. What childhood
mem-
ories it brought back! The golden watch that turned out to be
pure
brass; the famous luncheon party at the Duchess of Man-
chester's house, and
the purloined peaches; dancing for the King
and Queen; and oh! my lost
sovereign! vVe reminisced about
these things in our dressing room after the
performance when,
lo and behold! who should suddenly open the door and walk
inr
As if con jured up from the past by our talking about it, like
some
specter of our childhood days, the tormentor we all loathed
and feared-our
former English governess!
The School Is Dead, Long Live the School 213
She stood there and silently looked at us, even as a serpent
hypnotizes
its prey. We stared back in stony silence, then we
turned around and left.
After all these years, she still personified
the serpent in our childhood
paradise.
That last performance in London spelled finis to Isadora's
original school. Theresa and Lisa confided to me their fears and
their
resolve not to accompany Isadora to Soviet Russia. "What
has gotten into her
1" Theresa wailed. "Why, of all places, revo-
lutionary Russia?"
"It must
be perfectly awful there," Lisa chimed in. "The
people are starving, disease
is rampant, and they walk about in
rags. At least, that is what the papers
say. What sort of place is
that for her to found a dance school in? I cannot
understand
herl"
"How shall I ever have the courage to tell her?"
Theresa
worried. "I know she is going to have a real fit when she hears
we have decided not to go with her. It is going to be awful."
"Yes,
please, Irma, be present when we tell her tomorrow
morning," Lisa said. "You
may be able to help us explain our
reasons better than we can. I don't want
her to think I am
refusing my help, but I am willing to do anything she
asks-
except go to Russia. I am simply plain scared of the Bolshies-
and
that is the whole truth."
I sympathized with the girls and their reluctance
to embark
on so dangerous a mission. Few people in those days expressed a
willingness to enter, much less live in a country where law and
order as
we knew it in the West had been completely abolished.
The dictatorship of
Lenin and Trotsky had created an unholy
blood-bath in their unhappy country
ever since the October Rev-
olution four years earlier. Certainly it was no
fit place for a
group of young, sensitive girls, who were concerned for
their
immediate future. I agreed to support them in their dreaded
interview with our foster mother.
It turned out exactly as we had
feared: grand hysterics on
her part and a flood of tears on theirs.
"Ingrates," she called
them. When they finally left her angry presence, pale
and
214 DUNCAN DANCER
shaken, I turned to leave also, intending to see
the girls off at
the station. She called after me, "And you, Irma, are you
also
leaving me?"
I hastily assured her I had given her my solemn word
and
that I meant to keep it. She embraced me, visibly moved, and
with
tears in her eyes, softly whispered, "Thanks. You are all
I now have left in
this world."
That afternoon I saw the girls off, saying a sad farewell,
since none of us knew when we would meet again. Theresa was
planning to
marry Stephan Bourgeois, and Lisa was planning
an American tour with Anna
and Margot. I returned to find
Isadora in the midst of a gay party. Dressed
in a French gown
of lace over blue satin, she sat surrounded by English
friends
all imbibing champagne. The moment I entered somebody
shouted
facetiously, "Here comes the school!"
Everybody laughed and joined in
nicknaming me "the
School." Only Isadora remained serious. Into my mind
flashed
the silly game we children in Grunewald used to play with our
identification numbers and I always proudly ended up with the
best
prize-number I 6, the house number of our beloved Dun-
can School. And now I
myself had to laugh, for here I was
actually personifying it. At that
instant, Isadora slowly rose
from her couch and solemnly called for
attention. In the silence
that ensued she raised her glass and said, "I
propose a toast to
Irma." Everybody stood up and Isadora continued, "Here is
to
the school. God bless her!"
PART III. I92I-I933
Exile
BEFORE
leaving London, I visited the British Museum. I wanted
to have a look at the
Elgin Marbles, especially the caryatid that
was taken from the Erechtheion
in Athens. What a sad sight it
was to see that noble statue confined in a
somber hall in an alien
land of rain and mists and separated from her five
companion
figures, who still stood together in the open air, under an Attic
sun, forever gazing out to the blue Aegean sea.
I could not help but
commiserate with her unhappy lot. I too
would soon be exiled to another
alien, northern country, whose
language had a strange sound that I could not
understand.
Being more of a skeptic, I could not share Isadora's
enthu-
siasm for Communist Russia. Her idea of what it represented
was
na!ve in the extreme. As someone once remarked, "Good
sense travels on the
well-worn paths; genius never!"
In her idealized conception of Russia,
Isadora envisioned a
new Utopia where mankind lived in love, beauty, and
harmony.
What a rude awakening was in store for her!
"Life in Europe is
passe," she would say. "It is too hope-
lessly bourgeois ever to understand
what I really am after. Of
course, I realize that present conditions in the
Soviet Union are
difficult for a regime in the throes of stabilizing itself.
But it
can't be as bad as the papers make out, or the Bolsheviks would
not have sent this friendly invitation."
She had accepted the "friendly
invitation," and now we were
in for it; there was no turning back. Theresa
had said to me on
the day of parting, "Dear Irma, I wish you good luck, and
I do
hope you will find. a little happiness. I really do not like to
217
218 DUNCAN DANCER
think of you being all forsaken and exposed to
Isadora's caprices.
But I know you'll get through all right and your temper
won't
permit anybody to abuse you. So farewell-and may the gods
be with
you!"
The day prior to our departure, Mrs. K. (a member of the
Soviet
Commission in London), taking pity on us and our im-
pending adventure, took
me aside and said, "Poor Isadora! She
has no conception of what she has to
face. It will be very hard
for her. I don't want to discourage her, but I am
warning you.
You will all have a very difficult time."
July I2, I92I.
Went aboard the S.S. Baltanic, but are not sailing today. Very
small
boat but clean. Mary and Harle saw us off.
July IJ.
Sailed at 9 o'clock
in the morning for Reval. The weather is
lovely, the sea is a bit rough.
There are some nice passengers on
board, and Miss Ruth Mitchell from New
York is sailing with us.
July I6.
Having heaps of fun on board with some
jolly new friends in-
cluding the General. Playing Isadora's portable
gramophone and
dancing with the "Tiger Man." \V e arrived in Danzig at I o
P.M. It was very dark but mother waited for me on the dock. She
appears
to be the same. We motored into town with the General,
Miss Mitchell, and
others to ha1 e supper at the Danziger Hof.
Danced to Viennese music. We
spent the night at the hotel.
Isadora and I shared a room.
Sunday, July
I7·
This far north it remains dark for only a few hours. I got up
early,
drove back to the boat where I met mother at the dock.
She returned with me
to the Danziger Hof and we had break-
fast together. Just then Isadora and
Miss Mitchell left the dining
room. When Miss M. asked Isadora, "\Vho is
that woman Irma
is with?" I heard her say, "That is Irma's mother." And
turning
to me said, "You know I love your dear old mother. I wouldn't
cross the street with mine, but with yours-! could travel around
Exile
219
the world." [Isadora had been estranged from her mother for
many
years.] I told mother about this. Later we all drove back
to the Baltanic.
Brought mother home to the place she is staying
at. Poor mother, I was so
glad to have seen her again. We sailed
in the afternoon. Though it was quite
light at midnight, I slept
soundly, being very tired.
I had written
mother about my prospective trip to Russia
and told her the boat would stop
at Danzig. Despite the late
hour, there were many people on the dock when we
made fast,
mostly stevedores and men whose business it was to unload the
freight. I did not exactly expect mother to be there. I leaned
against
the railing on the upper deck and watched the scene,
which was illuminated
by a few dim lamps. Suddenly there was
a slight commotion in back of the
crowd, as of someone trying
desperately to push her way through. It was a
frail old lady
dressed in black, holding onto her hat with one hand and
hold-
ing up a huge bouquet of flowers with the other. At first I was
not
quite sure, but as she managed to push herself through the
crowd toward the
front I recognized mother. The gangplank
had not yet been lowered, so she
had no way of coming aboard.
I was about to ask the captain for permission
when the friendly
stevedores, hearing she had come all the way from Hamburg
to
see her daughter off to Russia, made short shrift of the situation.
Lifting her bodily up in the air, they passed her on to the sailors
on
deck, while she still clutched both her hat and bouquet. I led
her away from
the stares of the curious into my cabin.
Not having set eyes on each other
for seven years (not since
that day of my christening before the war), we
naturally had
much to talk about. The strange thing was that neither of us
could find any words. We just sat and held hands and looked at
each
other for a long time. What really was there to say? Liv-
ing on another
continent, divided not only by the whole width
of an ocean but also by a
completely different mode of existence,
and speaking a different language
now, I had grown away from
her to such an extent that we met as strangers.
The war years
220 DUNCAN DANCER
and suffering had taken their toll of my
mother. She had aged
considerably since last I saw her. She too must have
had difficulty
recognizing her little girl-a child no longer. Her first
words
were to chide me for looking so thin and pale.
The next day, after
the boat sailed and passed a narrow spit
of land jutting out into the
harbor, I was surprised to see a
small figure dressed in black with a long
white shawl across her
shoulders, standing below the lighthouse. Through a
pair of
binoculars I recognized mother. As the boat slowly turned out
to
sea, she removed her white shawl and waved and waved ....
I waved back, but
she could not see me. No sooner did we meet
than we parted again; it had
been like that ever since I left
home. Mother waved that scarf as long as
the boat was visible.
And I seemed to hear her say, sadly but hopefully, as
when we
said goodbye to each other, "Auf Wiedersehen! Auf Wieder-
sehen!"
July r9.
After dinner, at 8 o'clock, we anchored at Reval. A very
pic-
turesque town on a hill with many church steeples. Mrs. Lit-
vino:ff
of the Soviet Embassy came to meet us. Isadora was dis-
appointed to see only
her and not a red automobile full of black-
haired and black-eyed Bolshies.
All our luggage was sealed for
shipment to Moscow. They took us to
headquarters where Mrs.
Litvino:ff, who speaks English and is the
ambassador's wife, had
put us up on cots in her husband's study. Isadora
refused to stay
there. "Let's return to the boat and get Ruth Mitchell and
the
General and have dinner in town," she said. Had vodka, crabs,
and
danced all night at Mon Repos, a nice restaurant by the sea.
Spent the rest
of the night on the boat in Ruthie's cabin.
July 20.
Next morning
Isadora and I took a droshky to the hotel where
we had a hot bath together,
there being only enough hot water
for one, and a hot breakfast. The General
invited us to lunch.
Lovely food-chicken salad, good cold beer, and fresh
rasp-
Exile 221
berries with sour cream. Walked through the town. The
Gen-
eral very thoughtfully, in fear we would starve on our trip, had
a
food basket prepared as a goodbye present. I hated to see the
little
Baltanic sail off without us. Isadora hugged me and,
smiling bravely, said,
"Well, we are in for it now!" Leaving on
the midnight train for Petrograd.
Mrs. Litvinoff saw us off.
Funny feeling to ride in a Russian train again.
The same candle-
light and firing the engine with wood I remember from my two
previous visits.
July 21.
Stopped all day at Narva. We are now in
Red Russia. They in-
spected our luggage but did not confiscate anything.
Artists are
exempt. Isadora went to the market, bought some flowers and
raspberries, and we lunched from the General's basket in our
compartment, which we share with a young man, a diplomatic
courier. Went
to the village and returned followed by a group
of children who were curious
to see some strangers. Isadora
turned on her gramophone and made them dance
on the plat-
form. Then we gave them all the candy and fruit we had. Train
finally got going again after midnight.
July 22.
We arrived at 1 o
in the morning at Petro grad, as it is now
called, and were driven to
headquarters, the former Hotel As-
toria. We walked along the Nevsky
Prospect. How changed
everything is! The town appears dead and infinitely
sad. Empty
shop windows, but the people do not look starved, though they
are all dressed in dirty rags. Glad to leave for Moscow.
Sunday, July
24.
At a snail's pace crawled into Moscow at 4 A.M. Nobody at the
station to meet us. Took a cab and drove to the foreign office
and who
should we meet there? Our first Bolshevik, none other
than Count Florinsky
from Long Beach! What a joke! Ele-
gantly dressed in dinner clothes, he had
just come from a party.
He invited us in to his rooms. Isadora and I
couldn't stop laugh-
ing, it was really too funny.
222 DUNCAN DANCER
Isadora noted in her memoirs:
I went to Russia accompanied only by my
pupil Irma and my
faithful maid Jeanne. \V e had been told such terrible
things that
as the train passed the red flag at the frontier, we would not
have been surprised if the pictured Bolshevik with red flannel
shirt,
black beard, and a knife between his teeth, had appeared to
violate us all
three and then cut our throats as an evening's amuse-
ment. We all confessed
to some shiver of excitement. . . .
Our first night at Moscow we left Jeanne
in the one room
available at the hotel, in the one bed, weeping hysterically
because
she had seen "des grands rats," and we spent the night (with
the
young man from the train), wandering about the mystically
beautiful city of
the many churches and golden domes. He talked,
more and more inspired, of
the future of communism, until dawn
we were also ready to die for Lenin and
the cause. Then some
clouds blew up and it began to rain. Our guide seemed
supremely
indifferent to the wet and I also noticed now that we hadn't
eaten anything for fourteen hours. I found, after meeting others,
that a
real Communist is indifferent to heat or cold or hunger or
any material
sufferings. As the early Christian martyrs, they live
so entirely in ideas
that they simply don't notice these things. But
Irma and I were worn out;
and so we tramped back to the train.
July 25.
\Ve have been waiting all
morning to hear from Tovarish Luna-
charsky, who invited us here, but didn't
get word till noon. They
conducted us to Madame Geltzer's apartment. The
well-known
ballerina is away on a tour.
There we met Ilya Schneider, a
journalist and an intimate
friend of Ekaterina Geltzer. He wrote in his
reminiscences:
The telephone on my table rang, and Lunacharsky's secretary
said that the NARKOM wanted to speak to me. Lunacharsky
had reported the
arrival of the famous dancer, Isadora Duncan,
who wanted to give her labor
and experience in the artistic
education of children to Soviet Russia.
"We expected Duncan in three days from now," Lunacharsky
Exile 223
said to me, "but she came unexpectedly yesterday and had to stay
at a
room in the Savoy Hotel, which, at the present time, is not
at all well
built, one can even say it's a wreck. '-Vhile we are
looking for other
lodgings, couldn't we put her up for a while
in Ekaterina Vasilyevna
Geltzer's apartment who is away and
has, so I hear, entrusted her apartment
to you?"
I didn't doubt Geltzer would agree to this but nonetheless I
asked permission to call back in a few minutes while I consulted
with
Geltzer's sister, the wife of I van Mikhailovich Moskvin.
She of course
agreed and I informed Lunacharsky about this.
"Please go to Geltzer's
apartment," Lunacharsky replied,
"settle her there and look after her for a
while."
When I entered Geltzer's apartment ... we were intro-
duced. I
asked our guest if she was satisfied with her quarters
and how she felt. . •
. Isadora, dissatisfied, frowned, but I
couldn't understand why-maybe my
German pronunciation was
at fault-! thought. However, I found out later that
her dis-
pleasure arose on account of my addressing her as "Miss
Dun-
can." Despising all remnants of the world she had left, she
wanted
to be addressed as Comrade or Tovarish Duncan ....
In the first conversation
that sprung up between us at the tea
table Duncan told me that she saw the
"Look of the new world"
only in the expression of the faces and eyes of the
Red Army men
whom she saw marching in the streets. . . .
A young woman
noiselessly entered the room.
"This is Irma-the only one of my pupils who
has decided to
come with me to Moscow," Isadora said. "You know, they
frightened us with endless horrors which we would have to live
through
and see here."
A big, full-bosomed person flew headlong into the room,
bab-
bling quickly in French and making "big eyes" while clapping
her
hands together. This was Jeanne, her French maid without
whom Duncan did not
travel. It turned out that Duncan's bag-
gage had arrived. I stepped out onto
the balcony of Gcltzer's
apartment and saw below baskets and suitcases and
trunks rising
up like a tower on the cart. . . .
At the time of our
talk, Jeanne was bustling about the table
serving tea and unloading jars of
jam and marmalade, chocolate
224 DUNCAN DANCER
bars, sponge cakes and
small packages wrapped in oil paper which
she noisily tore open. . . . I
peered into the huge basket and
saw that it was filled with bread.
"Why
did you bring so much bread with you from behind the
border?" I asked
Duncan. She had no time to answer when
Irma blurted out with a laugh, "We
still have two more such
baskets!"
Isadora indignantly explained that
these small loaves of bread
were dietary . . . she burst out laughing and
said in her special
German language in which she sprinkled French and
sometimes
English words, "They all insisted that we take a lot of bread
with us since there isn't any in Russia."
At this point the bell rang.
Lunacharsky made an appearance.
I was not going to hinder their discussion
(for they spoke French
together) and left.
Lunacharsky commissioned Ilya
Schneider to look after us
for a while. This he did for the rest of the time
we lived in
Russia; first as interpreter, then as business manager of the
Mos-
cow school. He was a slim young man of medium height, with
dark eyes
and dark hair slicked back. We all became inseparable
friends. Lunacharsky,
Commissioner of Education, a cultured
author and playwright, published an
article shortly after his
interview with Isadora, which he titled "Our
Guest." The article
is too long to be quoted in its entirety, but a few
extracts may be
of interest:
What end had she in coming to Russia? The
main end was an
educational one. She came to Russia with the approval of
Nar-
kompross and Narkomindel, who made her an offer to or-
ganize in this
country a big school of a new type. . . . Duncan
believed with all her soul
that, in spite of the famine and the
lack of necessities, in spite of the
terrible seriousness of the mo-
ment and the consequent preoccupation of the
government officials
with other vital questions, a beginning of her idea
could be made .
. . . Her vision reaches far. She is thinking of a large
govern-
ment school with a thousand children. She is willing for the
moment, however, to begin with a smaller number. They shall
Exile 225
receive elementary education through our teachers. Their physical
and
aesthetic education shall be under Duncan's sole direc-
tion ....
At
present Duncan is going through a phase of rather militant
communism that
sometimes makes us smile involuntarily ....
In one instance she was asked by
some of our Communist com-
rades to a small, one might say, family fete. She
found it possible
to call their attention to their bad Communist taste,
because of the
bourgeois surroundings and because of their behavior, which
was
so far from the flaming ideal she had painted in her imagination.
It
would have developed into a small scandal, if our comrades
had not
understood how much original charm was contained in
the naive criticism
which was in substance true.
The People's Commissariat of Education greets
Russia's guest
and believes that, on the occasion of her first public
appearance,
the proletariat will confirm the greeting. Duncan has been
called
the Queen of Movement, but of all her movements, this last
one-her coming to Red Russia in spite of being scared off-is
the most
beautiful and demands the greatest applause.
When Isadora and I arrived in
Moscow during the third
year of the Red Revolution, we were the first
foreign women,
except for Anne Sheridan, to come to that country since the
uprising in 1918. The rest of the civilized world trembled to
come near
it. America, and most Western nations, had not yet
recognized the new regime
under Lenin and Trotsky. Lenin,
the father of the Bolshevik Revolution, once
advocated that all
the streets should be paved with gold, for as a means of
exchange
that metal would be made obsolete. We found the streets littered
with every conceivable object but gold. Money in any kind of
currency
was out of circulation, throwing the whole economy
into chaos. Everything
could be had free-if it was available. In
this short period of practical
communism, people received sus-
tenance and other commodities necessary to
their existence ac-
cording to their individual needs. Wherever one looked,
one
saw endless lines of people queuing up for food. We, too, were
put
on rations, or paiok as they called it for artists. Once a fort-
DUNCAN
DANCER
night Jeanne went with her big market basket to the distributing
center in the Kremlin to collect the rations consisting of white
flour,
pressed caviar, tea, sugar, and potatoes. For the rest of
that first year we
lived chiefly on potatoes, a diet we shared with
all those lucky enough to
obtain them, for elsewhere-outside
of Moscow-a terrible famine raged. The
famine would have
caused a national disaster but for the food distributed
from
America through the Hoover Commission.
Most of the month of August
we spent in the country in a
small isba, or peasant's cottage, fashioned of
rough-hewn logs.
Living simply off the land, drinking goat's milk and eating
goat's cheese, we waited patiently for the government to find a
suitable
house for the school.
At last, on August 23, two carriages drove us and our
lug-
gage back to town. They stopped in front of No. 20 Pretchis-
tenka,
formerly a fashionable street running from the Cathedral
of the Savior,
visible from afar, to the Zoubovsky Boulevard.
\Ve entered a house of
palatial proportions done in the rococo
style. It had belonged to Ushkoff, a
wealthy tea-plantation
owner, whose wife, Alexandra Balashova, had been a
leading
member of the Bolshoi Ballet. She had only recently fled the
country.
One entered by a rather small door-small, that is, in
rela-
tion to the immensity of the building-from Pretchistenka and
came
upon a terra-cotta-tinted Pompeiian room that had four
marble columns and
marble benches, whose backs were deco-
rated with bas-reliefs of nymphs and
satyrs. In a niche stood a
marble statue of the goddess Venus. From this
vestibule, one
ascended by a broad white marble stairway to the grand hall.
This hall had tapestries affixed to its four walls and a ceiling
painted
with murals depicting scenes from Greek mythology.
The upstairs rooms were
decorated in a surprising variety of
styles. There was the Empire room, the
Louis XV boudoir, the
oak-paneled Gothic dining room, the Turkish smoking
room
that led into a winter garden, and so on-but there was only
Exile
227
one bathroom. Isadora installed herself in the master bedroom,
which
was decorated with every conceivable Napoleonic emblem
from bees to swans in
red and gold. I occupied the Louis XV
boudoir next door, and we shared the
bathroom between.
Of course all these elaborately decorated rooms were
com-
pletely denuded of furniture. The last official occupant, Bela
Kun,
had filched everything including the bric-a-brac; he had
even stripped the
silk damask off the walls. The only fixtures
remaining in my room, apart
from the large marble fireplace
(which was a comfort to me during the arctic
winters), con-
sisted of a tall mirror in an elaborate gold frame over a
rosewood
and ormolu commode, and the delicately constructed Saxe china
chandeliers. My bed stood on a raised dais, enclosed by a gilded
wooden
balustrade, in one corner of the former boudoir. Two
large double windows
opposite opened onto the spacious court-
yard, enclosed by additional wings
of the house.
This private sanctum was home to me all the years I lived
in Moscow.
On the third of December we officially opened the school
with twenty-five children especially chosen for their dancing tal-
ents.
Often in the beginning the dance room could not be heated,
and classes had
to be canceled. Frequently we went hungry. But
the enthusiastic little
pupils clamored for their lessons, and we
taught them to dance "so as not to
think of it," as Isadora had
prophesied to Madame Sartoris.
The
government had originally intended to settle us in the
warm south, the
Crimea, where the Tsar's old summer palace
could easily accommodate a
thousand children. For that reason,
we had come to Russia without sufficient
warm clothing. As the
days began to get more sharply cold, we began to
wonder about
the winter when temperatures sink below zero. An official
sug-
gested we go to the fur storage warehouse and there choose
garments
for ourselves. He obtained a written order, and in
great excitement Isadora
and I set out for the warehouse. "We
must be like the other working people,"
Isadora said. She had
228 DUNCAN DANCER
admired the sheepskin coats-or
shubas-the peasants wore into
town on market days, and suggested we get
similar ones. How-
ever, that was not my idea of a proper fur coat.
At
the warehouse we saw rows on rows of magnificent furs
of every
description-enough to make one's head reel. I quickly
whispered to my foster
mother, "Don't take anything but Rus-
sian sable! "
Isadora looked
shocked. She picked the most modest speci-
mens she could find. For herself
she chose a long mink coat
lined with ermine and for me a mink coat with a
sable collar.
With these over our arms, we marched out of the warehouse.
But guards stopped us at the door, explaining that we had to
leave the
coats until they could be properly evaluated.
A week passed without any sign
of the fur coats arriving at
Pretchistenka. When we called up the warehouse,
we were in-
formed of the fantastic price we had to pay. Simply out of the
question, we could not afford them. I turned to Isadora. "You
see! You
should have let me have my wish. I would at least
have owned a sable coat
once in my life, even if only for a week!"
She laughed and told me to have
patience, that I would
eventually receive a fur coat. For Christmas she
presented me
with a nice coat of silver-gray squirrel to keep me from
freezing
to death in that arctic climate.
The fourth anniversary of the
Russian Revolution was to be
celebrated on the seventh of November, 1921.
Lunacharsky
asked Isadora if she would dance at the gala performance at the
Bolshoi Theatre. All the tickets were to be distributed free to
the
various workers' organizations and the Red Army. She ac-
cepted the honor
with pleasure and decided to dance T chaikov-
sky's Sixth Symphony and his
"Marche Slav." Interwoven in
the composition of the "Marche Slav" are
several bars of the
Tsarist Hymn. Several officials objected to her dancing
to that
music, fearing it might call forth a counter-revolutionary
dem-
onstration among some of the people. Their fear was completely
unfounded. They had not seen Isadora's interpretation of the
Exile 229
theme and did not know that she used the Tsarist Hymn motif
to express
the utter oppression of the masses beaten down by
the knout. Her dancing and
miming of the "Marche Slav" had
a tremendous impact on the audience. It was
a magnificent per-
formance, not in the least "pretty"-which may be the
reason
people schooled in ballet found it shocking-but its stark power
was obvious to everyone else. A critic wrote in I svestia the next
day:
Isadora Duncan depicted in moving gestures a bent, op-
pressed, burdened,
fettered slave, who falls exhausted to his
knees. Now see what happens to
this slave at the first notes of
the accursed Tsarist Hymn. He lifts his
weighed-down head, and
his face shows an awful grimace of hate. With all his
force he
straightens himself and breaks his chains. Then he brings from
behind his back his crooked and stiffened arms-forward to a
new and
joyful life. The allegory was understood by every-
one ...•
The thrill of
the evening came when after the emotion of the
"Marche Slav" calmed, the
orchestra began to play the "Inter-
nationale," and Isadora moved to the
center of the stage, draped
in red . . . when the dancer had mimed the first
stanza, the
singing audience, standing up, saw Irma come from the side of
the stage leading by the hand a little child, who was followed by
another and another-a hundred little children in red tunics,
each with
the right hand held high, clasping fraternally the left
hand of the one
before, moving against the blue curtains, form-
ing a vivid, living frieze,
and then circling the vast stage and sur-
rounding, with childish arms
outstretched toward the light, the
noble, undaunted, and radiant figure of
their great teacher.
The allegory was understood by everyone, the reviewer
said,
all, that is, except the confraternity of the Russian Ballet whose
sole concept of the kinetic art represents the PRETTY dance. Of
course
Isadora's March Slav was not meant to be pretty, on the
contrary. But that
did not seem to penetrate their limited under-
standing of what the true art
of the dance should represent in
all its multiple facets. Isadora Duncan's
individualistic approach
230 DUNCAN DANCER
to the dance was apparently
entirely incomprehensible to their
narrow, drilled-in conformity of
thinking. Since then, some
leaders of the Russian Ballet have publicly
voiced their total
incomprehension in really quite vulgar and stupid
criticism of
her unique art, obviously motivated by envy because of their
own lack of creative originality.
Isadora's grand scheme of founding a
free school supported
by a generous government slowly began to disintegrate.
Finan-
cial assistance was not forthcoming. The spacious building was
about the only thing the government provided free of cost to
further the
work for which Isadora Duncan came to Soviet
Russia. Lenin, the ruler of Red
Russia, being above all a realist,
found it necessary to abolish War
Communism in order to put
his country on its financial feet again. In
December of r 92 r, he
inaugurated the New Economic Policy, called NEP. A
money
system was re-established, standardizing the ruble on a gold
basis, and workers again became wage-earners.
Lunacharsky himself came
to Pretchistenka to inform us of
these important matters and to tell us that
the serious financial
crisis made it impossible for the government to
support the
school. Isadora's idealism was blown sky high. She was right
back where she started-saddled with the enormous upkeep of
the newly
installed school housing more than fifty people. As
of old, she saw herself
once more forced to give paying per-
formances in order to support her
idealistic enterprise. "Plus
fa change, plus c'est la meme chose."
At
this moment in the history of her school, Isadora met the
young Russian poet
Sergei Essenine, to whom she was married
in May of the following year. From
that time, she became more
and more restless in Moscow. She felt that she
must leave Rus-
sia. This was necessary for the simple reason that she needed
desperately to replenish her private coffers. She asked me to go
with
her. "You know yourself that there is no future here for
us and our idea,"
she confided to me while in a discouraged
mood. "Come with me to America,
half of everything I have
Exile 231
is yours." But she quickly added,
jokingly, "Half of everything
-but my husband!"
I advised her not to
take her husband to either Western
Europe or America, foreseeing nothing but
disaster, for he was
a neurotic man, not the type to be suddenly uprooted
from his
familiar environment. She would not listen to me, and I
cer-
tainly wanted no part of that mad menage. I much preferred to
stay
in Russia. Besides, what about the children? The thought
of sending them
back to their miserable homes after they had
become used to the school (and
loved it) was more than I
could bear. Remembering my own childhood and what
dancing
with Isadora meant to me, I had not the heart to forsake them
now. And so I stayed, come what might, for better or for worse;
resolved
to do my utmost to make this thing I helped to start
a success.
Before
leaving, Isadora handed me a check for a hundred
dollars. "That is all I can
spare," she said, "but I shall send
more from America."
The trouble was
that these one hundred dollars did not last
very long. So when they were
gone, here I was, in my early,
hopeful twenties; left stranded in a strange,
forbidding land
without a kopek to my name. What would the future bring?
Little Dividend
To celebrate the official opening of the Moscow school,
some
friends had invited Isadora and myself to a night club. Situ-
ated
in the basement of an apartment house, it was the only sub
rosa night club
in town. Being foreigners, we always created a
mild sensation wherever we
went. The populace would approach
as close as they could and silently stare
at us, as if seeing crea-
tures from another planet. As a celebrity, Isadora
was given the
red-carpet treatment at the night club. When the master of
ceremonies saw her seated at a ringside table with her entourage,
he
focused the spotlight on her. Then he made a little intro-
ductory speech to
the assembled guests. In an allusion to Bala-
shova's secret flight from Red
Russia and Isadora's candid
arrival, he said, "Now that the New Economic
Policy is in
force, our government has recently made a very smart deal by
exchanging worthless Russian rubles for valuable American
valiuta.
Comrades, I have the great honor of introducing Isadora
Duncan!"
When
the applause died down, he continued, "It appears
they obtained not only
valuable American valiuta-but even a
little dividend!"
The little
dividend was me. Would this dividend, reinvested,
bring forth a goodly sum
some day? That was the question.
Confronted with the biggest challenge of my
career so far, I
asked myself whether I really had it in me to make good.
Isa-
dora had left me in charge of the artistic direction of the Moscow
institution. But I must explain that without Ilya Schneider's
Little
Dividend 233
clever business administration and the devoted help of the
other
co-workers associated with me in this difficult venture, I could
not have achieved what I did.
Let no one imagine that it was an easy
matter to earn a
living in those lean early years of Revolutionary Russia.
Apart
from my free room and keep, I received no salary. Any money
I
could possibly hope to earn would have to come from paid
performances. Up to
this point I had appeared only as a mem-
ber of a group. Would the general
public care to see me dance
alone? At one of her own recitals, Isadora had
once introduced
me at the end to the public, who gave me a few cheers. That
was all. Except for leading the pupils onto the stage in the
"Internationale" as a sort of grande finale, I was not permitted
to
dance. I therefore decided it would be of importance for my
future work in
Russia that I should show the people what I
could do, both as dancer and as
teacher. To achieve this, I
forced myself to cultivate patience and to
concentrate on work-
ing hard for a whole year with the most talented of my
pupils.
In Russia I had done all the teaching because Isadora never
instructed beginners. Every so often she would show them a
gesture, but
nothing else. I had no doubt whatever that I would
attain good results. Here
is where my practical experience in
developing my own method of teaching in
Darmstadt proved to
be of great help. And, more important, my foster mother
fully
endorsed it, for Isadora herself once said, "I have watched you
work. You never speak about it. You just quietly go in there to
teach
every day for an hour or so, and the next time I see the
children-they can
dance!" Her saying this gave me hope and
bolstered my courage in pursuing my
goal.
To increase my effectiveness as a teacher, I had to study
Russian.
Luckily I pick up foreign languages easily. By the end
of my third year in
the Soviet Union, I spoke and read this
difficult language fluently. My
knowledge of German and the
Greek alphabet were helpful in getting me
started. Being able
to converse freely furthered my acquaintance with the
Russian
234 DUNCAN DANCER
people, whom I came to understand and know
more intimately
than do most foreigners.
A month after my foster mother
left, I received a letter from
her, from Wiesbaden, Germany:
Dear
Irma-
I have been expecting every day to leave for London, and
passports
each day delayed. Therefore I telegraphed you three
times but waited to
write from London. We are so tired with all
the waiting that we have come
here to rest and recuperate. Lon-
don performances are all arranged • . .
only the waiting on
account of formalities.
Berlin is very quiet and
dull-was delighted to leave it. The
house in Grunewald was lost through the
war, etc. The lawyer
handed me the absurd sum of 90,000 inflation marks for
it. All
my moneys, properties, etc., in Paris were attached so we have
nothing but difficulties. Therefore I could not send you money
from
Berlin. Hope everything can be cleared up soon. I am en-
closing check of ten
pounds as experiment; if you succeed in
cashing it I can send you others. To
send money through bank
is impossible.
From then on, I received no
further funds from her. Nor
did I hear from her again till she returned to
Russia a year later.
That summer and the following winter, I lived on the
simple
fare the school provided, with an occasional dinner out with
friends; while my foster mother toured the States. All my ef-
forts were
concentrated on my forthcoming debut as a solo
performer in Moscow.
In
the spring of I 923, on the twenty-ninth of April, I made
my deb':t with a
group of my little pupils at a Sunday matinee.
It took place in the Comedia,
the former Korsh Theatre, situ-
ated on the Petrovka in the center of Moscow.
What a lovely,
sunny day! Driving to the theatre in the morning in an open
carriage for this important event in my career, I thought of
Isadora,
and how she must have felt once. Was she as proud
then as I felt now-on that
date in July in 1905 when she
Little Dividend 235
showed off her pupils
for the first time to the public? I remem-
ber what a thrill I experienced
seeing the elegant cream-colored
posters with my name spelled in Russian in
huge gold letters,
splashed on the walls all over town. Pierre Luboshutz, a
well-
known Russian pianist, played for us. What can I say about the
artistic merit of my debut? Let the reviewer speak:
Anyone who sees this
performance for the first time can imme-
diately appreciate its enormous
value in an artistic and educa-
tional sense. It has immense public
significance. What strikes one
above all is the extraordinary physical
control of the dancers.
Irma Duncan, herself, is a very distinguished
artist. She trans-
mits the interpretation of this dance of the future with
great
ease and is besides full of temperament. She has a wonderful way
of using her draperies to excellent effect. She danced Schubert's
"Marche Militaire" beautifully, and with great skill manipulated
a big
silken scarf that floated in the wind. Irma is the light, love,
and
animating flame of her encircling young students.
The strong, healthy,
uncomplicated art of the young dancers,
and the splendid mastery of Irma
Duncan herself, harmonize
with the problems of our modern age. We are very
glad that
the Duncan Dancers came here and we recommend to everyone
who
has the means to in vest a poltinik [fifty kopeks] to go and
see them dance.
Two weeks later we danced in Leningrad. It amused me to
see how the
history of the school repeated itself when I led my
little group to the
station on our first tour. Each girl carried
her own little suitcase filled
with dance tunics. Remembering
my childhood as a fledgling dancer and the
discipline admin-
istered to me, I saw to it that a more enlightened attitude
pre-
vailed while I was in charge. Every problem was explained to
the
children intelligently, and they gave me their whole-hearted
cooperation
without anyone's needing to take drastic disciplinary
measures. My main
concern for these citizens of an autocratic
dictatorship was for them to
grow up and develop in a congenial,
friendly atmosphere, free of too much
restraint. The first Rus-
DUNCAN DANCER
sian word I used when teaching
them to dance was svoboda-
freedom. Freedom in movement and in expression
and-most
important-freedom of thought. They understood, and gave
me
their love and devotion in return for my genuine interest
in their welfare.
They always called me "lrmushka."
Though postal communications between
Russia and the out-
side world were extremely uncertain, I nevertheless sent
pic-
tures, articles, programs, and posters to my former colleagues
to
inform them of my work. I knew they would be interested to
find out how the
Moscow school was progressing. The three of
them-Anna, Lisa, and
Margot-planned a tour through the
United States in the fall.
Lisa told
me later that she had attended Isadora's all-Wag-
ner program on July 3-quite
marvelous, though it contained
two numbers she had never rehearsed. The
"Bacchanale," Lisa
said, had been wilder than ever-"as though Hell itself
had
entered on scene." Isadora had also spoken to the audience-in
the
dark, for the police had turned out the lights-saying she
was going back to
Moscow because "la bourgeoisie m'a tuee."
Lisa added that Essenine had
received some Russian papers,
in one of which was a long and enthusiastic
article about me
and my work. Reading it, he screamed at Isadora with all
the
malice of which he was capable, "Oh, Irma bolshoi success! Bravo
Irma!" But Isadora made no reply.
At about that time I received a letter
from Anna. She had
recently come out of an unhappy experience, which made
her
look at the world with bitterness and melancholy. She wrote:
My
dearest Irma:
Paris, 6 Avenue Montaigne
June I I, 1923
Although I
did not write to you, dear, I often think of you and
we frequently speak of
you. Especially since we received your nice
letter and you told of your
plucky work and doings. I certainly
am more than astonished and admire you
for what you have
accomplished with the school and what you call so cutely
"My
Little Dividend 237
children." My heartiest congratulations and good
wishes, dear,
for your own future as well as that of the school.
I need
not tell you of many things Lisa wrote you already. It is
a great tragedy
that is now passing with Isadora and I think the
final curtain will come
soon. Alas, the best intentions of the al-
ready so few friends cannot bring
help, unfortunately. She was
wonderful at her two performances and if only
she would just do
that-live for her work and dance as only she of all people
in
the world knows how.
We are struggling to go on with what she gave
us, in spite of
her. And I hope we shall be able to do as much and more than
we did last time in America, when we return in the autumn.
Dear, it
would be lovely to go and spend the summer with you
as you suggest, but of
course you know the reasons . . . you will
perhaps understand me, Irma dear,
but I am another person in
my inner self. And I am only trying to do what I
can to con-
tinue with our own work as long as it is still good and strong
enough.
Go on, dear Irma, you have found a great hold in your new
work, and I admire you for it. All the luck in the world-and
take much
love from your always affectionate, old friend,
Anna
That summer in
Moscow, Comrade Podvowsky, the Minis-
ter of Sports and Physical Culture,
taking due note of my suc-
cessful appearances with my pupils, told me, "What
a wonderful
thing it would be if you could make this fine work available to
many more children of our working population-to all those
thousands of
boys and girls who cannot leave the hot and dusty
city in the summertime. It
would be a real boon to them to
have some outdoor activity for their benefit
and pleasure."
He promised to place the big sports arena, an open-air
stadium just outside Moscow, at our disposal. Willing to try
this
experiment in mass teaching, we put an advertisement in
the papers, offering
free lessons. The response was tremendous!
It seemed as if all the children
in town wanted to dance. Pod-
vowsky supplied a brass band. With the
musicians leading us
DUNCAN DANCER
and with my own pupils setting the
pace, we carried a banner
with the slogan of our school emblazed in crimson
letters on
white-"A free spirit in a healthy body"-as we proceeded
from
the Pretchistenka to the stadium. A steadily mounting
crowd of children
dressed in short red tunics and bare feet,
waiting to join us at each street
corner, swelled the ranks of
our parade.
With the assistance of my young
pupils, I taught five
hundred children the entire summer long. It was an
inspiring
sight to see them all dancing together-"like a field of red
pop-
pies swaying in the wind," as Isadora said when she saw them.
They
made immense progress in so short a time. The Commu-
nist officials took
notice, and Lunacharsky wrote an article in
Isvestzia, saying:
The
Duncan School, conducting important work with hun-
dreds of Moscow workers'
children, presents one of the priceless
and interesting artistic-educational
institutions of the U.S.S.R.
The students of the Duncan School, renouncing
their own sum-
mer vacation under the guidance and direction of Irma Duncan,
conducted throughout the summer open classes in the sports arena
of the
Red Stadium. This occupation gave brilliant results. The
children, who
looked weak and timid, soon became healthy,
tanned and literally reborn.
The Duncan School itself was created under immense diffi-
culties. But
today I read with pleasure the delighted opinions of
the central press about
the work they are doing. Recognizing for
the Duncan School extraordinary
significance and an enormous
future in the matter of harmonic development of
a new genera-
tion in Soviet Russia, the workers count it extremely desirable
and necessary to send large groups of their own children to the
school.
Other and equally appreciative articles appeared in the
press, many with
pictures showing the children in action. All
this publicity could not escape
the top leaders in the Kremlin,
though Lenin himself-popularly called
"Ilyich"-was living
Little Dividend 239
in the country, recuperating
from a severe illness. The entire
Duncan School was taken completely by
surprise one day when
a car drove up with a couple of military men in
uniform and
a little girl, holding a large bouquet of flowers in her hands.
The little girl, in Pioneer uniform, held out the bouquet and
made a
little speech: "These flowers are from Ilyich for Duncan
with his
compliments." "From Vladimir Il yich r" we inquired
incredulously, "You mean
Tovarish Lenin?" "Yes, he picked
them this morning in his garden and told me
to present them."
Since Isadora was not there, I accepted them with thanks.
"Is there a card with them?" I inquired. "No," retorted the
little
Pioneer, whose father was military aide to Russia's ruler.
"Only his good
wishes for the wonderful work the Duncan
school is doing."
I placed
Lenin's flowers, such as grow in any man's garden,
in cool water in a
crystal vase on the mantel in my room. During
the long ride from his dacha
in the country they had wilted a
bit in the open car under a noonday sun. I
hoped they would
revive. But like the great man who had sent them, they did
not last long. Six months later he too faded away, to lie em-
balmed
forever in Red Square under the Kremlin wall, wor-
shiped by the masses as a
god.
The highest award in Soviet Russia is the Order of Lenin.
After his
death, everyone in our school felt proud that our work
had been given this
lovely award on the order of Lenin himself.
Somehow this seemed to crown my
own efforts with success.
It does not appear unduly boastful, I hope, if I
confess to
having felt a thrill of real accomplishment. For the benefit of
all those children who profited from it, the "Little Dividend"
had at
last turned into a worth-while investment indeed.
A Last J7isit
"LENIN
is dead!"
I can still hear these words spoken when my train stopped
at
the frontier the day he died. My instant reaction was that
maybe now, with
the great leader of the Communist Revolution
gone, the unfortunate Russian
people could anticipate a more
liberal regime. Alas, history has shown that
the next ruler
turned out to be even more of a despot than Lenin had been.
I recalled the early days of our coming to Soviet Russia.
When, stirred
by a wild enthusiasm for the new idea that was
born here, Isadora-who then
saw everything through red-
colored glasses, as it were-cried out, "Isn't
communism won-
derful!'' And I, politically every bit as ignorant as she
though
not as gullible, cried out in disgust with the unrealism of this
new ideology, so incompatible with my own common sense,
"Communism is
the bunk!"
"How can you say that," she protested, "when all the
the-
atres and concerts are free for the common people to attend?
That is
something I have always dreamed of!"
"That is exactly what I mean," I
retorted, "when I main-
tain communism makes no sense. Everything is free-but
the
people!"
I was definitely not receptive to my new environment. I
steadfastly refused to share my foster mother's vision of a con-
tented
proletariat, happily building a new life for themselves.
Or, as she
expressed it in an article she wrote at the time for
L'Humanite: "All men
will be brothers carried away by the
great wave of liberation that has just
been born here. • . • The
A Last Visit
prophecies of Beethoven,
Nietzsche and Walt Whitman, are
being realized."
As I look back now, I
recall the utter sense of boredom with
which I contemplated living among the
Bolsheviks. In my eager
youth, I expected a finer life than this to be my
lot. Impatience
to be gone and to return to the civilized existence I had
led be-
fore was a feeling I had to suppress. I thus started out to
ful-
fill my mission in Russia in a state of utter mental depression
of
which I never spoke to Isadora.
In my effort to keep the establishment
functioning during
Isadora's absence of more than a year, I had exerted
myself
too much and I was not accustomed to such a meagre, unbalanced
diet. The strenuous physical work and deprivations had under-
mined my
health. Never very robust, with a delicate nervous
system, I lost so much
weight that I was a mere shadow. Night-
mares kept me awake at night, and the
many worries and
frustrations upset my metabolism, so that I suffered from a
severe stomach ailment. The doctor prescribed a special diet
and ordered
me under the care of a nurse. It so happened that
the mother of one of the
pupils, Elisaveta Gregorievna My-
sovsky, was a registered nurse. During the
First World War
she had been stationed at the military hospital in Tula,
under
the direction of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna. She cared
for me
day and night.
At this time, my foster mother returned from America.
Seeing how my health had suffered while she was away, she
suggested I
come with her to the south for a cure. To start out,
we headed for the
Caucasus where in Kislavodsk-a watering
place as famous as Vichy in France-!
took the baths in spar-
kling Narzan waters. To replenish her coffers,
Isadora decided
to give performances while I acted as her helper backstage.
It
was there that I had the famous fight with the two armed
Tcheka men
when they tried to stop her from dancing the
"Marche Slav" because of the
Tsarist Hymn. While Isadora
stepped in front of the curtain and notified the
audience that
DUNCAN DANCER
members of the police had come backstage to
arrest her, I
forcibly pushed the armed and uniformed Tcheka men
(fore-
runners of the dreaded GPU) off the sacred blue dance carpet,
not
knowing how close I came to being shot for doing so. Only
because the
president of the local political bureau happened to
be in the audience, we
got off scot free, and Isadora received
permission to proceed with her
program as planned.
After that episode, she felt it might be better and
safer
for us to move further afield. That summer of 1923, we went
on to
Baku, the famous oil city on the shores of the Caspian
Sea. From there we
continued our journey to Tiflis. I loved
this beautiful old Georgian
capital-the wonderful hot sulphur
baths and daily massage, the excellent
wines, and the excursions
in the mountainous countryside way up to Mount
Elbrus. There
was a nice little restaurant, overhanging the wildly rushing
river Kura, that we liked to visit in the evenings. There, over
a bottle
of Zinandaly, with shashlik, we enjoyed listening to
the orchestra playing
native music on native instruments and
watching the Georgian dances.
The
Caucasian tour ended at Batum of the Black Sea, which
lay blistering under
the scorching heat of the last days of
August. The government placed a
beautiful little villa high up
on a cliff at our disposal. In this same
villa Trotsky had lived
during his stay at the Black Sea port. And before
the Revolution
it had been the property of a wealthy Frenchman, who had
planted the garden with a magnificent profusion of European
and tropical
flowers. Unfortunately the rainy season began to
spoil our sojourn, and we
proceeded to Yalta in the Crimea.
We resumed life at the Pretchistcnka
school early in Oc-
tober. Separated from her mad poet husband, Isadora got
do\vn
to serious work with the pupils. Though the memorable trip to
the
south of Russia-where living seemed easier and pleasanter
for both visitors
and population alike-had restored my strength
sufficiently for me to
continue my classes, it had not helped me
A Last Visit 243
get rid of my
mental depression. After two and a half years of
Russian exile, what I
needed most was to get away from it all.
Like a caged bird, I desperately
needed to escape, spread my
wings, and inhale for a while the heady air of
freedom. With
some of the money I had saved from my performances, I
decided to take a long vacation by myself.
I left in January, via
Warsaw, for Berlin. In my hurry to
make contact with the outside world after
my exile, I rushed into
the station buffet at the Polish frontier, not
merely to eat but
to buy up all the newspapers and magazines that were
unobtain-
able inside Soviet Russia and that I had missed so much.
I
stayed in Berlin just long enough to give a performance
in the Bluethner
Saal. The real goal of my vacation was my
favorite big city-Paris. Before
leaving for the French capital,
I decided to go to Hamburg for a visit with
mother. I was now
in a much happier frame of mind. Ever since the train
bearing
me westward had crossed the Red frontier into Poland, my
spirit
experienced a wonderful lift, almost as if some oppressive
physical weight
had been lifted from my shoulders. I believe
a similar sensation was
experienced by every foreign visitor to
the USSR during those years when the
dreaded GPU, knocking
on the door in the middle of the night, spread cold
terror into the
hearts of the people. Unless one has lived in an atmosphere
of
this kind, one does not really appreciate the meaning of the
word
freedom.
I arrived in the town of my birth in the last week of
Feb-
ruary. The train had been delayed because of a heavy snowfall.
Over
the door of mother's apartment, which she shared with my
half-sister, hung a
garland of evergreens; in the center was a
big ''W cleo me" sign. "How late
you are! Mother has been
frantic!" my sister greeted me exactly as if she
had seen me the
day before, rather than thirteen years ago. A family
gathering
greeted me joyously when I entered the sitting room. They had
been waiting for me with coffee and cakes since early afternoon.
244
DUNCAN DANCER
The old familiar mahogany table presented a pretty picture
with
the lace cloth, a vase of roses and carnations in the center, and
mother's best white, black, and gold china.
The tall green-tiled stove
in the corner gave off a pleasant
warmth. Every now and then someone would
put a little more
wood on the fire, for the snow continued to fall and the
night
grew colder. But in the gute Stube we made ourselves cozy,
enjoying a late supper in the Hamburg manner with cold cuts,
smoked
fish, dark and white bread, and beer. This evoked child-
hood memories.
That night I lay down under a mountain of goosedown
covers in the old
mahogany bed where I was born and my
father had died. For an instant I had
the strange sensation
that I had never left home. There was the same light
from a
street lamp, filtering through the lace curtains, sketching a soft
pattern on the ceiling, that I had seen as a child before going
to
sleep. Although this was a different apartment from the one
I knew in
childhood-much more modern, less gloomy, and in
a more attractive section of
town, on a street called Pappel-
allee-nothing important had really changed.
Only I had
changed. For me this represented the old, narrow horizon. Like
a visitor from a distant star, I could never feel at home in this
small
world again.
I tossed about thinking of these things in a restless state of
mind, unable to sleep, when mother whispered to me, "Irma, my
child, are
you still awake?" And I answered as of old, "Yes,
Mama."
In my mind's
eye mother had not changed a bit since my
childhood days, except that her
hair was now snowy white. She
had given birth to me at the age of
forty-five, and I had no
recollection of her as a young woman. She had
always been my
dear old mother. Seeing I lay awake, she raised her voice.
"You know what I was thinking? Tomorrow is your birth-
day and . . . and
. . . this is something I have never told
A Last Visit 245
you. But when
you were born, I suffered such pain. I had no
doctor, only a midwife, and
that dreadful pain lasted through
the night. I thought I would not be able
to stand it longer
when-just as the sun was rising and cast a reddish glow
over
the room-you were born. And oh, my Irma, how happy I felt
to hold
you in my arms!"
In the dark room, lying in the bed beside me, she reached
over and grasped my hand. I heard her wail as if still in labor,
"My
child, if I had only known! Oh God! If I had only known
I would see so
little of you in my life-I would have never let
you go!"
And then I
knew. In that heart-rending cry lay mother's
tragedy. And there was nothing
in the world I could do about it.
The few weeks I spent with mother passed
swiftly and
pleasantly for both of us. I left her in a cheerful frame of
mind.
We made plans for taking a trip together next summer during
my
vacation. Now that I could earn my own living, I could
lend her a little
financial support. I asked her, ""Where would
you most like to go?" She
said, "As long as I can remember,
I have always wanted to sail down the
Rhine. Do you think we
could really make that journey together? That would
be so
wonderful! At the same time we could visit my brother Ehrich,
the
uncle you have never seen, in Mlinchen-Gladbach." I as-
sured her that she
could plan for this trip next summer even if,
for some reason, I would be
unable to join her.
The day of my departure for Paris, the train was delayed
for an hour. She saw me off, and we repaired to the station
buffet for a
cup of coffee. She continued to chat animatedly
about the coming event that
would fulfill a lifelong wish. Then,
inevitably, the moment came to say
goodbye. It was that same
station where so long ago in the winter of 1905,
we had said
goodbye. And suddenly when I heard the shrill blast of the
train whistle it all came back to my mind so poignantly; how
she had
clung to my hand walking to the end of the platform
DUNCAN DANCER
and
then watched the train depart with tears streaming down
her face. And now I
had a sudden terrible premonition that this
was our last farewell.
Before the train started to move, mother turned away and
holding on to
the bannister groped her way slowly up the steps.
I watched her black-clad
figure until it was gone and then I
collapsed in my compartment overcome
with sobs I could not
control.
Several days later, in Paris, I received
a letter from her:
My dear, dear Irma:
I got your telegram in the
evening and I am glad that you
arrived safely. After all the excitement of
departure and the
long trip, you must have been very tired. I too quickly
drove
home and went to bed and stayed there for a few days' rest.
Yesterday, Friday, Marie and I rearranged the rooms and were
delighted
how inviting the new furniture looks. And I regretted
that you, the generous
donor, could not be there to see it.
I hope that you enjoyed your stay with
me and that everything
made a favorable impression on you, dear. I wanted so
much to
make things even more gemiitlich and pleasant but with all the
visiting back and forth and the awfully cold weather it would
have been
too much of an exertion for me. Next time you come
for a visit with us we
shall pass quieter and happier hours by our-
selves.
Everybody here at
home sends their best wishes for a pleasant
trip back to Moscow. I wish you
all the luck and good health.
Please give my regards to Isadora and
greetings to all the dear
children of your school. The photos we took,
unfortunately, did
not come out; only one of me, too bad. I wanted so much
to have
a picture of us together. Happy journey, dear Irma, and a
thou-
sand kisses from your loving
Mama
The journey down the Rhine we
planned together could
not be realized. My work in Russia kept me tied down
and too
busy to join her. But she and my half-sister Marie visited with
A Last Visit 247
the relatives for a month or more. She wrote me from
Miinchen-
Gladbach:
\Ve have been most hospitably received here by our
relatives.
They have shown us a lot of the town and its surroundings. The
many industries, the tri-centenary festival, fairs, parades, etc. Also
they have here a beautiful theatre with a big restaurant situated
in a
park among a parterre of roses. You ought to give a per-
formance there
sometime and show the townspeople what real
dancing is! They simply have no
conception of it.
We also visited Dusseldorf and saw the "Gesolei"
exhibition
which was most instructive and interesting. We dined in the open
on the Rhine embankment and in the evening saw the big bridge,
the town
and the entire exhibition illuminated. It was beautiful!
Our relatives have
entertained us splendidly. Young Willi owns
a car and he sped us along the
Rennbahn at terrific speed. Such
fun! In August, Marie and I took the
long-awaited trip down
the river Rhine in a cabin steamer, food and
everything included.
We sailed between mountains, ruins, and castles down to
Ruedes-
heim, where we saw the National Monument and the wonderful
vineyards. On our way back, near Coblentz, we had to wait a
long time in
order to pass, because the French are building a
bridge across the river, on
to Cologne.
I admired the "Koelnischer Dom" so very much I did not
want
to leave. I felt like looking at and admiring the beautiful
interior of the
cathedral and the tall spires over and over again.
Tomorrow at ten o'clock
we return to Hamburg. Uncle and his
family send greetings, and Marie and I
send our dearest love to
you.
Mama
Still spry at seventy-one, though
in delicate health, she
once showed me that she too could dance the foxtrot.
I expected
her to go on living for at least another decade. But providence
decided otherwise. Three years later when the end came, I hap-
pened to
be thousands of miles distant, unable to reach her in
time. My half-sister
Anna, writing to me about the funeral,
which took place in the famous
Ohlsdorf cemetery, the most
DUNCAN DANCER
beautiful in Germany, told me
that on top of my mother's
coffin was a large wreath tied with a lilac
ribbon on which my
name was engraved in gold, with an inscription saying,
"From
her only daughter, absent in Moscow." And so it had been
most of
her life.
Plough the Ground, Sow the Seed
"WHERE is Saturn?" Isadora
wailed in her letter to me from
Samara. She was engaged on a tour of the
Volga district, with
Mark Metchick, her pianist, and Zinoviev, her manager.
The
trio went from misfortune to catastrophe. If, as the astrologers
believe, the planet Saturn stands for delay and death, then it
must
indeed have loomed large in her horoscope at that period.
The evil planet
must have foreshadowed the tragic end of her
existence, for within the short
space of three years my foster
mother too was dead.
W c leave this
Volga, which I prefer to remember from a dis-
tance. No public, no
comprehension-nothing. Boats frightfully
crowded with screaming children and
chattering women. Three
in a cabin, second class. Every corner taken in
first. I sat on deck
all night and enjoyed some quiet hours of moonlit
beauty, quite
alone. But the rest-nightmare!
We leave tonight for
Orenburg. No news of curtains. Tele-
graph and inquire for them. Then to
Tashkent. Send me books
and papers and write me news. How is the divine
Comrade
Podvowsky?
This journey is a Calvary. Heat terrific, almost
dead. . • .
How do things progress? Much love to you and love to the
children.
Hell of a life anyway.
Yours, in unholy martyrdom,
Poor Isadora
Next she wrote from Orenburg, a small town situated in the
southern Urals, where those lovely gossamer Orenburg shawls
are made:
249
DUNCAN DANCER
Dearest Irma:
We sent you letters and three
telegrams without answer.
Just received word the curtains arrived only today
in Kazan! ! !
Too late to take them to Tashkent. We leave at six tomorrow.
Heaven knows for what, but keep hoping. Have about fifty
kopeks in the
caisse. Please telegraph and write me to Tashkent.
One feels so cut off from
the world and all these towns so small,
ruined and God forlorn. I am almost
at the last gasp. Dancing
in white lights without decors. The public
understands nothing
at all.
Today I visited the children's colony and
gave them a dancing
lesson. Their life and enthusiasm is touching-all
orphans .•..
Have found no woman and no help at the theatre-very
try-
ing. \V ell, love to you. For Heaven's sake telegraph me news.
With
all good wishes and love to the children,
Isadora
Samarkand, the end of
June, I 924.
Dearest Irma:
We go from one catastrophe to another.
Arrived in Tashkent
without a kopek. Found theatre full of Geltzer, Hotel
full of
Geltzer, whole town occupied. We had to go to an awful hotel
where they demanded "dingy" in advance, and, failing, would
not even
give us a samovar. We wandered round the town with-
out even a cup of tea all
day. In the evening we went to see
Geltzer dance to a packed house! After a
second hungry day
Zinoviev pawned his valise with two suits for just enough
to come
here. And who do you think he pawned it to? Why, Kalovsky,
who
is now Gcltzer's official husband.
We arrived here also without a kopek. The
baggage went by
mistake to another station. However, here is no Geltzer, it
is
more hopeful. I dance here Thursday, but it seems, though very
beautiful, only a big village. So Heaven knows what will be the
result
or whether we will be able to leave! ! !
I feel a bit dilapidated. Mctchick
is gone in a hopeless melan-
choly and even Zinoviev has lost his sweet
smiling nonchalance.
The country here is divine, fruits and trees and all
like a
garden-very hot but lovely. But it's a terrible sensation to walk
Plough the Ground, Sow the Seed
about without a penny. Kiev was a
prosperous exploit in com-
parison. The T ovarish that brings this note saved
our lives by
giving us his room and sleeping in his private car. So be very
nice
to him ..••
There are marvelous things here to buy, but alas! The
land
seems a veritable paradise-for the natives. The whites don't
understand how to live here.
Well, we're hoping for better luck. So far
the tour is a tragedy.
Why did we leave Friday the 13th? Please send me news
and
papers if possible, I don't know what is going to happen next. At
any rate, I've grown very thin. Think of the lovely meals we
ate at
Kiev! ! ! Much love to you.
In turn, I told her of the difficulties I
encountered, of a
different nature-an ideological one. I came frequently in
touch
with the Commissar of Physical Culture, Comrade Podvowsky,
who in
the early days of the Revolution had inspired the Red
Army. He often
criticized what he termed the too aesthetic side
of our dance. He wanted the
pupils of our Moscow school to
strut about in imitation of his athletes,
like young warriors shout-
ing, "Death to speculators! Death to parasites! We
are the new
free army of the earth!"
Needless to say, I did not see eye
to eye with him. It all
reminded me of that other fanatic and his
Korperkultur and
Racial Hygiene ideology-Max Merz. Being myself primarily
an artist, I disliked placing too much emphasis on the physical
side of
our ephemeral art. In her lessons to her pupils, Isadora
invariably
emphasized the spiritual approach. When I wrote to
her about this, asking
for guidance, she replied:
Tashkent, July lOth, 1924
Dearest Irma:
Thank you very much for your very beautiful letter. I can
quite
understand how you feel. Blazing sun and prize-fighters
are far from my
vision of a Ninth Symphony (Beethoven) to be
danced in a golden light of the
intellectual radiance. But probably
you are digging the foundations on which
the future columns
DUNCAN DANCER
will stand. At any rate, if it is only
to take off these horrible
clothes and give the children of the new world
red tunics, it is a
great work. Go on with it. Surely when the government
sees that
this new dance has the sympathy of the working people, it WI11
do something for the school. As for Podvowsky's ideas of dance-
our dance
will sweep them away, as it sweeps everything that
stands in its road.
The tournee is a continual catastrophe. We arrived again from
Samarkand
without a kopek. Again no hotel. Spent two days
wandering round the streets
very hungry. Zeno and Metchick
slept in the theatre. I, next door in a
little house without water
or toilet. Finally we found rooms in this fearful
hotel over-run
with vermin. We are so bitten, as to appear to have some sort
of
illness.
Yesterday Zeno arranged on percentage an evening for the
students, and they advanced ten cctchervonetz.," so we went to a
restaurant and ate, the first time in three days. The theatre is
engaged. The first performance can only be given next Wednes-
day. Heaven
knows what we will do until then. I only hope we
can make enough for the
train.
The country is marvelous. I have never seen flowers and fruit
in
such abundance. In Samarkand we saw the old temple, com-
posed of Chinese and
Persian and Arab culture; wonderful mo-
S.'1ics. And I visited the tomb of
Tamerlaine and the old Sartian
town. If one had money there are ravishing
scarves and silks--
but helas!!!
All this discomfort and worry has made
us all ill. Poor Met-
chick looks dying. We arrived early in the morning and
had to
sit all day on park benches with nothing to eat. It's a horrid
sensation. But this is a primitive, wild place, and anything can
happen
to one. It's the sort of place to come with Lohengrin
[Singer] and his
millions; very like Egypt. The heat is forty de-
grees more in the shade and
flies, bugs, mosquitoes make life un-
bearable.
The little photos are
amusing. Try and send me some good
ones of you and the children.
Courage; it's a long way, but light is ahead. My art was the
flower of
an epoch, but that epoch is dead and Europe is the past.
Plough the Ground,
Saw the Seed 253
These red tunicked kids are the future. So it is fine to
work for
them. Plough the ground, sow the seed and prepare for the next
generation that will express the new world. What else is there to
do?
•..
Love to the children. All my love to you. You are my only
disciple
and with you I see the Future. It is there-and we will
dance the Ninth
Symphony yet. With love.
Isadora
"Plough the ground, sow the seed ...
what else is there to
do?" she said. I wondered. This may have been the
answer for a
disillusioned, middle-aged woman, jaded with life in general.
But was it the right answer for a young girl, eagerly standing
on the
threshold of life? My art and my work could not, for me,
be all-encompassing
as yet. As any normal young woman would,
I too dreamed of being able to find
some day another chance at
happiness of the sort that culminates in marriage
and raising a
family. Whenever a young man paid attention to me and my
foster mother saw me reciprocate, I was-in her eyes-as good
as married.
Once she even went so far as to tell Walter Duranty,
the American
correspondent in Moscow, that I had married.
Without first checking at the
source, he cabled the "news" to
his paper.
No, my plans for the
future-even if the right man had come
along at that time (which,
incidentally, he didn't)-excluded
any marriage to a Soviet citizen. I had no
intention whatsoever
of committing such a fatal mistake. The very thought of
any
children of mine being born under a dictatorship and growing
up as
Communist slaves filled me with revulsion.
In this sad world of ours, human
beings are constantly forced
to make certain sacrifices at one time or
another. And I fully
realized that this was the one I had been called upon
to make, as
long as my work kept me chained to the land of the Soviets. I
therefore determined to put all personal dreams behind me for
the
present, and devote all my energies and interests to the
furtherance of my
career.
254 DUNCAN DANCER
My immediate concern had to do with my foster
mother:
to bring her safely back from her disastrous tour and, if possible,
find her a more lucrative engagement, since we had to dance in
order to
eat. A couple of entrepreneurs offered her a tour of
Germany. I immediately
wrote her the good news, for so it
appeared to be then, since nothing could
turn out worse than
the tour she had just made. She wrote:
Volga and
Turkestan are countries to be avoided. We came
here because Zeno has an
idiot for an advance man, who tele-
graphed us that prospects here were
"brilliant." He must have
been hired by the ballet to bring us to ruin. When
you have an
inspiration to save us, for heaven's sake act on it for it is
the last
moment.
Ekaterinberg, 4/8/24
Dearest Irma:
The moment I
received your letter I sent you a forty word
telegram expressing my
willingness to sign at once, and travel
anywhere away from here! ! ! I still
await anxiously the answer.
You have no idea what a living nightmare is
untJ1 you see this
town. Perhaps the killing here of a certain family in a
cellar has
cast a sort of Edgar Allen Poe gloom over the place-or perhaps
it was always like that. The melancholy church bells ring every
hour,
fearful to hear. When you go in the streets the gitan yells
prava or lieva
and points his gun at you. No one seems to have
any sense of humor whatever.
The head of the communists said, "How could Metchick play
such
disgusting music as Liszt or Wagner! ! ! " Another said: "I
did not at all
understand the lnternationale!! !"
Our two performances were a foure noire
and, as usual, we
are stranded and don't know where to go. There is no
restaurant
here, only "common eating houses," and no coiffeur. The only
remaining fossil of that name, while burning my hair off with
trembling
fingers, assured me there was not a dama left here,
they shot 'em all.
We saw the house and the cellar where they shot a "certain"
Plough the
Ground, Sow the Seed 255
family. Its psychosis seems to pervade the
atmosphere. You can't
imagine anything more fearful. . . . In fact this town
is as near
Hell as anything I have ever met.
Your letter sounds too good
to be true. Telegraph us some
dingy and I will come at once to Moscow and
sign, sign,
sign ....
With love to you,
Isadora
Poor Isadora
returned from her tournee more dead than
alive. A season later I too, with
my group of dancers, covered
substantially the identical ground under more
favorable circum-
stances. Ilya Schneider's good management and improved
or-
ganization helped turn our undertaking into a financial and
artistic
success.
While I was absent on my vacation in France and Germany,
Isadora had taught the children a series of new dances executed
to songs
of the Revolution and to folk songs. In all of these the
children both sang
and danced in chorus, and I too took part,
eventually adding several numbers
of my own choreography,
such as the tryptich called "Famine-Labor-Harvest";
and a
charming group of songs by Gretchaninoff, which always brought
to
mind that memorable performance at Carnegie Hall when
the composer himself
played the accompaniment. Whenever
they were performed, these dances
invariably called forth an
enthusiastic reception. Apropos of these "Songs
in Movement"
Isadora said: "I believe that my school will create a new art
or
show the way towards it. Only the new generation will be able
to
express the new world and find new genius and new ideas."
That fall, while
preparing for her departure to Berlin, my
foster mother and I engaged in a
long discussion about our work.
She suddenly said, "Do you remember the
little dance you com-
posed in Grunewald called the 'Poor Orphan Child'?"
When she asked me to dance it for her, I laughed and told
her I could
not remember all of it. "But I do!" she said, and
DUNCAN DANCER
surprised me no end by getting up and dancing it, movement
for movement,
making the same simple, childish gestures I had
made. It gave me a strange
turn to see so great an artist as
Isadora Duncan dance in all seriousness my
first childhood at-
tempt at choreography. I was really touched. That called
forth
my inquiry as to how she came to choose me for a pupil that
fateful day in Hamburg nearly two decades ago, and her sur-
prising
answer that it had been because of Gordon Craig. It
suddenly illuminated so
many things that occurred in my early
school days and her favoritism toward
me from the beginning.
"Then you yourself found me not particularly
promising?"
I asked. She looked at me fondly and said, "The moment I saw
you raise your arms with such childish fervor, I knew you had
something.
I have always considered you and Lisa to be my
most talented pupils. You
must often have noticed by my ex-
pression and my tears that I found your
dancing very beautiful.
As I told you last summer when we danced together in
Kiev and
I watched you do the 'Marche Militaire'-I could not have done
it much better."
"This is praise from Sir Hubert," I jokingly remarked
to
cover my emotion, for she seldom spoke this way to me about
my
dancing. "No, it is the simple truth," she said.
I had retired to my own
room after this conversation and
left her to pack her things for her
forthcoming trip. Then, very
softly, I heard a knock on my door. Isadora
entered like a shy
little girl, saying in a wistful voice, "Isn't it
remarkable that
through all the vicissitudes of life and considering all the
things
I ever owned that have been lost, this"-and she stroked gently
the piece of rose and purple silk cradled in her arms like a baby-
"this
should have survived."
I looked closer and recognized one of her first dance
cos-
tumes-the one I remembered so well when I saw her dance
for the
first time on the stage. My favorite-the tunic of "Angel
Playing the Viol."
She came closer and said, "Here, I want you
Plough the GroundJ Sow the Seed
257
to have it in remembrance of me"; and she handed it over as
carefully and lovingly as if it were indeed a child. A rush of
memories
from Grunewald-the picture of my guardian angel
over my Himmelbett-brought
tears to my eyes. Too moved to
speak, I contemplated the tunic as one
regards a religious object.
Wanting to thank her, I raised my eyes, but she
had quietly dis-
appeared.
Later that night, when we were alone and
saddened by her
remembrance of the past and her impending departure, she
con-
fessed to me that she often thought of committing suicide. "If I
only knew a way that would not be too painful, I would not
hesitate."
And she continued in this same melancholy mood,
"Please, don't ever grieve
at my going. Promise to bury me in
my old red tunic in which I have danced
all my revolutionary
dances, and give me a real Irish wake. Sing, and dance,
and
drink, and give thanks for my blessed release from the constant
pain
gnawing at my poor heart."
The next day was a Sunday, and she gave her
farewell per-
formance at the Bolshoi Theatre. All of us-including the five
hundred red-tunicked children from the stadium-took part in
the grand
finale, the "lnternationale." With me, as usual, lead-
ing the children, we
wound in a snakelike pattern back and forth
until we reached the footlights.
Then we broke the pattern to
form three concentric circles around Isadora,
who stood in the
center like a flame with her red hair and red shawl. Then,
with
hands raised high, we intoned the final triumphant crescendoing
stanza. The audience, of four thousand Young Pioneers and
Communist
youth, who had been invited by Madame Kalenina
(wife of the Soviet
President) to see us dance, gave Isadora and
her school a thunderous
ovation.
That night there was no thought of going to bed, as Isadora's
plane for Berlin was to leave at dawn. She thought she ought
not to
leave now that the President's wife and other Communist
leaders had taken an
active interest. She felt that something
DUNCAN DANCER
would surely come
of this, and if there seemed to be any chance
of the government's really
doing what they originally promised
to do, she would return immediately.
At dawn, at the Trotsky air field, I saw her off. Neither of
us realized
that she was leaving Russia for the last time; that
from now on the work we
had begun together in that country
would be continued by myself alone.
If You Will Be Faithful
BY no stretch of the imagination could anyone
claim that my
existence in Moscow was entertaining. The social amenities
were
reduced to zero. In this impoverished country, few people-
apart
from the ruling clique and the foreign embassies-could
obtain the products
necessary to entertain. I had to rely on my
own efforts to find a small
measure of distraction, and what I
found was not nearly enough to satisfy a
fairly energetic young
woman unaccustomed to living alone among strangers.
For that
is what I did in the midst of a teeming institution ever since
Isadora left. The few contacts I had made in Moscow with
Americans were
mostly of a transient nature, people such as
Averell Harriman, who later
became Governor of New York,
but was in 1922 connected with the Hoover
Commission, or
my old friend Max Eastman whom I met only once. Then there
was a memorable evening when Walter Duranty brought the
world champion
of chess, Capablanca, around for supper after
winning the game. I met a
number of foreign journalists among
whom I became well aquainted with Eugene
Lyons and his
attractive young wife, then on his first assignment to Russia.
They
wanted to leave their baby daughter with me at the school but
she
was too young to be accepted. And in 1927, most outstand-
ing of American
correspondents, Dorothy Thompson, whom I
met through my good friends the
Hoppers. Dorothy was then
soon to marry the famous American novelist
Sinclair Lewis. She
invited me to her engagement party but I could
unfortunately
not attend. On November 25, 1927, she wrote to "Red," as
all his intimates called Sinclair, from Moscow, and mentioned a
Z59
260 DUNCAN DANCER
visit to my school with the Hoppers. "Today is
Thanksgiving,"
she said, spending the evening with the Hoppers. "After
dinner,
an' there was a turkey, we went to Irma Duncan's and saw fair
maidens swathed in scarlet dance the Internationale." In her
book The
New Russia she afterwards published, she wrote in
the chapter of First
Impressions:
Years ago Isadora Duncan came out of the west to tell the
Russian ballet that all this artificial toe-stepping was out of date.
•
. . And one of her pupils and adopted daughters, Irma Dun-
can, in her studio
in a former palace, still teaches the children of
the proletarians to throw
their arms earthward from whence all
good comes and revel in the free,
untrammeled expression of their
revolutionary souls.
My daily existence
had little of interest to offer me. Shops were
bare; moving picture theatres
nonexistent; the fashion world
dead and buried; balls and parties unheard
of. What was there
for a young girl to do in search of fun and amusements?
As far as my tastes go, once I'd seen the Bolshoi Ballet I had
had it. I
frequently attended the opera, concerts, and the the-
atres during the
season. I could, however, get small enjoyment
from the plays-mostly
classics-until my Russian improved.
My usual day started with a late
breakfast, brought to me on a
tray by my personal maid Ephrosinia, called
Frossia for short.
I ate all my meals in my room; in front of the fireplace
in win-
ter, in front of the open window looking out on the courtyard
in
the warmer seasons. I would dress and take my daily outing,
snow or
sunshine. I preferred riding to walking; dancing as
much as I did, I
obtained sufficient exercise.
At the corner of Pretchistenka and Myortvy
Pereoulok, or
Dead Alley (so named in time of the big plague), stood a
horse-drawn carriage or, in winter, a sleigh. The iz.voz.chik,
Piotr-in
a half-somnolent state, patiently waiting for his steady
client-would
suddenly spring into action the instant I opened
the heavy oak door and
stepped into the street. I hardly needed
to give directions. He knew my
initial stop was at Okhotny Riad
If You Will Be Faithful
to do some
shopping for my dinner. The Hunter's Row had the
best game in town. I would
select a grouse, perhaps, or a snow
chicken, with the customary sour cream
to roast it in, and what-
ever fresh vegetables and fruit could be had-mostly
cabbage,
onions, and beets, and those tart little apples, yellow and red,
called Antonovka. From there I continued via the Theatre Square
to the
Petrovka, where I knew a pastry shop that made excellent
little pirozhnye,
those cream-filled cakes the Russians love. In
those youthful days I had no
reason to watch my weight, which
always remained the same. And of course my
purchases were
never complete without Malosol caviar, smoked salmon and
that other tasty little Russian fish, smoked kilki. Sometimes,
if I was
fortunate enough, I would discover a dusty bottle of
Abrao Durceaux, that
extremely potable na.tive champagne of
pre-Revolutionary vintage, much
enjoyed by the former tsars.
On my way back over the Arhat, a commercial
center, I
would stop for an appointment with my hairdresser or continue
on to the Sofika, where a very good tailor would make me a
dress copied
from one I had, or a coat to order. I also frequently
stopped at the
Kusnetzky Most in the hope of finding something
to read in English, French,
or German, at the only bookstore
open to customers. Usually I returned
empty-handed, for books
in foreign languages, even second hand, were rarer
than hen's
teeth. By the beginning of 1925, however, conditions had
im-
proved sufficiently for people to purchase these things.
At home, I
would hand my groceries to Pasha, our cook,
who ordinarily did all right
with them, except once when I
brought back that very rare vegetable,
asparagus. She apparently
had never cooked it before and served up the
stalks without
the heads.
Every afternoon I held my dancing classes.
First the
younger, or beginners group, followed by my more advanced
stu-
dents. Teaching is more tiring than performing, and I always
welcomed the sight of the tall brass samovar, hissing a column
of steam
to the ceiling, that Frossia had ready for me; with a
DUNCAN DANCER
pot
of that good black China tea (the best in the world), which
the Russians
drink out of glasses with lemon and sugar nibbled
on the side.
The
absence of reading material in a language I could un-
derstand turned out to
be a great nuisance. But according to
Emerson's law of compensation, there
is a benefit to be derived
from every bad situation. Forced to read Russian,
I made all
the better progress. And then there was always Vera Ilynishna,
or some other friend, to drop in and chat with me in that diffi-
cult
language till I mastered it.
On big holidays, such as Easter or Christmas, I
attended
the services at a small, rose-colored church at the bottom of the
hill near Pretchistenka Gate, now vanished from the Moscow
scene. In
this way, I managed to find some small distractions.
Performances and tours
came as a welcome relief from the bore-
dom and monotony of existence among
the Soviets.
With Isadora's departure, I started once more to be
inde-
pendently active on the stage, a venture that had been impossible
while she remained in charge of artistic matters. I slowly came to
the
realization that if I wanted to make a name for myself in
Russia, it was now
or never. Thus began the professional tours
I made the length and breadth of
that vast land. In the end,
I was giving a hundred performances a year.
Isadora, in the interval since her departure and subsequent
arrival in
Nice, had suffered continuous catastrophes. Her Ber-
lin engagement turned
into a complete fiasco. She repeatedly
sent me letters asking for help. But
since all my mail had to be
forwarded while I was in the Volga district, her
letters reached
me too late. By the time I could answer, Isadora had left
Ger-
many and settled in the south of France. She wrote me from
Paris in
February of 1925, when she had finally obtained some
help from friends:
Dearest Irma:
I have not had the courage to write, I have been going
through
sad, fearful experiences. At last I arrived here. I am hardly alive,
If You Will Be Faithful
just gasping. Now I have some faint hope on the
horizon, but
nothing is sure yet. I was offered by the Chicago Tribune a sum
for my "memoirs" . . .
For three months they refused me a visa to come
to Paris. At
last here I am. For Heaven's sake write to me. If you could
only
send me good photos of the school, I am sure I could raise funds
for you. But people hardly believe there is a school. Write to me.
Tell
me what hope is there for the school? Will the house re-
main? Is anything
stable, or is it a quicksand? My only hope of
funds at this moment is the
Memoirs. . . .
If I receive the $2o,ooo promised, I will either come to
Moscow in the spring with money, or if you think Moscow hope-
less, you
can join me in London with sixteen pupils. But reflect
well which will be
best.
I am much worried about Margot, who, I have just heard by
telephone, is in a hospital here very ill. I will go and see her
tomorrow, but Christine should have told me sooner ....
Dearest Irma, I
was just writing the above when they sud-
denly telephoned me that Margot was
dying. I took a taxi and
rushed to the hospital but too late. It all seems
so unhappy and
miserable. I am ill but will write soon. . . •
Unbeknownst to Isadora, Gordon Craig took the initiative
to appeal to
Paris Singer for help in this emergency. Singer,
who was at the time in
Florida, wrote from Palm Beach to
Craig: "Although I did not hear of the
trouble in Berlin I did
hear when little Margot died in Paris and I
immediately tele-
graphed my agent to supply our friend with all necessary
funds
without letting her know the source. Strange to say this was
exactly your idea.''
Her motto, she said, was Sans limites, struggling
along to
earn a living and never relinquishing her dream of a school for
a thousand children. As if the one we had in Moscow, housing
half a
hundred, was not enough of a headache! I explained to
her the endless
difficulties I ran into trying to keep this estab-
lishment going. The
government, so far, had not contributed
a sou. My performances in the
provinces kept the school func-
DUNCAN DANCER
tioning; otherwise we would
have no other alternative but
to close up shop. She wrote from Nice on the
last day of March:
I have just received your letter; poor darling, it sounds
awful.
By now you have my last letter and you know that if I haven't
written it is because I have been having such a hell of a time
that I
really felt ashamed to send you one wail after another.
Nobody realized it,
but poor little Margot's death was the
finishing touch. I simply almost gave
up entirely. I am only just
recovering from the ghastly cruelty and terror
of the whole
thing. I confess-! can't understand-the whole scheme of
things is too unbearable.
Any reports that I have spoken against the
Soviet Gov't are
absolutely false, and unfounded ....
A friend took a
studio for me here. It is a perfect gem. A little
theatre twice as big as
the Rue de la Pompe with a stage, foot-
lights, etc. If we could arrange for
you to come here with sixteen
of the most talented children, we might
succeed in saving them.
I tried through the Soviet Embassy in Paris to have
the school
brought in the Russian Dept. of the Decorative Arts Exposition,
but without success. Have you seen Tovarish Kalenina? Can
nothing be
done?
The world is a sickening place. I am living from hand to
mouth. My
friends have all deserted me. The joke of the whole
thing is that it is
current gossip that I receive vast sums of money
from the Soviets. Isn't
that beautiful? I am relying on money
that should come from Gordieff to pay
for the studio. I think it
would be at least a refuge at the last extremity.
It would be a good
idea, if all else fails, that you come here and perhaps
together we
may find some way out. But unless the Soviet Gov't will help, I
think it is about hopeless for the school in Moscow. But you
know, being
a bit prophetic, I sensed as much when I was last
there .... Ask Ilya to
write and answer the following ques-
tions: What does he advise? Has he any
hopes for this summer
from Podvowsky or others? W auld my return make things
better
or worse? ...
If we are to die, better arrange a meeting and die
together. At
the last extremity, come here. You can sleep in the studio,
bathe
If You Will Be Faithful
in the sea and we will always find a meal.
All my love. I kiss you
a thousand times and the poor, dear children.
Love,
Isadora
It was quite impossible to obtain permission for the
children
to leave Russia. The authorities had even tried to hinder me
from taking them periodically on tour inside the country, though
we
generally made the extensive trips during the summer va-
cation. Only because
I put up a terrific fight-going straight over
the heads of the minor
officials to Lunacharsky himself, who al-
ways was in my corner-was I allowed
to continue. Nobody
seemed to be able to understand that these performances
con-
stituted our sole support. For this reason another of Isadora's
schemes fell through. But she persisted in her grandiose schemes
and
when nothing came of them told a friend:
I would have wished to devote
myself entirely, creating a mag-
nificent social center, instead of little
troups which, by the force
of circumstances, degenerate into theatrical
groups, as in Mos-
cow. The principal thing, after all, is to do something,
to make a
beginning. Better the Moscow school with all its faults than
nothing at all.
I fully agreed with her last statement. That is the
reason I
too persisted in my small way to keep the enterprise, founded
under such difficulties and involving so may sacrifices, function-
ing by
any and all means. I wrote and told her so. Her answer
reached me in Moscow,
where I continued to direct the institu-
tion dedicated to the dance as she
envisioned it, though local
forces not in sympathy with our ideology had
already started
to undermine it.
Nice, January 27, 1926
Dearest
Irma:
Thank you for your letter. I only received it today. I wish you
would try and write oftener, if only a line.
I was terribly shocked
about Sergei's death [Essenine had com-
DUNCAN DANCER
mitted suicide],
but I wept and sobbed so many hours about him
that it seems he had already
exhausted any human capacity for
suffering. Myself, I'm having an epoch of
such continual ca-
lamity that I am often tempted to follow his example, only
I
will walk into the sea. Now in case I don't do that, here is a plan
for the future.
I have here a wonderful studio which I have not been
able to
use. First no carpet, then no stove, then no piano. Now I have
carpet, stove, piano, thanks to dear Augustin, who gradually sent
me
funds to get these things and to keep the studio. I have taken
a small
apartment next to the studio, with kitchen and bath. My
plan is that you
should come here on a visit as soon as possible,
if you can arrange to
absent yourself. We could start here a pay-
ing school ala Elizabeth, and
take pupils from America to board,
etc. I have a very good woman to look out
for the kitchen. Food
is cheap, vegetables plenty. You could bring one or
two of the
older girls as co-teachers. By spending six months here and six
months in Moscow we could join the ideal and the material.
Now I have a
studio three times as big as Rue de la Pompe
with the stage and the
apartment paid until April I sth, but I'm
sitting here without a cent or
without a soul to help me. If you
could come and survey the situation, there
is a possibility of mak-
ing a big school on business basis.
Here is
ideal climate. The hills back of the studio are covered
with flowers and
everything is wonderfully cheap. Yesterday I
ate fresh asparagus and little
artichokes. I have become a vege-
tarian like Raymond, and have gone back to
my simple dresses of
Grunewald, and sandals and bare feet. The little time I
spent
in Paris, I realized that life there was finished with silk stockings
at 7 5 francs a pair.
I see a future in the combining of this studio as
a practical
money-making affair and Moscow as Ideal and Art. But it has
cost me the most heart-breaking effort to keep the studio and if
something is not done before April I 5th, I'm afraid I will lose
it. . .
.
No one else on God's earth is interested. Only you and I, and
that's
all. Since my return I have been treated as a "Communist
If You Will Be
Faithful
Sympathizer," and everything is impossible. But in spite of that,
if we open here a big paying school I am sure it will be a succes.<;.
The studio has a beautiful emerald green carpet and the only time
in my
life I have a studio square and large enough. The apart-
ment has a terrace
on the sea, where sixteen or twenty people
can sit at table. The autobus and
tramway pass the door to the
heart of Nice, reach Massena and Casino in five
minutes. Also
the Riviera is becoming more and more a summer resort.
Please answer this letter at once, dear Irma, and see if, with
what I
have here as a foundation, we can't create a practical
money-making school.
For I see at the present epoch that it is
either that or suicide. One can't
continue to live on nothing. I
suggest that also Augustin could come over in
the summer and
play in the theatre, which has real scenery and footlights,
and
there is a large English colony here in the summer.
I hope you will
appreciate my bull-dog tenacity in hanging on
to this studio as I appreciate
yours in hanging on to the school.
And together we will accomplish something
yet. Remember you
are the only pupil of mine who has understood what I am
trying
to do in this world. And you are the only one who cares whether
myself or our work lives or dies, and it may be that the under-
standing
of one will save all.
Can't you possibly manage to send me some pictures of
the
children? Often I could make propaganda and obtain help for
you if I
had photos. Do try and have some taken, and if you
cannot, send me at least
some copies of what you have. Also I
would appreciate if you would let me
have the dates of your
tournees and programs. Some one told me you were all
on the
Volga. I knew nothing of it.
Dear Irma, if you will be faithful I
still feel we may arise and
conquer the earth and knock all these sham
schools and sham
disciples to smash. But the time is going and I am like a
wrecked
mariner on a desert island, yelling for help.
I am feeling very
lonely and homesick. I am here quite alone.
Only the little Russian woman
who cooks, etc. When you get
this letter, do make an effort and come. I am
sure we can ar-
range something. I can get the opera house and orchestra in
DUNCAN DANCER
Marseilles for a series of festival performances, if you
could bring
twelve of the oldest pupils (children under twelve are no longer
allowed on the stage in France).
I press you to my heart, dear Irma. Let
us hope for the future.
Isadora
This letter left me in a terrible
quandary. Torn between my
love and loyalty to her on the one hand, and my
work and
future career mapped out in Russia on the other, what was I
to
do? Such a division of my labors as she outlined in her Jetter
was
impractical. Since she relied entirely on my help, either
one school or the
other would suffer because of my absence. I
have often asked myself in
retrospect: By deciding ruthlessly
to tear up the roots in Moscow and throw
in my lot with her-
since I could not do both-could I have been in a position
to
prevent her tragic, premature demise? I doubt it, for fate has a
relentless way of catching up with its victim marked for death.
For me
personally, the idea of spending the rest of my life
on the sunny Riviera in
my beloved France had tremendous
appeal. There I would find all the
amenities of existence in a
cultured, civilized manner of living, including
all the many
little luxuries, so dear to a feminine heart, that I was
completely
deprived of now. And perhaps I would have done so, except
that I found myself too deeply involved with the present. For
over a
year, ever since our unprecedented, enthusiastic reception
by the public on
our Volga tour, we had planned a similar un-
dertaking for Siberia. Under no
circumstances could I cancel
it now. There were a host of other people
involved in the suc-
cessful outcome of it. And most important of all, there
was the
ever increasing number of pupils in the school, who were
de-
pendent on my artistic efforts.
I was immensely relieved to hear from
Isadora's next letters
that conditions seemed to improve by degrees. She
arranged
for some intime performances in the studio she had discovered
in the California district of Nice, near the Promenade des
Anglais.
If You Will Be Faithful
Apn1 7, 1926
The Good Friday performance was
a great success. A hundred
tickets were sold at hundred francs a ticket and
great stimmung
and excitement. The studio was lovely with alabaster lamps,
candles, incense, heaps of white lilies and lilacs. Quite like the
Archangel's times. Of course it is the end of the season. If we
only had
the money to open sooner we would have made a
fortune. I have hopes of
building a theatre here in a year or two.
A Bayreuth by the Sea.
"Lohengrin" is coming to his villa here in May. Why not
come with
sixteen children; we can always make their board.
And think of swimming in
the lovely blue sea every mormng.
Please write soon. All my love to you.
Love,
Dearest Irma:
Isadora
Hotel Lutetia, Paris
June 15, 1926
I was so glad to receive your letter with the program. Please
send me a
line often. I have been seeing Comrade Rakowsky
about a plan to bring you
with some of the children of the school
to Paris to make a great
manifestation at the Trocadero. They
are very enthusiastic about the idea,
but always the same cry:
"No Money."
I still keep the studio in Nice,
but if something doesn't turn up
before July 15th, rent day, I'm afraid I
will lose it. Did you re-
ceive programs, clippings, etc.? I have made a
great struggle
(here), but absolutely no one to help me. Every one takes a
little
piece of my idea and runs off with it to sell it ..•• It's a silly
world.
Do write and tell me if I can manage to be with you this
sum-
mer. Where will I find you and when?
She would have found us that
summer rusticating on a
pleasant imenie, the country seat of some former
aristocrat, con-
fiscated during the Revolution and plundered of everything
but the four walls and roof. Situated about fifty versts from
Moscow, it
had a large park and a river close by. The latter
270 DUNCAN DANCER
was
an absolute necessity for bathing, and as a source of water;
for the house
had no plumbing whatever, and no gas or elec-
tricity. Isadora, I'm afraid,
would not have stayed there for
more than a day. Knowing her habits and her
dislike of living
in the country (she claimed, "It always rained, and
nothing
could be more boring, I much prefer the seashore anytime!"), I
knew she would have no part of it. The name of our imenie was
"Roumiantsev." Few foreigners ever penetrated into this part
of the
provinces, so very Russian in character and completely
unspoiled.
At the
end of June, when the bushes were in bloom and the
shiny buttercups had
pushed their yellow faces high above the
meadow grass, we would start our
yearly trek to the country.
Two truckloads of furniture and kitchen utensils
preceded us.
With them went Pasha, the cook, and the two maids Masha
and
Dasha, dressed like country babas, in long, straight shifts and
bare feet,
and with white kerchiefs tied over their heads. Under
the supervision of our
ruddy-cheeked housekeeper, a huge
dragon of a woman by the name of Alexandra
Edmundnovna, the
house was primitively furnished with bare necessities to
welcome
us by nightfall.
The local farmers, wearing shoes made of birch
bark and
--at that period-not yet collectivized, sold us their produce.
So did the brown-robed monks of the nearby monastery, "New
Jerusalem,"
where they spent their days hoeing the garden,
while we spent ours swimming,
hiking, and dancing. At the end
of each active day, everybody retired by
candlelight the moment
the sun had set, which meant getting up with the
first crow of
the cock in the barnyard. Thus the children gained health,
stor-
ing it up for the long, dark winters in town. They happily whiled
away their spare time gathering maliny or other berries, and
the
superlative Russian white mushrooms that are cooked in
sour cream with
onions and taste as good as anything I have
ever eaten. Watched over
tenderly by their academic instructor
Anna Vasilievna, and the nurse
Elisaveta Gregorievna, the chil-
If You Will Be Faithful 271
dren grew
stronger every day and led as happy a life as it was
in our power to provide
for them.
Country existence presents not much of a problem when
the
weather is cooperative, but woe when it starts to rain. Un-
fortunately, that
summer we had an unusually prolonged spell
of wet weather. I remember
standing forlornly in the former
owner's library, bewailing the empty
bookshelves hidden behind
grilled doors. If only I could find a book to
read! ·watching
the continuous downpour night and day for more than a week,
I had half a mind to emulate Isadora and do what she would
have done
under the same circumstances: pack up and return to
Moscow; to my
comfortable room on the Pretchistenka, where
I enjoyed the luxury of a real
bathroom to myself, and electric
light, and whatever summer amusements could
be had in town.
But that would have set a bad example for the rest of the
school. So I remained drenched, not merely in this deluge but
in utter
boredom.
One afternoon, during a momentary respite from the mad-
dening
drizzle, I donned my mackintosh and went for a stroll
in the park. I came by
chance on a weather-beaten old barn I
hadn't noticed before. Out of sheer
ennui, I climbed the narrow,
rickety ladder leading to the hayloft. The
wild, hysterical cackle
of hens, disturbed from their roost, greeted me. I
was about to
beat a hasty retreat when, out of the corner of my eye, I
noticed
a piece of white paper sticking out of what I imagined to be
a
heap of chicken manure. I looked closer, and to my utter be-
wilderment
discovered the "heap" to be an enormous cache of
books, which the chickens
had used for a roost. And, wonder
upon wonders! they were foreign books!
French, German, and,
Heaven be praised! English books galore of the T
auchnitz
editions! Almost as hysterical as the hens, I gathered in my
arms as many of these precious tomes as I could, and ran back
to the
house to get help in cleaning up the filthy mess, so the
treasures could be
rescued and restored to the former owner's
library. Forgetting the rain, I
curled up on my bed and spent
272 DUNCAN DANCER
the rest of the summer
reveling in Trollope, Mrs. Humphry
Ward, and Baroness Orczy novels-a
Lucullan mental feast
after a literary famine of more than five years.
So reluctant was I to abandon this feast that when Ilya
Schneider, our
business manager, informed me that everything
was ready to start our
Siberian tour, I almost felt inclined to
call the whole thing off. All I
wanted was to be left in peace
with my hoard of books, more precious to me
at that moment
than my career. I could not take them with me, since they
were
not my property, and so had to abandon them to their fate. I
retained only a few as souvenirs. Years later, in America, I met
their
owner, Colonel Serge Cheremeteff-but by that time the
books were long gone.
To China and Back
WHEN I set out in August with a company of nineteen on
my
transcontinental Russian tour, I had the unusual privilege of
being
the sole foreign artist performing in the USSR. Other
American artists did
not penetrate that Communist country for
many years; not, in fact, until
after Franklin D. Roosevelt
recognized the Soviet Union officially in 1935.
I had the entire
:field to myself now that my foster mother had left. During
the
three previous years I had occasionally appeared in public at
the
head of my group of dancers, and we could already point
with pride to the
slow but steady growth of our popularity.
Every recital was preceded by a
short talk delivered by
Schneider, stating our aims and explaining what the
true dance
should be and do for the physical education of children. I
offered
the common people everywhere, whether in the more civilized
centers or in the humble backwoods settlements, the very best I
could
achieve in my dance to the finest music, both flawlessly
executed in a sure,
professional manner. The newspaper reviews
constitute a record of our
combined achievement in this effort
to bring beauty, art, and culture to the
downtrodden Soviet
masses, and tell to what extent we succeeded in giving
them the
aesthetic values they so craved. A number of short excerpts from
reviews that appeared in some of the provincial towns where
we appeared
may give an indication of how much the Russian
public enjoyed and
appreciated our combined efforts.
Tomsk
To write about Irma Duncan's
performance in simple prose is
impossible. In order to do it justice and
describe this unusually
Z7J
DUNCAN DANCER
inspiring dance recital
accurately one needs to express it in poetry.
A beautiful poem set to music.
This is an amazing spectacle!
Voronish
Something new, something
extraordinarily powerful and direct,
is the dancing of Irma Duncan and her
dancers. We are used to
the ballet, we are accustomed to see physical
culture parades but
we have never seen anything like the Duncan Dancers. An
un-
forgettable spectacle. Every single dance they performed was
beautiful. The two impressive marches by Schubert, the Elegiac
and the
Warrior one, will linger long in the memory.
Baku
The performance of
Irma Duncan brought us an evening of
sheer beauty. Baku never witnessed such
a wonderful sight. She
is a distinguished artist and danced marvelously,
especially her
"Moment Musical" called forth rapture from the audience and a
storm of applause.
Tiflis
In the effervescent, intoxicating waltzes
with their free-flowing
motions, Irma Duncan and her dancers carry the
spectator away
beyond the limits of the stage to green meadows . • .
reviving
for us the pastoral paintings of W atteau. Irma, the leader of the
group, creates miracles of inventiveness in her war-like dances
full of
power and ecstasy. From this mighty portrayal to the
tender, delicate
fluttering of a butterfly in the sunlight, lies the
immeasurable diapason of
a great artist. In the revolutionary
dances Irma reaches an extraordinary
power of expression.
Irkutsk
When one reads the enthusiastic reviews of
the many news-
papers about Irma Duncan, and when one sees her perform, one
involuntarily asks oneself: in what lies her greatness? With what
means
does she achieve such astounding beauty? How does she
have such a powerful
influence over the audience? Her strength
of expression resides in the
amazing eloquence and conviction of
her movements, and that is achieved
entirely through her great
musicianship and by being the master of her art.
To China and Back 275
Chita
We were in great anticipation. We all
had heard so much about
Duncan and so seldom saw her art. So let us go and
see Irma,
the public said. As soon as the curtain rose a deathly silence and
hushed expectancy fell over the audience. At last she appears.
Whoever
said about architecture that it is rigid music, here was
music made visible
in sublime motion. The lines of the body, the
hands, the lines of every fold
in the long, gray tunic expressed
sorrow in the Elegiac March. This was not
ordinary dancing,
this was great art ... To watch Irma Duncan dance one
sharply realizes how much we are still shackled by our cultural
inheritance of the past. The Duncan performance is no ordinary
theatrical spectacle but a step forward into a new culture. Not
for us
but for our children in this particular field there open
new and
immeasurable horizons.
Krasnoyarsk
In one of his articles "The West and
We," Trotsky, with a cer-
tain irony, recalls a literary critic's remark
during the dark epoch
of Tsarism after seeing Isadora Duncan dance. He was
so en-
chanted he could only write: "It is worth living!" Of course in
these days there is much else for us to live for. But Irma Duncan
and
all her youthful dancers can truly claim, IT IS WORTH
LIVING, if we can
create such harmony and beauty in our art.
And so we danced our way through
Siberia. Omsk, Tomsk,
Irkutsk, Chita via Transbaikalia, on to Khabarovsk and
Vladi-
vostok, reaping the harvest of the seed I had sown.
In Moyssei
Borissovich Shein, from the Moscow Conserva-
tory, we acquired a very fine
pianist. The romantic-looking type
of musician, dark-haired, tall, and
slender; he added distinction
to our dance concerts by always appearing in
white tie and for-
mal dress. This was something that impressed the audience
everywhere-especially in the hinterlands, where most of the
men could
barely afford to own a suit. Clothes as well as all
other commodities, taken
for granted elsewhere, were unavail-
able to the majority of the populace.
DUNCAN DANCER
I recall a funny incident that shows how threadbare the
average citizen's wardrobe was. It happened in Blagovyesh-
chensk on the
left bank of the Amur River. On the right bank
was Manchuria, where freedom
then prevailed and anything
could be bought in the stores of the small
Chinese town. In
those days, Russian citizens could obtain a permit to cross
the
river and buy anything they liked, providing they could wear
it on
their persons. All the men in our party used this opportu-
nity to replenish
their tattered wardrobes. Early one morning
they rowed over in a boat
dressed only in shirtsleeves (though
the day was cold), old pants, torn
shoes, and no hats. When
they returned at dusk, they all sported new fedora
hats, gloves,
half a dozen of everything starting with underwear; two suits
fitted one on top of the other, a half-dozen socks on each foot,
and a
pair of shiny new shoes. They could barely maneuver
in the clumsy get-ups.
Their strategy to outwit the frontier
guards was so obvious that even the
latter had to laugh, but
they got such a kick out of it that they closed an
eye and let
the men pass. Otherwise they would have had to pay a heavy
fine; or worse, suffer imprisonment. But for the sake of some
decent
clothes to wear, they would have gladly risked almost
anything short of
death.
We had a few warm days left in Vladivostok before the
winter set
in, and I used to drive to the shore and gaze out
across the Pacific toward
America. California, I knew, lay
straight ahead. How I longed to be back
there again! Of the
other Duncan girls, only Theresa lived over there-and
Tem-
ple, who was married and made her home in New York. With
Lisa in
France and Anna Lord knew where, how widely we
were scattered! With the
cessation of all correspondence, we
had completely lost track of each other.
I liked to have a look
at the Pacific as often as possible, not knowing when
I would
visit the Far East again, and believing that my tour had come
to
an end, with the return trip to Moscow next on our schedule.
To China and
Back 277
My manager told me that in the old tsarist days, a theatri-
cal
tour through Siberia invariably ended in Harbin, now no
longer Russian
territory. It was still largely populated by Rus-
sians, though under
Japanese occupation, and we decided to
make a try for it. This meant
obtaining exit visas and passports
from the Soviets. We doubted very much we
would receive
them, although the authorities occasionally permitted
theatrical
groups to cross the frontier, in spite of the chance of their
defect-
ing. To our pleasant surprise, the authorities let us go.
I never
saw such elation among the members of my troupe.
They had no intention of
defecting; they simply longed to
breathe a little free air and come in close
touch with the outside
world, so long kept away from them. We stayed for two
weeks,
giving a show nearly every day. At the termination of our
en-
gagement, the Harbin paper noted:
The performance of Irma Duncan and
her dancers was a real
triumph. The house was sold out to standing room
only. Loud
applause after each number greeted the artists and at the end the
dancers received a standing ovation.
Each time Irma Duncan appears on
the stage she is different.
Now she is joyful, then again she is proud, a
flaming spirit calling
to the oppressed masses to rise and throw away their
bonds. And
again she demonstrates her creative versatility in the
interpreta-
tion of Chopin's Funeral March and the Berceuse, where she
gives us the picture of a tender-visaged mother bending over the
cradle
of a child. One superbly moving impersonation succeeds
another. A scarf, a
tunic and a mantle, those are the only props
with the aid of which she
creates her beautiful art. She is as true
as only a fanatic can be to the
ideals of her foster mother. Isa-
dora's work is embodied in Irma.
When
the time came to depart, I was most reluctant to
leave. China exerted a
strange fascination over me. Peking was
a city I had always wanted to visit.
Now, only thirty hours
away, how could I resist? Our exit permit included
only Harbin,
DUNCAN .DANCER
but that didn't worry me. The question that
did worry me was
how we would be received in China without advance booking.
I decided to take a big gamble.
I gave the order to proceed, though
neither I nor my man"
agers knew anything about theatrical or any other
conditions in
China.
I can't remember when I had been more thrilled to
enter a
foreign city (short of my initial arrival in Paris) than when,
on a beautiful October day, I first saw the enormous walls en"
circling
Peking. Quickly settled at the Wagon"Lit Hotel, I
was impatient to go
sightseeing. Transportation was by ricksha;
and I confess to a few
embarrassed moments before I could
accustom myself to being drawn about, not
by horse or by
motor, but by another human being.
It must be remembered
that this was in the era of extra-
territoriality. Foreigners lived in their
own concessions and
never mixed with the natives. Theatres were situated
there, and
only a select number of high-ranking Chinese ever attended
them. For that reason, although I danced in several cities, I
never
really performed for the Chinese themselves. As far as
our concert tour was
concerned, it did not take place in China
proper, but only in the foreign
concessions-English, French,
Japanese, or those of other occupying nations.
Because of this
curious circumstance, it is not surprising to come across an
article
written by a Britisher under the pseudonym of Argus, who
re-
viewed our show in Tientsin, which was largely colonized by
the
English. He wrote:
A hit! A very palpable hit, as was observed by Hamlet.
Not
the most Philistinic would contradict the statement that Irma
Duncan
held the audience at the Empire Theatre last night in
her graceful hand. The
writer was acquainted with Isadora
Duncan, the founder of the Duncan school
of dancing, on her
first visit to London about twenty-five years ago, when
she gave
her initial recital at the New Gallery and no less a person than
the
musical critic of "The Times,'' the great Fuller Maitland, played
To
China and Back 279
accompaniments on the harpsichord to her interpretations
of the
classics.
In those days her views on dancing were an innovation
and
contrary to all the old ideas. Like Wagner, she met with opposi-
tion
and cheap ridicule. Since then she has conquered the world.
And all dance
recitals nowadays are more or less either Dun-
canesque or influenced by her
teachings. Within the year we have
witnessed the work of many dancers of
high repute and the great-
est executive ability, but the Duncan Dancers
stand alone.
In the first part of the programme the audience were charmed
by the portrayals of Irma Duncan and Mr. Shein, who is her
companion in
presenting "Chopiniana." If the great Polish master
could have witnessed
this delightful materialization of his work,
he would have been happy that
he had inspired such exquisite
poetry in motion. . . .
Mr. Shein, the
pianist, is of a rank which does not frequently
favor Tientsin. He has a
delicacy of touch and a technique not
excelled by many celebrities and the
sympathy of all those
musically inclined went out to him last night.
Princess Der Ling, onetime lady-in-waiting to Tzu-Hsi,
Dowager Empress
of China, was the first Chinese person of con-
sequence whom I met. She came
to see me backstage at the
Apollo Theatre in the Legation Quarter in Peking.
Educated
abroad-her father was once Chinese minister to France-she
spoke
perfect English. After we had been introduced, she said,
"You know, I was a
pupil of Isadora Duncan years ago." I
couldn't refrain from smiling and
saying doubtfully, "Really?"
-for many people have claimed this and still
do, though they
did no more than shake hands with her.
The Princess
continued, "It was in 1902. My sister and I
attended her classes in Paris.
That was long before she attained
fame as a dancer."
Then I remembered
what Mary Sturges had told me. They
must both have attended Isadora's studio
in the Avenue de
Villiars, where she opened classes for paying students soon
after
her arrival in Paris. However, they were of short duration and
DUNCAN DANCER
conducted with no thought of training professional
dancers. But
China was the last place I would have expected to find a former
pupil of Isadora!
Peking-with its monuments of former grandeur under the
Mandarin rule, such as the "Forbidden City"; the famed "Tem-
ple of
Heaven," entirely carved of white stone; and the vast
expanse of gardens and
low buildings with the peculiar, glazed,
upturned roofs in the bright yellow
and blues of Chinese archi-
tecture-is the most Chinese of all the cities I
saw in that coun-
try. Taking advantage of the splendid autumn weather, we
made several excursions to the Empress' summer palace, which
was shaped
like a houseboat, floating in the center of a lake.
We also visited the
western hills where the last remains of the
first president of the Chinese
Republic, Sun Y at-sen, had tem-
porarily been laid to rest, high up in a
tower overlooking the
whole countryside.
Before leaving Peking, I must
mention the mysterious char-
acter who daily ensconced himself in the same
armchair in a
dark corner of the big lobby of the Wagon-Lit Hotel. Every
time I appeared around tea time, he was there. He pretended
to read a
newspaper but actually kept peeping over the edge
and staring at me. I
thought I had made a new conquest, it was
most intriguing. At last he
summoned up enough courage to
send his card over to me and requested an
interview. He had a
very important matter to discuss with me, involving big
profits.
I sent my manager over to talk to him. The mysterious stranger
turned out to be a White Russian officer of Denikin's former
army, now
obviously living by his wits alone. He made me the
most amazing offer, one
that really astonished me.
Before I tell what it was, I must mention here
that Peking
and most of the Manchurian provinces were then held by that
most bloodthirsty of all warlords, the erstwhile bandit Chang-
Tso-lin.
His son, commander of one of his father's armies, was
a notorious
good-for-nothing. His feats as a gambler, woman-
chaser and rapist, his
numerous orgies had made sensational
To China and Back
news in the
foreign press. Well, hearing of our successful per-
formances in Peking, it
pleased this unspeakable scoundrel to
invite us to his army camp to dance
for him and his soldiers.
Naturally, I refused point-blank. The Russian
intermediary
pleaded with me, almost threatening me with dire results if I
persisted in my refusal. He assured us we would be treated with
respect
and like royalty strictly guarded and protected. A spe-
cial train with
sleeping cars and dining saloon would take us
there and back. And, most
important, a huge sum of money
would be paid in advance.
Finding
ourselves practically penniless at that period, it
perhaps seemed folly not
to accept this lucrative offer. It all
looked very suspicious to me and of
course I had my great
responsibility vis-a-vis my young charges to consider.
As luck
would have it, that same afternoon a young secretary of the
American Legation in Peking called on me. He instantly in-
formed me that
they knew all about that offer from Chang-
Tso-lin's son, and earnestly
warned me not to accept his offer no
matter how much money he was ready to
pay me. I hastily as-
sured him I had already definitely made up my mind to
have
nothing to do with this extraordinary scheme. He seemed much
relieved. I was quite touched that the American Legation should
take the
trouble to warn me and profess such a personal inter-
est in me since at that
time I was not yet a citizen of the United
States and therefore not entitled
to their protection. I thanked
him warmly and felt much comforted to know I
had invisible
friends in these dangerous surroundings and times.
In
Tientsin, an American impresario offered me a contract
for Japan. I had
originally intended to penetrate no farther
into China than the Celestial
City. But once there, I could not
resist continuing south to discover what
the rest of Cathay
looked like. Therefore the offer from the impresario came
most
opportunely. Without a definite contract, it would have been
risky
to stretch our lifeline to Russia too far.
The day we arrived in Shanghai,
misfortune befell us. First,
DUNCAN DANCER
the Japanese Emperor died,
and the tour was promptly cane
celed. That left us in grave financial
straits, since we counted
on the tour for new funds. Second, having no
advance agent,
we were unable to find a vacant theatre in any of the
concessions
other than the Japanese quarter, which was shunned by all the
foreigners, on whom we relied exclusively for our audience. It
was a
sort of pariah among concessions, something we could not
possibly have
anticipated. We danced for a couple of weeks to
small crowds, consisting
only of Japanese, at less than popular
prices-not enough to defray our
expenses. The situation, es-
pecially around Christmas time, became alarming.
I saw my-
self forced to ask for a loan. Ilya unearthed a Russian Jew who
acted as money lender in the Japanese concession, where we
then lived to
save money. I hated to do it. But living was ex-
pensive in Shanghai, that
teeming city on the Whangpoo River
by the Yellow Sea, with its strange
admixture of Oriental and
European cultures. We continued to hope for a good
break to
set us on our feet again. None appeared, and the Shanghai
Shylock demanded payment. The alternative was to have me
thrown into
prison, which would have meant a Chinese prison.
This horrible fate was
imminent when a policeman, accompanied
by Shylock, came to my lodgings to
arrest me.
Not knowing how to escape this dreadful predicament, I
sat
hopeless and forlorn in my locked and bolted room, while
a ferocious fracas
went on outside. All the men in my company
tried to prevent the arresting
officer from reaching my door.
Frightened, I jumped from my chair and ran to
a closet to hide
when I heard a loud knock at my door. Careful inquiry
revealed
that a Soviet Embassy secretary desired to speak to me. I opened
the door.
"What is that awful noise downstairs?" he asked on
enter-
ing. "I could barely get by several fellows at grips with each
other, while an English bobby tried unsuccessfully to tear them
apart."
"Those are my friends trying to save my life. Somebody is
out to get my
blood," I said with a laugh, trying to seem flippant
To China and Back
and unconcerned. The last thing I wanted the Soviets to know
was my
financial dilemma.
"May I ask how large a sum you owe?" he asked casually,
surprising me no end. How did he know? I told him, and with-
out further
ado he reached for his wallet and presented me with
the exact amount. I was
speechless, and so terribly relieved I
could have kissed him. He, or rather
the Soviet Embassy (which
knows all, sees all, and hears all), had literally
saved my life.
He further passed on the information that the Embassy had
wired to Moscow for sufficient funds to bring me and my whole
company
safely home. After the tumult and the shouting below
had died, with the
fortuitous repayment of the debt, he invited
us all to a New Year's party at
the Embassy.
I had corresponded with no one since leaving Moscow. No
news of Isadora had reached me. I made use of the Christmas
holidays to
write letters to both my mother and foster mother.
The latter passed the
time between the Hotel Lutetia in Paris
and her studio in Nice, preparing
her memoirs for publication.
Since no further communications passed between
us, I discovered
only years later that my journey to China had simply
infuriated
her. She went so far in her anger as to tell friends that I was a
"bandit" who had "absconded with her school"-a statement
bordering on
madness. She wrote a formal letter of protest to
some Soviet official
complaining that when she received my news
it was:
The first word I have
heard from the school for six months,
and the first knowledge I have had
that they are in China. I
wish to protest that this school which I formed at
the sacrifice of
my fortune and person, and for which I had become naturally
boycotted by all my former friends and audiences in Europe,
should be
allowed to pass from my control and into the hands of
private speculation.
Those sacrifices that I made, I made gladly
for the cause of the people; but
when it comes to the exploita-
tion of my work by a private organization
without so much as
asking my advice--! must protest!
This is an
exploitation of my art which I would not have
DUNCAN DANCER
expected,
considering the primary object of my visit to Russia
was to escape from just
such exploitation of Art, which Soviet
Russia condemned Europe for in 1921.
"Private speculation?, "Exploitation of my work?, Was
she talking about
me? I too had formed the school at the sacri-
fice of my future and person
and fortune, since I received not a
penny for my work. And besides, from the
opening in 1921 until
that Christmas of 1926, I had done all the work with
the chil-
dren, Isadora being absent from the school 7 5 per cent of the
time. For some reason known only to her, it was all right for
me to
perform in France with sixteen pupils from the school,
but not in China. In
the former instance, it would have been
"for the cause of the people"; in
the latter, she considered it
a dreadful "exploitation" of her work. These
contradictions in
terms remained incomprehensible to me. Was I doing
anything
wrong?
At the Embassy party to celebrate New Year's day in
Shang-
hai, all the children-ranging in age from ten to sixteen-were
given presents. I too received a pair of handsome black cloisonne
vases
filled with poinsettias, which, now holding other flowers,
grace my
mantelpiece to this day. Among the guests were
foreign correspondents, who
had come to China to cover the
civil war then raging in the interior. In
Peking I had already
become familiar with the name of Chang Tso-lin, a
mighty war
lord, and here in Shanghai the name of Chiang Kai-shek was
much in the news. Without realizing it-for I shied away from
politics--!
had arrived at a crucial moment in the revolutionary
history of that
country, in which I was to become unwittingly
embroiled to a minor extent.
No one in the rest of the world,
except Soviet Russia, paid much attention
to what was going on
in China. The American papers were concerned only with
do-
mestic affairs.
The Chinese Revolution, which had started twenty
years
earlier under the leadership of the great Sun Y at-sen (who had
been proclaimed president in I 9 1 I ) was about to enter a second
To
China and Back
stage. The Bolsheviks, continuously on the prowl for further
acquisitions to their own cause, had given Sun Y at-sen money
and
munitions, and also military and political advisers. When
Sun Yat-sen died
in I 924, the revolutionary movement contin-
ued to grow. The various war
lords, who governed China ac-
cording to a feudal system, opposed it to a
man. The Canton
armies of the Kuomintang (People's Party), inspired by Sun
Yat-sen, were then sweeping down the Yangtze-Kiang under
the leadership
of Chiang Kai-shek, and had recently taken
Hankow, soon to be followed by
Nanking and Shanghai. Anti-
foreign feeling had been aroused among the
armies, and all
foreigners were advised to settle on the coast near Shanghai
or
Tientsin. The political adviser the Russians sent to the Kuomin-
tang
was an aquaintance of mine, Michael Borodin.
The young, victorious
commander-in-chief, Chiang Kai-shek,
even then engaged in certain maneuvres
to further his own
ambition (which eventually culminated in making him
presi-
dent), was trying to break with the left wing of the Kuomin-
tang,
which was largely under Russian influence. Word had
reached the Soviet
Embassy at this time that a critical situation
had developed with respect to
the Kuomintang.
During the New Year's reception the Soviet Ambassador
asked me to step into his private office for a moment. He had
something
important to say to me.
"I have received official notice from Narkompross
[People's
Commissariat of Education] in Moscow that you are to return
immediately to Russia," he informed me, when we were seated
at his desk.
I had no knowledge then of Isadora's protest, and
could not guess that she
had a hand in this. I retorted, "That
suits me fine. Shall we be leaving at
once?"
The Soviet Ambassador (I have forgotten his name) re-
garded me
for a minute in silence. Then he leaned far across
his desk and said in a
hushed voice, "No, I don't want you to
leave yet for Moscow."
Intrigued
by his conspiratorial tone, I raised my eyebrows
286 DUNCAN DANCER
and
asked for an explanation. In the same hushed tones he
added, "My staff and I
have come to the unanimous. conclusion
that you and your company should
proceed to Hankow instead."
"Hankow?" I cried in alarm. "Isn't that the
place where a
wave of anti-foreign agitation has broken out, with foreigners
being killed right and left?"
"That is true," he admitted and raised a
forefinger, quickly
adding, "but not Russians l "
How the enraged
Chinese could tell the difference in na-
tionality or bother to find out
before slaughtering anyone, I
couldn't imagine. I showed no enthusiasm for
the idea of leav-
ing safe Shanghai and venturing forth into the front battle
lines,
and told him so. He calmed my fears by explaining that the
Borodins would look after us and protect us and not to worry on
that
account. Things were actually not so bad. ''The people will
welcome some
diversion, and your performance will, I am sure,
give them new hope and
inspiration."
He was so insistent that I got the impression this was more
of an order than a request. "How shall we get there?" I asked,
still not
sure if this was the right thing for us to do. "We are
completely broke."
"You can use the money Lunacharsky forwarded for your
return trip."
"Isn't that going against official orders?" I asked, surprised
that he
should even suggest such a thing, and unwilling to get
myself into trouble
with the authorities in Moscow.
"Leave the rest to us," he assured me. "I
shall give the
necessary explanation when the time comes. The important
thing is-will you consent to go?" I remained silent, thinking
of the
enormous responsibility involved. It wasn't just myself
I had to consider,
but all my company.
"Of course you are not forced to go. If you are afraid .
. .
we will understand. This is only a suggestion on our part;" he
said.
Adventure is in my blood, and I had no actual fear for
To China and Back
myself to see a bit of history in the making. I hesitated only
because
of the girls. "Will they be safe?" I inquired.
"The enemy has not yet
reached the river, and although
the voyage to Hankow may not be too
comfortable, there is
nothing to fear. Once you reach the Wuhan province
upstream,
the Borodins and Chiang Kai-shek with his victorious army will
receive you with open arms. They are well supplied with every-
thing and
will give you a good time."
"In that case, as long as I have your official
assurance all
will be well with us," I said, "we shall go on to Hankow." One
is young only once and at that period of life seldom reckons
with the
consequences. I asked him when he wished us to depart.
"Tomorrow. The sooner
you get there the better. A Japa-
nese streamer is about to sail for Hankow.
It will take only three
days."
What he did not communicate to me, so as
not to alarm us
unduly, was the fact that the enemy army of the northern war
lord Chang Tso-lin, more ferocious even than the southern
army, was
momentarily expected to capture Nanking. The
Soviets purposely left me in
the dark, because they were anx-
ious-for reasons of their own-that we should
make contact
with the Borodins. The Soviet Embassy saw in our dancers a
providential means of extending a friendly gesture to Chiang
Kai-shek.
In other words, they tried to use us as propaganda to
help smooth the
ruffied feathers of the Chinese-Russian en-
tente.
The parting words of
the young secretary of the legation,
who once came to my rescue and who now
saw us off, were,
"You don't know how courageous you are to undertake this
journey. If I were in your place, I don't think I would have
done the
same."
This remark hardly helped to put my mind at ease. I some-
how
sensed that my small bark, having so far navigated safely,
was about to
encounter the ground swells of much deeper water.
Traveling native style in
China is quite an experience. It is
288 DUNCAN DANCER
not one that I
would ever care to repeat. In order to save
money, our manager had bought
third-class accommodation for
all of us. We slept on hard bunks in cabins of
our own, but
meals were another matter. There was no dining room. We
were obliged to squat, Chinese style, on the bare floor. The food
was
served in porcelain cups with chopsticks. This would not
have been too bad,
since one can adopt native customs temporar-
ily. It was instructive and
might have been fun-but-there
were grave reasons for shunning these meals
served on the
floor outside the cabins. That same place was also used by the
native passengers for other and more private purposes, as un-
concernedly
as if they were animals.
I rushed in shocked protest to the Japanese captain
of the
ship, asking permission for me and my company to eat in the
first-class dining saloon and paying for the privilege, but he re-
fused.
What to do? I first thought of mutiny, by simply taking
over the dining
saloon and staying there to the end of the trip.
I consulted with Elisaveta
Gregorievna, who told me of a sup-
ply of baked beans she had taken along,
just in case. That solved
the problem. For three days, three times a day, we
all ate cold
beans, right out of the cans, in our own cabins. We never
trav-
eled without tea and a couple of samovars; thus we had enough
to
drink. The girls spent most of the time playing on deck,
but I never left my
cabin. Frossia, my maid, took care of all
my wants. I invariably traveled
with my own bedding, wash
basins, buckets, pitcher, etc., as well as linen
and mosquito net-
ting. These were things one could not do without,
considering
the primitive state of lodgings in all of Russia outside of the
larger cities. Fortunately, most places had public baths. In this
way,
we kept clean and free of disease, despite the ravages of
typhoid fever and
cholera rampant in certain areas. Though
none of us had been especially
inoculated, our group suffered
no serious illness all the years we toured
together. Whenever
one of the children complained of feeling sick, Elisaveta
Gre-
gorievna employed but one remedy-castor oil. This, she in-
To China
and Back
sisted, cured everything, and it worked wonders; but here in
China, under these unbelievably filthy conditions, I feared the
very
worst.
From my cabin window, I watched the scenery along the
largest
river in China. We passed Nanking safely. Soon there-
after the river
narrowed and the mountains appeared in fan-
shape form-a view made familiar
through Chinese art, which
has a character and charm all its own. We had
come about six
hundred miles upstream when, in the second week of January
1927, with the civil war about to reach a climax, we landed in
Hankow,
the most important commercial center in the mid-
lands.
The day was sunny
and warm. The children stood lined up
on deck in their school outfits, with
their overcoats cut in mili-
tary style resembling the Red Army uniform. I
too came out
of my seclusion below deck, glad to see the sun and inhale some
fresh air. As the boat approached the landing stage, I noticed
two
ladies, both dressed in Chinese garb-although one was a
foreigner-standing
on the dock and waving at us. The foreign
woman, in her forties, very short
and rather squat-looking in
her gray Chinese dress reaching to the ankles,
called out in
Russian, "Hello, I'm Fanny Borodin. Welcome to Hank ow! "
Borodin was not her real name. Both she and her husband,
whom I had met
before, came from Chicago, where he had
taught school. Delighted to be able
to speak to an American
woman again, I said some words in English, upon
which she
quickly shushed me, saying in Russian, "Please don't speak
English in public! Do you see that building full of bullet
holes?" and
she pointed to a warehouse nearby. "That is where
they shot every man,
woman, and child of the English colony,
who had barricaded themselves there
last week. So, please, be
very careful. It's all right to speak Russian."
She introduced me to her companion, a Chinese lady of very
delicate
proportions and a charming face. It turned out to be
the Martha Washington
of revolutionary China, none other
DUNCAN DANCER
than the widow of the
first president, Sun Y at-sen. Soong
Ching-ling is the sister of the present
Madame Chiang Kai-shek.
She handed me a bouquet of flowers and whispered a
few words
of greeting in English, for, like her more famous sister, she was
educated in America.
Fanny Borodin informed me that, besides her own
family,
I and my company were the only foreigners then in Hankow.
That
did not make me feel very much at ease. After that awful
boat trip, I fully
anticipated the worst. She and Madame Sun
Y at-sen led me to a limousine in
a line of other cars all promi-
nently displaying the Kuomintang flag-an
eleven-pointed white
star in a field of blue. The English and French
concessions ap-
peared to be completely evacuated, and we drove through them
without stopping anywhere. Presently we approached a polo
field on the
outskirts of the city, and I prepared myself to be
housed in Chinese fashion
with all the attending discomforts for
a Westerner. But the limousine
entered some iron gates set in
a high wall and stopped in front of an
impressive modern man-
Slon.
"What do you think of it?" Mrs. Borodin, now
addressing
me in English, said as we mounted the stairs. "It looks brand
new," I retorted, gazing about in amazement, for this was the
last I had
expected. "It is!" she said, and laughed. The house,
she explained, was
especially built for Wu Pei-fu, the big war
lord of the midland provinces.
"But we captured Hankow be-
fore he had a chance to occupy it, and now it is
yours for the
duration of your visit with us."
So saying, she conducted
us into the house; and indeed all
the furniture, down to the last lace
doily, still had a price tag
attached. We all stood there laughing. It was
so marvelous to
think we got there ahead of Wu Pei-fu! We moved in and took
possession of this grand trophy of war, whose wraps had not yet
been
removed.
"I hope you will find everything to your liking, and that
you
will all be happy here," Madame Sun said in her gracious
To China and Back
manner, so different from the abrupt Fanny Borodin. "This is
the very
best place we can offer you," she continued, leading me
to the dining room
that opened out onto a terrace. Her smooth
dark hair, tied back into a knot
at the nape of the neck, framed
a pale, sensitive face with very black eyes.
She spoke and moved
with the stately bearing of an aristocrat; her ideas of
housekeepc
ing were those of a woman brought up in luxury. Surveying the
dining room she said nonchalantly, "Instead of hiring a cook
and
servants, such a bother, I thought it would be ever so much
more convenient
to hand the whole problem of meals over to a
good caterer. Don't you agree?
"
The arrangement seemed perfect. The only thing that both-
ered me was
the expense. "Are we to pay for them?" I inquired
of Mrs. Borodin before she
left.
"Certainly not!" she exclaimed. "All of you are the honored
guests
of the Kuomintang Party. Besides, Madame Sun's
brother, T. V. Soong, is
Finance Minister, so you can just sit
back and relax; everything will work
out."
I thanked them for the wonderful hospitality, and then
Mrs.
Borodin warned me once more about speaking English
in public and told me not
to worry about the isolated location.
"You shall have a round-the-dock
bodyguard of armed sol-
diers," she assured me. "We have also placed a car
with chauffeur
at your disposal, but don't go anywhere without taking two
armed guards along! " and she warned me further, "Always be
sure to
display the Kuomintang flag prominently!"
Before driving back to town with
Madame Sun, she gave me
her telephone number and promised to return the
following day.
I entered the house again and noticed several white-coated
waiters setting the table as for a festive dinner. There were
flowers,
silver, crystal, candles-and they served nothing less
than a seven-course
meal every time we sat down at table. What
a far cry from the cold beans
eaten out of a tin!
At night, when I retired to my private room and bath,
all
the fixtures gleaming in a brand-new state, I looked out the
DUNCAN
DANCER
window and saw the bonfires lit in front of the tents the eight
soldiers of our night watch had erected in back and in front of
the
house. My thoughts went back to all the strange events
leading up to this
moment. How did I ever get into a situation
like this? No matter how often I
had dreamed of visiting Cathay,
not in my wildest imagination could I have
conjured up an ad-
venture similar to this one. What was our next move? I
won-
dered, for almost anything was possible now. The warlike at-
mosphere
created by the soldiers guarding our high-walled
enclave brought a shiver of
apprehension, for in spite of all the
luxurious surroundings in which we
lived, I could not forget
that we were encamped in the midst of a fierce
civil war whose
outcome still lay in the balance. At any moment the tide
might
suddenly turn for the worse and engulf us all in the most
ghastly
disaster. All night long the spectre of Wu Pei-fu, the
vanquished war lord,
taking Hankow again by storm and mak-
ing us his prisoners, prevented me from
sleeping soundly in his
house. And I wished I were a thousand miles from
there. Why,
oh why! had I not heeded Isadora's plea? I would now be
bask-
ing in the mild Riviera sun, bathing in the blue sea, instead of
facing terror and bloodshed and gruesome death from which
there might be
no escape.
These nightmarish thoughts vanished on the following day.
We
were too busy getting ready for our debut in Hankow to
think of anything but
the business at hand. The night of our
performance in a small theatre in the
former French concession,
the entire route leading from the center of town
was lined with
soldiers. All the dignitaries from Chiang Kai-shek down would
attend. \Ve tried to give our best to our first all-Chinese audi-
ence,
and they responded with great warmth. Mrs. Borodin
came backstage during the
intermission and said, "Your dancing
is divine! It is a shame Chiang
Kai-shek can't see it. He did
not come."
I told her we had then failed
in our mission, for this was
the reason we were sent to Hankow. She told me
to have pa-
To China and Back 293
tience; she had sent several
messengers, and he might still ap-
pear. At the end of our performance she
once more came to my
dressing room, this time elated and excited. "He is
here! He is
here!" she shouted. "He just came! Now you must do the
whole
thing over again!"
Exhausted from my three-hour show, I pleaded with her
not to insist on a repetition of the entire program, but only of
the
last part, composed of our revolutionary songs and dances.
She agreed, and I
had prepared a surprise. At the very end,
after several curtain calls (for
none of the audience had left
and Chiang Kai-shek applauded as loudly as the
rest), we all
came out dressed in little coolie shirts. I displayed the
Kuomin-
tang flag, and the children sang the Kuomintang national
anthem
in Chinese, to the incongruous tune of "Three Blind
Mice." It was a
tremendous hit!
Mrs. Borodin embraced me in her enthusiasm crying, "That
was wonderful! Just the right thing! You have won over Chiang
Kai-shek
completely. You know, all the top officials are so
pleased they are going to
tender all of you a nice banquet to-
morrow."
Madame Sun Yat-sen called
on me the next day and said,
"We all think it would be so much pleasanter to
hold the ban-
quet in your honor right here in your house instead of at a
formal restaurant in town. The caterers are already here, and
we can
spend the whole evening together, en famille as it were."
That evening the
top officials arrived and many brought their
children along. I sat at the
head of the table next to the hero of
the Chinese Revolution, Chiang
Kai-shek, and the Foreign Min-
ister, Eugen Chen. Madame Sun Yat-sen sat on
the other end
with her brother the Minister of Finance, and Michael Borodin.
They made speeches and drank my health in wine, all except
Chiang
Kai-shek, who drank water. He also spoke no English.
He just sat there and
smiled. So I conversed mainly with Eugen
Chen, a very cultured gentleman,
educated in England, who had
a good sense of humor.
· DUNCAN DANCER
For this gala. occasion, I wore a Chinese costume that I had
bought in
Peking on Silk Street, with a large jade pendant I had
bought there on Jade
Street. Both the long jacket and the
trousers were of red silk. The
loose-sleeved jacket was richly
embroidered in white, blue, and gold. I
considered it most ap-
propriate and could not resist asking Eugen Chen
whether he
did not agree. In his clipped Oxford accent he said, "It is of
course very lovely and all that, but ..."
"vVhat is the matter with it?
Is something wrong?" I in-
quired, taken aback.
"Well now, I really don't
know what to say. Let me put it
to you this way, my dear girl. Ah-h, suppose
I had been given a
banquet in Paris and turned up dressed as Louis XIV! Eh!
It
would be rather funny, wouldn't it? Ha, hal"
I saw the joke when he
explained that the Mandarin style
had disappeared with the Manchu dynasty.
To me, all Chinese
clothes looked alike. Then I learned that the modern
Chinese
women no longer wore trousers nor tied their feet with bandages
in childhood to stunt their growth. I too promised to reform and
buy
myself a modern Chinese dress. Only I could nowhere find
one to fit me-the
Chinese women are all as small as dolls.
While the Russian and Chinese
children amused themselves
with parlor games after dinner, I had a long
conversation with
Borodin. I had met him before, in the summer of I 92 I
shortly
after our arrival in Moscow. I remembered the occasion now.
It
was on a day in August, after we had settled in the dacha in
Sparrow Hills
(now called Lenin Hills). Isadora and I, simply
clad in white tunics and
sandals, had been wandering among the
trees on the wooded heights above the
river. Weary of our
promenade, we sat on an open grassy slope near the
stream.
Soon several men in a rowboat appeared around the bend; and,
apparently attracted by our white-clad figures, they moored their
boat
and climbed the slope toward us. They must have recog-
nized Isadora, because
they asked if they could take a snapshot
of her. The chief of this little
band was Borodin. Tall and dark
To China and Back 295
and good-looking,
he seemed more cultured than the others and
was the only one who spoke
English. We invited them to lunch
at our dacha. We did not have much food,
but Jeanne managed
to rustle up a few eggs for an omelet and fresh tomatoes
for a
salad; and they, used to a diet of dried fish and hard black bread,
considered it a lavish meal. We had never seen Borodin again,
and I
certainly had not expected to run across him in the middle
of China. But
here he was, and he had an interesting proposition
to make.
Would I, he
wanted to know, consider giving up my per-
formances at the theatre in the
French concession-which was,
after all, a symbol of colonialism in the eyes
of any Chinese-
to dance instead in the theatre in the native quarter? That
was
something no foreign artist had ever done. I readily consented,
without giving it a second thought. The fact that for the last
three
months we had performed in every large city in China
and not once for a
purely Chinese audience, except in Hankow,
was something I did not like. It
did not seem fair. \Vhy should
the natives be forced to enter the hated
foreign concessions in
order to see the artists who came to their country?
"Bravo!" Borodin exclaimed. "You will have the distinction
of being the
first foreign artist to perform professionally in the
Chinese quarter;
outside the settlements, and in a Chinese, not
European-style, theatre."
The population of Hankow was then about a million souls.
And I don't
think it too much of an exaggeration when I claim
we must have danced for
most of them! Borodin had warned
me that the Chinese theatre was different
from what I was
accustomed to. Indeed it was! To begin with, the windows had
only transparent paper to cover them, most of it torn to shreds;
and
cold blasts of air circulated through the auditorium, which
seated several
thousand people. A heating system was conspicu·
ous by its absence. At the
end of January it had started to snow,
a freak of the weather this southern
town had not experienced
in thirty years. There was another inconvenience of
a very serious
DUNCAN DANCER
sort-the theatre had no dressing rooms. The
cold and the lack
of dressing rooms may have been perfectly all right for
the all-
male Chinese performers, dressed in elaborate amounts of
cos-
tume. But I and my girls needed a little privacy for disrobing
and
change of costumes, which consisted in the main of diapha-
nous scarves worn
over bare limbs. Borodin made a long face
when he noticed my disgust with
the setup, afraid I would
renege on the whole scheme. However, I decided to
go through
with it; which is my usual attitude when challenged.
Backstage we rigged up screens like small nooks, with bra-
ziers of hot
coals inside to keep us from freezing. Even so, the
cold was so severe that
when the girls entered the stage singing,
little spirals of steam could be
seen escaping from their open
mouths. No matter how energetically we moved
about, our limbs
seemed absolutely frozen. As for poor Moissei Borissovich,
he
insisted on wearing woolen gloves so he could play the rattling
old
upright box that no true musician would honor by the name
of piano. None of
us had ever experienced anything like it. We
thought the extreme cold would
keep the audience away. But
no; they continued to pour into the theatre to
full capacity at
each and every show. They had, of course, nothing to worry
about. The national costume is a padded suit and padded coat
in which
they sat, warm as toast, drinking-throughout the re-
cital, if you
please-pots of hot tea and eating sweet cakes.
The Chinese theatre also
boasts of no curtain or spotlights.
While dancing I am usually unaware of
the audience, for I am
completely wrapped up in my interpretation of the
music. Here
this was impossible, no matter how much I tried to concentrate.
On that Oriental music box, even Chopin-played by my pianist
in woolen
gloves-sounded Chinese. And out in the auditorium,
lit up as bright as day,
I heard the noise of constant chatter and
saw the tea being served, while an
occasional hot towel went
flying through the air from customer to
towel-vendor for the
purpose-of all things!-of wiping sweat from the brow!
To
cap the whole incredible performance (in which the public actu-
To
China and Back 297
ally took a more prominent part than we, poor frozen
dancers),
they all-thousands of them-held up their thumbs and shouted
"Ho!" instead of applauding at the end of a dance. No wonder
we were
complete wrecks at the finish of our engagement, which
could have been
prolonged indefinitely, because Borodin invited
the various labor groups and
army units to see the show free.
A halt was called only because some army
units mutinied, took
over the entire theatre, and refused to quit and make
room for
others. They bivouacked there, and the riot squads had to be
called out of the barracks before they evacuated the premises.
With
those fellows we had apparently made a smashing hit. The
Chinese masses had
never seen Occidental performers before,
except in movies and, like shoo-fly
pie, they simply couldn't "get
enough of that wonderful stuff."
But I
decided we had had enough. And, undoubtedly leaving
in our wake uncounted
new adherents of the Duncan dance
a !'Orientale, we bade farewell to our
friendly hosts. But here,
too, Oriental style had to be observed. Madame Sun
entertained
me at tea, presenting me with a pretty Chinese-embroidered
shawl in the Imperial color of the celestial kingdom-bright
yellow-symbolizing the heavenly orb. I still have it.
Then there was the
governor of the province, who extended
us a farewell feast of thirty-five
courses-all Chinese. It started
off with a hot, steaming shark-fin stew,
prepared by his own
hands at the table. Seeing those bleeding pieces of fish
drop into
the pot one by one had an effect the opposite of raising my
appetite. The various Oriental dishes followed one another in
slow
procession, including such choice morsels as hundred-year-
old eggs that gave
off enough ammonia fumes for a general gas
attack. Everything was eaten with
chopsticks out of tiny, trans-
parent porcelain bowls. This went on for hours
with nothing to
drink but green tea. To my Occidental palate, these dishes
were
repulsive; I could not swallow a single bit, never knowing
whether
it was a slice of chow dog or worse. I raised my chop-
sticks dutifully and
pretended to taste each course as it was set
DUNCAN DANCER
before me,
but not a wee morsel passed my lips. Finally, at the
end, the servants
brought in large wooden bowls filled to over-
flowing with snow-white rice,
every kernel separate, just the way
I like it. My face lit up; I smacked my
lips. Starving for some
sustenance after a three-hour wait, I was about to
raise my chop-
sticks and dig in with relish, when someone rudely kicked me
under the table.
I turned to my neighbor, Michael Borodin, and
whispered,
"What's the matter?" He shook his head and whispered back,
"Don't eat it!" I turned pale, thinking it might be poisoned;
such
things have happened at Oriental courts, I knew from
reading history.
"I
like rice, and what's more I am starving!" I whispered,
fiercely determined
to eat something at this gorgeous feast. He
reached for my arm and held onto
it so I wouldn't commit a
grave breach of protocol.
"It's not proper.
The host will be gravely offended if, after
a dinner of the finest Chinese
food, his guests are hungry enough
to eat such common, every-coolie's-staple
as rice."
"Then why do they serve it?"
"Ah, that is a curious Oriental
ceremony having to do with
polite manners," he said; and as we got up from
the table he
added with tongue in cheek, "Now, if you really want to show
your gratitude and appreciation of the excellent meal your kind
host has
offered you, give a good, loud, resounding belch! "
"vVhat with?" I retorted
petulantly. "1 haven't eaten any-
thing."
"No matter, do it anyway. It is
a great compliment. Nothing
delights a Chinese host more."
"After you,
Sire," I said and laughed. "Men come before
women in China." But he too
would have no part of this particu-
lar Oriental protocol. And so I rose as
hungry as I had sat down
at the governor's banquet in my honor.
On the
morning of departure, a large delegation of men and
women, representing
different organizations, appeared at our
To China and Back 299
house on
the outskirts of town, where for the last six weeks we
had lived as guests
of the Kuomintang government. They pre-
sented us with various painted silk
scrolls and other gifts on
behalf of the Chinese people. There was also a
letter from the
Foreign Minister:
Dear Miss Duncan:
Palace Yian-cen,
Hankow
February 6, 1927
In the name of our Chinese comrades I wish to
express to you
and the pupils of your school, our great appreciation of the
unique
work and the beauty of your dancing, which you have shown us
during the period of your sojourn in Hankow.
You have not only brought
us a cultural form new to our
people, but have also enriched our vision, and
you have demon-
strated that your art expresses in movement all the natural
energies that create joy and beauty.
Very cordially yours,
Eugen
Chen
I was grateful for their warm appreciation and felt that all
of
us--dancers, pianist, managers, chaperone, and maid alike-
had bravely
fulfilled the difficult assignment for which the So-
viet government had sent
us to Hankow.
Return to Moscow
FoR our voyage down the Yangtze-Kiang to
Shanghai, the first
lap of our trip, we boarded a Russian boat that had come
to
Hankow to take on a cargo of black tea. We made the return
trip in
far greater comfort. Several Chinese friends accompanied
us, as did Mrs.
Borodin, with her son Norman. She told me she
was seeing her twelve-year-old
boy off in Shanghai, where we
were to take a steamer for Vladivostok. She
asked me to see that
he got safely on the train there for Moscow, where he
would
go back to school. I promised to do so. This seemingly simple
circumstance was to play an important part in the life of Fanny
Borodin,
who was soon to make the headlines the world over.
I must here tell the
story and the key part I played in that
drama, details of which have up till
now not been revealed.
On our way to Shanghai, while the Chinese civil war
was still
raging, we got word that the enemy army led by Chang Tso-lin
had captured Nanking. This news threw everyone aboard into a
panic. My
panic was the more terrifying since I remembered my
categorical refusal to
dance for his army and naturally feared
the very worst of fates from his
hands in revenge. Before reach-
ing Nanking we stopped several miles upstream
to wait for
nightfall. Under the protection of a heavy February fog and
with all lights extinguished, we silently slipped past the enemy
foothold and got safely away, to our enormous relief. What
might
actually have happened to any of us if we had fallen into
enemy hands can be
seen by what did happen to Mrs. Borodin-
or Mrs. B. as she begged me to call
her, being afraid to mention
her full name.
JOO
Return to Moscow 301
On her return trip to Hankow, sometime in March I believe,
she was
captured and turned over to Chang Tso-lin. The irate
bandit wanted to
strangle her on the spot, ostensibly as a spy,
but was dissuaded from taking
so drastic an action. After lan-
guishing in prison for months, she was
finally brought to trial
in the war lord's stronghold, Peking. They tried
her and found
her guilty. The usual punishment for that crime was beheading,
but because she was a foreigner and a woman they were going to
give her
an aristocrat's death without spilling any blood. She
was to die by either
strangulation or drowning. Her defense at-
torney, A. I. Kantorovich, did
everything in his power to free
her, offering bribes right and left, all to
no avail. The affidavits
from Moscow in her defense proved to be mere scraps
of paper
as far as the Chinese court was concerned. They needed
some-
thing more credible than that: an affidavit as to her reason for
going to Shanghai in the first place, coming from an impartial
source.
Fanny immediately thought of me, but hesitated to drag
me into this mess on
account of my future career. The presiding
judge had accepted the bribe, a
big one; all he needed to release
her was my affidavit. Her life depending
on the outcome, they
very reluctantly got in touch with me. I was then in
Paris.
I had absolutely no knowledge of any of this, because the
Rus-
sian papers and their system of suppressing news inimical to the
Communist Party or any of its members carried nothing about
Borodin's
story. It came as a complete surprise. I did not hesi-
tate to sign the
affidavit proving that she had seen her son off to
Russia in Shanghai. This
document, which I was supposed to
hand to the Chinese Ambassador in Paris,
and a cable sent in my
name direct to Peking, apparently effected her
release. The
judge acquitted her, and he, as well as Fanny Borodin,
instantly
vanished off the face of the earth. Chang Tso-lin flew into a
rage,
turning Peking upside down to find the escaped prisoner, but
she
remained in hiding for months before starting her home-
ward journey in
disguise.
I saw her again in Moscow. In the interim of her imprison-
302
DUNCAN DANCER
ment, the revolutionary movement in Hankow collapsed
through a counter-revolution led by one of their generals. Mad-
ame Sun
Yat-sen, Eugen Chen and his family, and Borodin
scattered to the four winds.
They eventually also ended up in
I\1oscow, where I encountered them all once
more, and Eugen
Chen's daughter became my first Chinese pupil. Fanny Borodin
told me the story of her escape, saying, "I am writing a book
about my
experiences. But don't worry, I won't mention your
name or the important
part you played in effecting my rescue.
As a matter of fact, you did save my
life, and I am eternally
grateful. That must remain a secret between
ourselves, for two
reasons. You see, my husband has failed in his mission,
and the
government is keeping us under house arrest. We are to speak
to
no one and see no one. You are the only exception. And then
there is your
career to think of. The less said about this, the
better. You understand,
don't you?"
I failed to see where my personal career as an artist had
anything to do with it. All I did was tell the truth as I knew it
to be
when asked about her whereabouts on a given date. I never
saw either of them
again. That chapter in the book of my life
was closed.
We landed in
Vladivostok at the end of February 1927. To the
Russian people in those
early years of Communist rule, anyone
returning from abroad of his own free
will, after having tasted
freedom, appeared as strange and marvelous as some
weird ani-
mal in the zoo. Since we had been zagranitsa, as they call it, the
public looked at us in amazement. The local theatrical managers
refused
to let us slip by without cashing in on the occasion. We
obtained a two-week
engagement from them with a financial
guarantee. That was quite an ambitious
undertaking on their
part, considering we had played that length of time in
Vladi-
vostok before our departure in September. But we had not reck-
oned
with their ingenuity.
They came to me one morning and asked me whether I
Return to Moscow
would consent to an exhibition of our trophies and
purchases in
the foyer of the theatre. I had no objection. However, they
didn't stop with our trophies and Chinese souvenirs. They per-
suaded me
to exhibit every dress and hat and piece of silk
underwear, including
stockings, that I had bought; even such
silly items as powder compacts,
lipsticks, and perfume, of which
I had brought along a considerable supply,
knowing the total
dearth of such commodities in Russia. I laughed out loud
and
exclaimed, "You must be joking!"
"Nyet! Nyet!" they said and assured
me to the contrary.
How right they were in estimating the avid interest in
for-
eign goods by the average citizen was proved the night of our
first
performance. The audience could not be torn away from
the exhibit in the
outer foyer, and had to be coaxed back into
their seats again. I was so
delighted with this opportunity of
engaging in a bit of effective propaganda
in reverse, by showing
off the sorts of goods available to all the people on
the ((other
side," that I gladly agreed to Schneider's suggestion that we
stop over on our way home at all the larger centers--Khaba-
rovsk, Chita,
Blagovyeshchensk, Irkutsk, Krasnojarsk, Tomsk,
Omsk, etc., right into
Moscow. We would, as he put it in the
Russian equivalent, "clean up" and
return solvent. This plan
was fouled up by an order from the Narkompross to
come home
immediately. The children, absent from school for seven months,
had to make up their curriculum for that academic year. It never
occurred to the wise Big Brothers in the Kremlin that the chil-
dren had
learned more, had gained a broader outlook on the
world by traveling, than
through all the Marxist-doctored books
at school. But, having once more set
foot on Soviet soil, we had
to obey.
Stopping over for a couple of days
in Khabarovsk, where we
had already been booked in advance and could not
break the
date, I had the oddest experience. The temperature in the
mid-
dle of March was down to forty below zero. The snow lay foot-
high
all over this city on the Amur, named after a hetman of
DUNCAN DANCER
the Cossacks. In front of my hotel the statue of the founder,
Count
Mouraviev-Amoursky, was invisible under his mantle of
snow. Siberia, so warm
in August, when the rich black earth was
yielding a golden harvest on our
eastward trip, now showed
itself in its true colors. For this is how it
looks the larger part of
the year-an icy, frozen waste, unrelieved by tree
or bush. This
is the home of the ermine and the elusive sable. The houses
are
log cabins with double windows sealed against the deadly cold.
The
hotel offered its guests unusual comforts and warmth.
I had a big room,
whose main feature of attraction in that arctic
climate was the white
porcelain stove reaching to the ceiling in
one corner of the room, so
situated that servants could easily
stoke it from the corridor outside.
The hour was nearly midnight on the seventeenth of March
when it
happened. I had retired early after my performance; I
usually liked to stay
up late, being too keyed up to go to sleep.
Lying stretched out on the bed
in my nightgown, ready to turn
off the light, I was suddenly overcome by a
choking sensation.
Gasping for breath, I rushed to the window for air.
Because the
double window was sealed tight, I had to climb up onto the sill
in order to open the small ventilator that was just large enough
to push
my head through. At that moment Elisaveta Gregori-
evna entered my room to
bid me good night. When she saw me
sticking my head out the window
ventilator, while the tempera-
ture hovered near forty below, she called out
in alarm, "Why
Irmushka! What is the matter with you! Are you ill?"
"I
can't breathe," I gasped, and tried to inhale the icy air.
"Come right down
from there, you'll catch pneumonia!"
she commanded in her most professional
accents as a nurse. I
meekly obeyed, feeling suddenly quite normal again.
But she
insisted on getting a servant to inspect the stove for any possible
coal fumes, which could have been dangerous. All was in order.
"I hope
you are not coming down with anything serious,"
she said, and took my
temperature. All was in order here too,
Return to Moscow
and I assured
her I felt fine and proved it by falling promptly
to sleep.
I slept
soundly until morning when a rap at my door woke
me up. It was a telegram
from my half-sister in Hamburg.
"Mother died last night," the message said.
That was all. Under
these strange circumstances I learned that my dear
mother had
passed away. I did not associate my previous night's experience
with this sad news. And I could not possibly get to Hamburg in
time for
her funeral.
The Trans-Siberian Railway took eight days to reach
Mos-
cow, and no plane could be had. Nothing was quite so mournful
as
this long railway journey. It took the traveler through limit-
less steppes,
empty of any sign of habitation, and passed for
days on end through the
taiga, a forest wilderness, much like
our Middle West in flatness only more
desolate in aspect. I was
glad to get off the train in Moscow. It seemed I
had been gone
a lifetime.
Things had changed at 20 Pretchistenka during
our long ab-
sence. Living quarters being at a premium, empty space filled
up automatically, like water running into a ditch. I suppose be-
cause we
had gone to China, the housing authorities thought
it only natural that a
group of Chinese students should occupy
our space while we were away.
Luckily, my room was still
available, but my bathroom had been appropriated,
the fixtures
torn out, and a row of six toilets installed instead. I was so
out-
raged that I complained to the most important
official-Luna-
charsky-and he as usual came to my assistance. ·within two
days I had my bathroom back intact. We discovered that the
heavy snows
of winter had caved in part of the tin-covered roof
and that most of the
money we had sent for the upkeep of our
school had gone to make repairs. The
government refused to
allot funds for that purpose. It looked to me like a
hopeless
situation. How could I ever make any real progress in this
country?
DUNCAN DANCER
The old depression took hold of me again. And
on top of
all this, the sad news of mother's death made me feel low in
mind and spirit. I had written to my married half-sister Anna
Axen-who
had told me about mother-and asked her to give
me all the details she could.
I found her letter when I got home.
She described mother's funeral and went
on to say:
It all happened so fast and even for us it came quite
unex-
pected. Only a fortnight ago mother herself walked to the hos-
pital
and the first eight days she seemed not to be very ill. She
even joked with
the nurses. But our dear mother had an old
complaint, asthma and a weak
heart, so the doctor said. At first
we went to several specialists because
she always complained about
a pain in her throat but they could find nothing
there.
On Wednesday last I visited her with my children. She was
ever so
glad when someone came to see her. It was then already
very noticeable that
her health had begun to fail. However, she
talked a lot and when I came
again the next day we talked about
you. Once again I brought up the question
of notifying you of
her illness, but her express wish was that you should
not be told.
She would not hear of it. She repeated, as she had so often
done,
that you should have no worries. But she thought of you always
and
constantly nourished a great longing in her heart for her be-
loved daughter,
Irma.
She appeared very weak on Thursday morning. She said to
me: "Oh
Anna, how do I come to such suffering!" •.• and
then I had to open the
window for her because her breath came
too short .•..
She said: "Take a
chair and sit here beside me and keep quite
still."
I took her hand in
mine and she never let it go. We sat thus
quietly for a long time, the
stillness broken with an occasional
moan, for mother was in her last agony.
The doctor came, and mother complained she could not swal-
low. He said
he would fix that and gave her an injection. After
that our dear mother
gently breathed her last, she went to sleep
never to wake again.
Irma
Duncan in Moscow, ca. 1925.
The Isadora, Duncan School, Moscow.
"The
young woman I never knew." Irma's mother, photographed years
before her
marriage.
Return to Moscow
When I read the sentence "I had to open the
window for
her because her breath came too short," my mind instantly
flashed back to that hotel room in Siberia and how I suddenly
opened the
small window, gasping for breath the day mother
died. And then I knew it had
been a premonition, for there was
nothing physically the matter with me.
Some strange, super-
natural manifestation had taken hold of me-what is known
as
a psychic experience, to prepare me for the shock that was to
follow.
I made preparations to leave for Hamburg and settle
mother's small estate.
In the meantime I wrote another letter
to my sister and in due course
received an answer from her. She
said:
I am so glad to know that you are
safely back in Moscow from
your long oriental tour. Here at home, we have
always followed
your travels on the map because this interested mother
enor-
mously. She used to subscribe to a magazine, and last winter
there
was much written about Siberia and China with many
illustrations. She used
to tell me about these countries and remark
how much better she could now
visualize what your surroundings
looked like.
Yes, dear sister, as you
mentioned in your letter, you really
have lost a very devoted and
self-sacrificing mother. She wept
bitter tears because of her longing for
you, her only child. She
loved to pour her heart out to me since I too, in a
way, was her
child, not having known any other mother but her. I was only
five years old when she came to us and took care of me after my
own
mother died. Her life then was not an easy one, but she
always looked
towards the future with optimism hoping for better
days.
I often tell my
own children about grandmother and her
struggles in life and the cross she
had to bear. And how sad that
in her last years, just when things looked
brighter for her, she,
poor soul, had to leave us. You must have received
her last letter
written on her birthday February 18th, when we all spent the
day together. She got so many presents and flowers and seemed
DUNCAN
DANCER
so happy and gay. She even indulged in all sorts of nonsense with
the children. My own little Irma had crocheted the edge of a
handkerchief for her grandmother. This gave mother so much
pleasure she
told her: "This lovely handkerchief I'll take with me
into my grave." And
four weeks later she was dead. How strange
life is!
I visited mother's
grave when I went to Hamburg. She
loved flowers. All her life some pots of
cactus or geraniums
filled her kitchen windows. I planted roses on her last
resting
place. I left everything she owned to my sisters and kept only
her photograph-a picture of her taken long before I was born,
of the
young woman I never knew.
Finale
IN JUNE, as soon as my visit with my
relatives had ended, I in-
tended to go straight back to Moscow where
pressing work
awaited me. And if it had not been for a letter from Lisa, who
was then dancing in Brussels, telling me of Isadora's perform-
ance
scheduled for the end of June at the Trocadero, I would
never have seen my
foster mother again. That small inner voice,
which I so seldom heeded, told
me quite plainly to drop every-
thing and go to Paris. This time I obeyed. I
had some curious
premonition that this might be the last time Isadora would
dance in public. There was no particular reason for this notion.
In her
forty-ninth year Isadora was still in good form-a little
too stout, perhaps,
but otherwise strong and healthy. She could
easily count on several more
years of artistic activity, sustained
as she was by world-wide fame.
When I arrived in Paris, I had not the slightest idea where
to find her.
Our correspondence had stopped completely. Ex-
cept for a wire from her when
my mother died, saying, "Deepest
sympathy, planning school you, me,
Trocadero," sent from
Paris, I had no knowlege of her whereabouts. I stayed
at a
small hotel just off the Rue St. Honore near the Elysee Palace.
The
first thing I did was to consult the papers and affiches on
the street
corners, hoping to find an advertisement of the per-
formance. There was
nothing. Just by chance, strolling about
in the lovely June sunshine and
breathing Parisian air I had
missed for so long, I ran into a friend I had
not seen since
leaving America. Alfred Sides was able to tell me all about
Isadora.
310 DUNCAN DANCER
Since her return to Paris from Nice, a
committee of friends,
with Fredo Sides as chairman, had attempted to collect
funds
and buy back her former residence in Neuilly when it came up
for
auction a second time. Madame Cecile Sartoris acted as
treasurer. With the
aid of the French newspaper Comedia and
the Paris edition of the New York
Herald, a public subscription
was started, and the committee also received
gifts of works of
art, which were to be auctioned off to aid the fund. The
idea
was to turn the house into an Isadora Duncan Memorial School,
where
she could live for the rest of her life. Afterwards, it
would be turned over
to the French government, which would
carry it on to perpetuate her name and
ideals in the future. U n-
fortunately, nothing came of it. And I doubt very
much that
Isadora would have liked to return to that house of tragedy,
haunted by the spectres of her dead children.
Fredo told me that she was
living in a studio-apartment on
the Rue Delambre, in the Montparnasse
district. It was a duplex
arrangement, with bedroom and bath opening onto a
balcony
overhanging the studio below. He said she had finished her
memoirs, called My Life, and expected the book to be pub-
lished in
America that fall. I thanked him for all this informa-
tion and told him I
would see Isadora that afternoon.
On my way to see her, I stopped at the
flower market in
front of the Madeleine. Seeing some roses I fancied of a
very
delicate shade of pink, I bought the whole basketful from the
astonished woman-all my arms could carry. I was dressed in
brown for the
reunion: a brown chiffon dress, brown straw
cloche fitting tight over my
head, and brown suede shoes. I had
not seen Isadora for nearly three years,
and I looked forward
to this meeting with great joy and excitement. I had so
much to
tell her about my trip to China. I had no idea that she had gone
so far as to make an official protest to the powers that be. I
simply
could not have imagined such a step on her part where
I was concerned. If I
had known, I would have had it out with
Finale 311
her there and then.
But since I did not know, there seemed
nothing to mar the pleasure of our
reunion.
She was waiting for me at the Rue Delambre. Mary Desti
was
there, and Isadora's friend and pianist, Victor Seroff. A long,
narrow
corridor with doors on only one side of it led to her
studio at the very
end. On opening the door, I brushed the
armful of flowers inadvertently
against it, and some pink rose
petals scattered before me to the floor. The
first words that
greeted me-like Poe's raven of doom-were Mary's cry, "Ah,
91 porte malheur!"
I disregarded this and presented the roses to
Isadora, who
embraced me joyfully. Mary's superstitious belief that
scattered
flowers bring bad luck had no effect on us. Isadora insisted on
ordering champagne, which she could ill afford, to toast my
arrival. I
invited all three to have dinner with me in a little
restaurant I knew in
Montmartre called Madelon. It was the
first time in my life that I was able
to treat my foster mother
to a meal. When I told her I had come expressly to
see her
performance, she informed me that it had been postponed till
July. She begged me to stay on, but this was quite impossible. I
had too
many engagements booked for the summer. She wanted
to know if the rumor she
heard of my going to America with
the pupils was correct. I told her I had
thought of it.
"Then you must take me with you," she said, and added,
"You really should have asked my permission to go to China
with the
school."
I assured her I would like nothing better than that we all
go
to America together. "However, when it comes to asking
your permission every
time I want to dance with my pupils
(for they are mine too, you must know),"
I told her quite
bluntly, "that is out of the question!"
She gave me a
startled look, for I had never been so out-
spoken on this particular
subject. I had won my independence
the hard way and had no intention of
giving it up a second time.
312 DUNCAN DANCER
The experience in Greece
had taught me to beware of falling
into another trap of vague promises. The
reins of my career
would remain in my own hands from now on. I spoke quite
frankly; and, surprisingly enough, Isadora seemed to under-
stand my
viewpoint when I had explained.
"Remember that I kept the school functioning
after you
yourself had given it up for lost," I reminded her, "and
with-
out my heroic efFort in the face of every obstacle there would
be
no school at all! "
While we were on the most important subject relating to
our working together, I confided to her exactly what was on
my mind in
order to clear the air for future collaboration. I
told her I had earned the
right to an equal partnership and
would tolerate no more nonsense about who
was exploiting
whom. I had not meant to speak so severely, but this question
had nagged at me for a long time. She took it all very amiably
and was
in complete accord with my views. I felt relieved and
glad we had this
question of our relationship resolved at last. I
need not have taken the
trouble. Fate has a way of settling
all human endeavors for good.
Much
as I desired to prolong my visit with Isadora and stay
for the performance
in July, it could not be arranged. Time
and money ran out. I had to return
to Moscow. I spent a few
days alone with Isadora at a hotel in
Saint-Germain-en Laye,
called Pavilion Henri IV. This typical French inn of
the more
expensive kind had been part of the chateau built by the monarch
of that name, and Louis XIV was born there in r638. In this
old place,
redolent with French history, Alexandre Dumas wrote
his Three Musketeers. It
had a magnificent view over all of
Paris, and we were constantly reminded of
a similar one--the
one spread out before us in her school at
Bellevue-sur-Seine-
that short-lived dream called Dionysian. We talked of
that and
of what the future might bring. A heavy, sad atmosphere hung
over the place, which no good French wines and food could
Finale
dispel. We both sensed this and decided to motor back to Paris.
I had to
leave in any case.
I'll never forget that last day. In the morning, in her
studio,
I spoke of the Chinese theatre and the acting I had seen there.
I showed her some of the curious gestures the actors make,
always very
large and exaggerated. She told me she had been
working on Liszt's Dante
Symphony, which inspired her to make
similar gestures. She asked Seroff to
play parts of it and showed
them to me. Later she led me upstairs into her
bedroom to show
me the small trunk containing her manuscript, which she had
written in longhand. Her large, flowing script filled each page
with
only a few sentences; hence the manuscript filled the en-
tire trunk.
She
laughed and said, "It is mostly about my love affairs.
I wanted to write
about my art mostly, but the publishers were
not interested . . . and I
needed the money desperately."
I always hated to leave Paris and, since it
was a beautiful
day, I proposed a little promenade along the Champs-Elysees
so I could have another look at it. I then invited Isadora to
lunch at
Fouquet's. We sat outside in the sun and ordered from
the huge menu a la
carte, for that is the way she preferred to
eat, even with no money in her
pocket. She had ham and aspar-
agus with holladaise sauce and brandied
peaches for desert. I
took the chef's special, whatever it was, for I had to
count my
francs, having just enough left over for my wagon-lit ticket to
Moscow. Afterward, we taxied back to her hotel on the Rue
Delambre.
Mary dropped in for a while, and some other people. In
the end we
remained alone. We were talking of this and that
when the telephone rang. To
my surprise, someone from the
Soviet Embassy wanted to see me immediately. I
told him to
come to Isadora's studio.
"It is important that I see you
alone," the man said when
he arrived. His voice sounded very mysterious. I
told Isadora
DUNCAN DANCER
and she disappeared upstairs into her
bedroom. This was the
precise moment when I was told of Fanny Borodin's
plight,
which was considered a state secret at the time. I sent the
tele-
gram to Peking, as the Secretary of the Soviet Embassy re-
quested,
but could not promise to deliver the letter to the
Chinese Embassy the
following day. My train was due to leave
in half an hour. I suggested that
Isadora Duncan deliver the
letter in my stead. He agreed and I called to her
to come down
again. She was quite willing to comply. The man left and we
were once more by ourselves. I recall we were sitting close to-
gether on
the divan when I said, "Well, Isadora, I have to say
goodbye!"
We looked
at each other for a while without saying a word.
And then we both broke
down. We had taken leave of each
other many times without shedding any
tears. But this time
it was different. We both must have sensed this, for we
clung
together as fond pupil and teacher, daughter and foster mother,
and dearest of friends.
"When will we see each other again?"
"Soon,
I hope."
"I'll come to Russia when I receive the money from my
memoirs."
But it was never to be. I had walked only a few paces down
that long
corridor when she cried out, "Wait a minute!"
She disappeared into the
studio for a second and came out
draped in her red shawl. She stood directly
under a ceiling
light in flaming red as I had seen her so many times on the
stage. She suddenly started to sing and dance the "Internatio-
nale" as a
farewell gesture to me on my way to Russia. I joined
her in the singing and
the dancing, moving backward with each
step till I reached the end of the
corridor. Then, with the usual
last flourish, we ended up in our grand
finale. My last view of
her was in that triumphant gesture with arms raised,
head
thrown back, and looking upward.
I never saw Isadora again.
Curtain
ON July eighth, an eyewitness reported:
Isadora gave her
last performance in the Mogador Theatre.
Although it was the saison morte of
the summer, the theatre was
packed by a very distinguished audience of
French and Amer-
icans. The Pasdeloup Orchestra, conducted by Albert Wolff,
opened the matinee with the allegretto from Cesar Franck's
Symphony.
This was followed by Isadora's mighty "Redemp-
tion," to the music of the
same composer. Then came the beauti-
ful "Ave Maria" of Schubert, danced in
such a way that there
were those in the audience who sobbed aloud. Who will
ever
forget the ineffable gesture of the maternal arms cradling
noth-
ing? The pitiful tenderness and heart-breaking beauty of it?
After
the orchestra had played the first movement of the U n-
finished Symphony of
Schubert, Isadora came out again to dance
the second with a more tragic
profundity than ever before.
Following the intermission came the Tannhiiuser
Overature
and the "Love-death" of Isolde, both danced by Isadora Duncan.
At the end of her last dance the audience rose and cheered . • •
The
French writer Henriette Sauret gave her impressions
after the performance:
Poor great Isadora! After that performance, after the ap-
plause and the
recalls, I saw her again before the blue curtains,
standing between clusters
of trembling flowers, making toward
the orchestra leader and the musicians
the sweet gesture that
associated them with her triumph.
We went to
congratulate her in her dressing room. She lay
there, her bare feet coming
out from her half-detached dress, her
lovely arms holding up her tired head.
Her look was heavy, her
315
DUNCAN DANCER
made-up red mouth was
silent, and the red locks of her hair,
twisted in curls like those of
antique statues, fell on her shoulders
like weighty stalks. She had lain
down, without paying much
attention, on the light costumes which she had
successively worn
in the course of the matinee and thrown pell-mell on the
divan.
And on that chaos of crumpled veils with rainbow colors she
seemed to have fallen, a vanquished goddess. . . •
I do not know why, at
that moment, the heart oppressed in
spite of the joy she had just given us,
I recalled the picture of
Elizabeth of England dying on her royal carpet
piled high with
cushions, surrounded by courtiers and ladies of honor • • •
A month later Isadora motored to Nice with her friend
Mary Desti. They
spent part of the summer at Juan-les-Pins.
With no money and none in sight,
Mary Desti went boldly to
see Paris Singer, who was spending the summer at
his villa on
Cap Ferrat. He agreed to offer financial help to Isadora for
the time she required to work out a new program, which was
to include an
interpretation of the Dante Symphony by Liszt,
parts of which she had shown
me at her studio in Paris.
Isadora had taken a passionate interest, it
seemed, in a
small racing car, a Bugatti, and its handsome Italian driver.
She
wanted to buy the car from its owner, Benoit Falchetto, who
also
kept a garage. They made a date to go for a ride in the
car and try it out
on the evening of September 14. Mary had
a strange premonition, she said,
and begged her friend not to
go out on the road that night in the little
Bugatti. Nobody
could stop her.
She wore her red shawl (the same one she
had used on the
stage) and, sitting in the low vehicle, with the driver in
front
and the passenger slightly behind, the end of her shawl dragged
on
the ground. The moment the driver started the car and
raced off, that piece
of her red shawl got entangled in the wire
spokes of one wheel. As the shawl
had been wrapped about her
throat and flung over her shoulder, she was
caught in it as in
a vice. Her body was pulled over the side, her face
crushed
Curtain 317
against the car, and her neck instantly broken. The
onlookers
screamed, the car stopped; they rushed to help her-but it was
too late. Isadora Duncan was dead.
At that tragic moment in my life I
was far, far away, giving
a performance somewhere in Russia. The curtain had
gone up
and we were in the midst of our opening dance, a funeral march,
which Isadora originally choreographed in memory of her chil-
dren, and
with which we usually started our program by way of
dedication. Dressed in
long, trailing chiffon robes of beige, the
girls formed the chorus; while I,
the mourning figure, danced
the solo part. At the musical climax I sank to
the ground in
sorrow in a kneeling position, my head and arms touching the
floor. I held this pose for a few bars and then slowly began to
rise
again. I had danced it like that I don't know how many
times.
But on the
night of September I 4, the moment I assumed
that kneeling pose with my body
bent forward and my brow
touching the floor, something weird came over me,
and I re-
mained frozen to the ground. As if paralyzed, I could not stir
a muscle. Without knowing, I had assumed the same position
in which my
dear foster mother had died that night. While in
the grip of this strange
trance, in full view of the audience, I
never lost consciousness. I
commanded myself to rise and con-
tinue the dance, but my body refused to
respond for several
minutes, and I remained where I was until just before
the end.
My immobility had in no way interfered with the movements
of
the chorus, who went through their motions as usual.
As soon as I could move
again, I finished the dance and then
rushed backstage into my dressing room,
where I collapsed into
a chair, white and shaken. I was sure I had creeping
paralysis-
entirely unaware, again, that I had just experienced a psychic
phenomenon. Nowadays, with the study of extrasensory percep-
tion,
scientists may be able to explain what happened to me. I
was at that time
totally ignorant of such matters.
The news of Isadora's death was instantly
flashed around
DUNCAN DANCER
the world by radio. It had that night also
reached the place
where I performed. The authorities promptly sent a
messenger
to the theatre to notify me of the tragic event, but my manager
intercepted him and would not let him come near me. He told
the
messenger I had a performance to give and nothing must
disturb me till it
was over. But my psyche had already received
the message through the
spiritual world. As Shakespeare said
in Hamlet, "There are more things in
heaven and earth, Horatio,
than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
That
night after the program, the directors of the steel plant
for whose workers
we had given the performance showed us all
over the factory. Watching the
night shift forging the steel as
it came red hot out of the furnaces
reminded me of Dante's in-
ferno. And as I jumped out of the way of those
glowing red
bars snaking along the floor, I thought of Isadora and her
in-
terpretation of Liszt's Symphony and wished she could be here to
see
this. Most factories are dull and boring. But these steel mills,
especially
at night when the glow and the fantastic shadows com-
bine to accentuate the
forceful movements of the laborers-half-
naked and covered with sweat-are the
stuff that pure drama in
motion is made of. I slept peacefully that night,
my dreams
colored in fantastic lights. It would be quite a while before I
could slumber that soundly again.
They told me the next day, on the
station platform while we
waited for the train to Moscow. I refused to
believe it. Isadora
had often of late made attempts at suicide by walking
into the
sea (so the papers claimed), and I insisted it was just another
sensational item about her, without foundation in fact. I wired
to Lisa
in Paris for the truth. When it arrived, I collapsed.
I immediately made
plans to fly to the funeral. In those days
in Russia, that was easier said
than done. I had no trouble getting
my papers without red tape. But oh, that
ancient Lufthansa
plane! It flew just above the tree tops in a dense fog,
and when
I thought I had come down in Danzig, it was actually Moscow
Curtain 319
to which we had returned. I was all alone in an
eight-passenger
plane on my first flight and scared to death. The engineer
carried
the Russian pilot off the plane in a stupor, dead drunk. After
three days, I finally made the Tempelhof airfield in Berlin. I
wired to
Raymond Duncan to postpone the funeral for a day.
He did not answer.
I
might as well have taken the train and arrived in Paris
sooner and at less
expense to my mind, my nervous system, and
my pocketbook. When I did arrive,
the funeral was over. Lisa
was the only one of Isadora's disciples to walk
in the procession
behind her coffin to the Pere Lachaise cemetery, where her
body
was cremated and her ashes placed in a niche beside those of her
children. I was heartbroken not to have been beside her for that
last
rite.
I arrived, sad and shaken, at Mary's apartment on the Bou-
levard
des Capucines. She greeted me and then pressed some-
thing into my hand
without saying a word. Lying in the palm
of my hand was a piece of red
fringe caked with blood. No need
to ask what it was. The strange relic told
a mute and horrible
story. Tears flooded my eyes, and I wanted to be alone
for a few
moments. The door of the balcony stood open and I stepped
outside. I paid no attention to the traffic and the noise from the
street below. I was oblivious to everything that happened about
me,
conscious only of the "souvenir," as Mary called it, in my
trembling hand. I
closed my hand tight. I did not want to see
again this tiny red thread-the
gruesome reminder of the mon-
strous blow that, like an executioner, had
cruelly shed Isadora's
blood and snuffed out her life. By what bizarre twist
of fate
should this great and generous-hearted woman, who sought only
to
bring light and beauty into this world, suffer so horrible
an end?
The
top-floor apartment afforded a typical view over the
roofs of the city which
more than any other had been her home
and where her restless self had now
found its last repose. So as
320 DUNCAN DANCER
not to break down, I
tried to think of all the wonderful moments
we had shared, but only
inconsequential things crowded into my
memory . . . the little wooly lamb
she gave me when I was a
child ... and the magic spell she cast over me when
I first
saw her, that foggy day in January so long ago. And it suddenly
struck me by what extraordinary coincidence (or was it that?)
we had met
and we had parted.
We had danced together at the very beginning and danced
together at the very end. Initiation and consecration. In this same
year, 1927, I lost both my mothers; the one who gave me life,
and the
one who made that life worth while. "If something gives
a value to human
life," Plato said, "it is the contemplation of
absolute beauty." Thanks to
Isadora and the beautiful way she
taught me to dance-always remembering her
words: "1 have
given you the very secret and most holy of my art"-the prize
that gives value to human life was mine.
At the news of my foster
mother's death I had experienced
the weird sensation of having lost the use
of my limbs. And I
had lost also all desire ever to dance again; as if all
along I had
done so only under the force and osmotic attraction of her
spell,
which now was broken with her death. Still, I had to carry on
the
torch (had she not given me that symbolic picture of Deme-
ter and
Persephone?) and continue with my work as she would
wish me to do.
I had
no sooner returned to Moscow than an amazing thing
happened to me. After
years of utter neglect, the Soviet govern-
ment now sprang into action to
support the work Isadora had
started there in I 92 I. One could only come to
the conclusion
that they had waited for her to die. I received an official
sum-
mons to attend an important conference to discuss the future of
the
Isadora Duncan School in Moscow. I mapped out a plan for
the Ministry of
Education that had occupied my mind for a
long time. This consisted of
incorporating the Duncan method
of dancing into the curriculum of the public
school system. The
Curtain 321
present institute on the Pretchistenka
could be turned into a
teachers' college, where future instructors could be
trained. This
plan was approved and fully endorsed by the Ministry. I was
elated. Our dream come true at last! All the hardships and pri-
vations I
had endured to bring this about seemed worth while,
now that victory was in
sight. And since the only true immortal-
ity we can achieve consists in the
good works we leave behind us
on earth, I rejoiced that I could play a small
part in building
this memorial to the great American whose genius had
liberated
the art of the dance, from which millions could now benefit. In
my elation, however, I had not reckoned with the Marxist-
Leninist system
that regulates all artistic matters by the ukase
of its cultural commissars.
It was pointed out to me that my former position as artistic
director
would be eliminated, and I would henceforth act merely
as an instructor with
the salary commensurate with that job.
Everybody now associated with the
institute would be replaced
by Communist Party members, and I myself would
have to
undergo indoctrination. They did not demand that I join the
Party immediately, but that would obviously have to follow if
I wanted
to function successfully in an entirely communistic or-
ganization. I could
never embrace such an autocratic ideology.
It went against my whole
conception of what a free society of
men should be. I had been imbued too
deeply with the Ameri-
can, democratic principle of government. When it came
to my
own work, my allegiance belonged to Isadora and her ideals of
physical education for children, and not those of the Commu-
nists as
represented by Comrade Podvowsky. I had fought that
principle all my life in
the Elizabeth Duncan school under Max
Merz's direction, so how could I now,
in all conscience, align
myself with it under the Soviets? They were
determined to up-
root every single spiritual aspect of our dance and turn it
into
simply another gymnastic for women and children. I would not
assist
in the murder of an art that was created for the attainment
322 DUNCAN
DANCER
of a noble beauty in movement. People who did not believe in
the
human soul were out to kill the very soul of our dance, the
dance as Isadora
Duncan envisioned it.
In those days, the late 1920's, I was one of the small
number
of people from the West who knew what the Communists in
Russia
were doing to artists. Today, especially with the sad ex-
ample of Boris
Pasternak, it is common knowledge. That dom-
ination of the creative instinct
in artists by the Big Brother in
the Kremlin was what I had to escape. There
is no place for a
free-thinking artist in an enslaved society. That
prophetic inner
voice of mine fairly shouted at me to get out before it was
too
late. I had a big decision to face: remain, to see myself and my
art
enslaved for the price of government support, and make at
least that part of
Isadora's dream come true; or leave, and burn
my bridges behind me, with the
prospect of starting all over
again in a free society. I chose the latter.
I entertained secret hopes of being able to save a remnant of
my work.
To that end, I entered into negotiations with Sol
Hurok, the American
impresario, to bring myself and my group
of Russian dancers to the United
States. It was difficult business
to negotiate from such a great distance,
since I had to labor
under the stringent restrictions that govern the
actions of every
Soviet citizen. I was free to leave at any time. But would
the
government consent to release the young girls, who had worked
and
danced with me for seven years? With the aid of a few
influential friends in
the upper hierarchy, I was finally given
permission to take the members of
my dance troupe with me to
America for a grand memorial performance in
Isadora Duncan's
honor. It was the first dance ensemble Hurok imported from
the
Soviet Union, although many have followed since. I wrote him
then:
Moscow, May 27, 1928
As soon as I received your contract I started to
put the
enormous bureaucratic machine here in motion. First of all, I had
to get official permission to take my ensemble out of Russia. Then
Curtain
the contract is looked over for sufficient guarantees. Last
but not least come the passports; each Soviet passport costs $I o.oo
and
there are thirteen to be obtained. All this takes a long
time ....
I am
sending you photos but no advertising material as it is in
Russian. It will
surely be returned by the censor, as happened on
a former occasion. Kindly
inform me about departure, tickets,
train connections and steamer, and
opening dates.
On the eleventh of June we are giving a memorial
perform-
ance for Isadora Duncan here in Moscow at the Bolshoi Thea-
tre.
Lunacharsky will speak, Stanislavsky and others, important
personages in the
arts and sciences. A short film, showing Isadora
on her last trip to Nice a
few days before she died, will precede
the performance of myself and my
girls in Tchaikowsky's "Sym-
phony Pathetique," with the Moscow Symphony
Orchestra. I
shall send you programs and clipping afterwards.
During the
summer months, before leaving for America in the
fall, I shall work and
rehearse our programs. I heard through
Mrs. Augustin Duncan about the
memorial festival you are plan-
ning at Madison Square Garden and I hope that
something
beautiful will come of it. I will do everything in my power to
help make it so.
Since the planned memorial performance at the Bolshoi
The-
atre was postponed till the month of October, I employed the
intervening time touring the south of Russia. In my diary for
that year
I find nothing but empty pages, mere notations of the
various places we
danced-Kharkov, Kremenchug, Cherson,
Kiev, Odessa, etc., etc.
At the
beginning of June, the writer Allen Ross Macdougall,
a friend of Isadora and
her former secretary, came to visit me in
Moscow. We agreed to collaborate
on a book about Isadora's
Russian days to complete her own memoirs, which
stopped with
her arrival in Moscow in 192 I. He accompanied me on our tour,
and in my free time I worked with him on the Russian part.
He was going
to fill in her last years in France, having more
knowledge about them than
I, since he had seen her often in
DUNCAN DANCER
Nice and Paris at that
time. He left for America before we did,
hoping to get the book published in
time for our performances
there. He wrote me from Paris in October:
Au
Cafe, Lundi soir,
Dear Irma:
Just a word in haste. I shall sail
Wednesday on the lle
de France. I'm just making it and very close. I shall
arrive in
New York about the 16th. First I shall see Dudly Field Malone,
my lawyer, about the prospects of the book. Then I shall go to
the Farm
(Stcepletop, in Austerlitz, Col. Co. N.Y.) of Edna
St. Vincent Millay. She
has sent me a letter of invitation. And
with her I shall have time and peace
to finish the book and she
will help me correct and revise it. And then give
me letters to
the various publishers. . . •
I will do what I can in
America. In the meantime you must
send me the rest of the Russian material
right away to the
Banker's Trust, they will forward it to Miss Millay's
farm. I
must have it to incorporate into the revised copy. All my love
and best wishes in the meantime for your successful voyage and
arrival
in America. I'm happy the Memorial went off so well.
Dougie
That
memorial performance to Isadora, on the first of Octo-
ber, was my farewell
to seven years' work in Soviet Russia. The
newspaper lsvestia commented:
Isadora Duncan's whole life was devoted to beauty through
the means of
physical education. Before her eyes she always
carried the Greek ideal. In
her endeavor to find an enlarged
field for her experiments she wandered from
one country to
another. From Germany, to France, from Greece and America
to the USSR. She wasn't satisfied to work with a small quantity
of
children. Her goal was to see her ideas realized on a much
grander scale.
She wished to see an entire generation of youth
educated in the spirit of
her doctrine in order to re-create, if not
the whole world, at least one
entire country ....
At the Memorial performance last night Irma Duncan, her
adopted daughter, appeared with the pupils of her Moscow school.
Curtain
At the present time it is the only existing school preserving in
its
purest form the legacy of Isadora Duncan.
And as far as Irma Duncan was
concerned, that legacy would
remain that way for as long as she lived. In
order to preserve it
in its purest form, I had to find a safe haven for it
to grow and
flourish for the benefit of the DANCER OF THE FuTURE, a free
spirit in a free body, the dancer who will not belong to one
nation but
to all humanity.
I left Russia hoping and praying that I would find that
haven
elsewhere. For when I walked out of that heavy oak door in the
house on Pretchistenka, it closed behind me forever.
The End and a New
Beginning
I ARRIVED in New York on Sunday, the twenty-third of
Decem-
ber, 1928. For me it was a wonderful homecoming after an
eight-and-a-half year absence. Something, some force, had drawn
me
irresistibly back to America. I came with ten of my pupils
in charge of
Elisa veta Gregorievna, and Maurice Sheyne (as he
now Anglicized his name).*
Newspaper reporters crowded in for
interviews on the pier, and the newsreel
cameras ground away.
Friends, new and old, waited to welcome us. Coming from
the
slow, deliberate pace of life in Russia, we required some time to
get accustomed to the pulsating, hectic atmosphere of New York,
where
the air is charged with electricity and the unceasing, rest-
less traffic and
noise continue unabated day and night.
"East side, west side, all around the
town" was governed by
dapper, uninhibited Jimmy Walker, New York's most
colorful
mayor. Under the influence of prohibition, a lively revival of
the old-fashioned melodrama The Black Crook flourished in
Hoboken, with
bootleg beer served during the show. In sports,
Gertrude Ederle filled the
front pages of all the newspapers
with her feat of swimming the English
Channel-the first
woman to do so. Herbert Hoover, who had organized the
won-
derful famine relief in Soviet Russia eight years earlier, had just
been elected President.
We made our New York debut on December 27, at
the
Manhattan Opera House. I felt proud and happy to be able to
show my
Russian pupils to America. On that day more than
*Mikhail Sheyne, as he is
presently known, former head of the West-
chester Conservatory of Music, has
again returned to the concert stage.
JZ6
The End and a New Beginning
eight years before when I sailed for France, I never imagined
what my
homecoming would be like. When the curtain rose and
I made my first entrance
on the stage, a storm of applause
greeted me. On the following day, the
reviewers had many
complimentary things to say about my work and that of my
pupils. Mary Watkins of the New York Herald Tribune came
to interview me
at the Alamac where I was staying. She wrote:
Irma Duncan was peacefully
eating her supper, that is she was
doing it as peacefully as she had been
able to do anything amid
the whirl of rehearsals and complications with the
immigration
authorities which have marked the few days since her arrival at
this port, when this department walked in on her quite unex-
pected! y.
Various telephone messages had crossed at random, but
nevertheless, the
interview materialized, if somewhat informally.
Miss Irma talked in a very
friendly manner while consuming
a lamb chop and tea •.. the talk lasted some
ten or twelve
minutes, so impressions were naturally a little hurried. But
we
recorded them much as they occurred.
This dancer, one of the
torchbearers of the Duncan tradition,
adopted daughter of the illustrious
Isadora and now head of the
Moscow school, is a wholesome-looking young
woman who said
she felt tired and harassed, but whose appearance denied her.
She
has very beautiful, expressive hands, black hair, and bears a most
striking resemblance to her foster mother. On this resemblance
we
commented.
"Oh, yes," she said, and her English is excellent, although she
has spoken and thought in only Russian for over eight years she
asserts.
"Everyone notices it, but you will find that all the girls
. . . show a
strong 'family' resemblance, it comes from thinking
the same thoughts . • .
and expressing physically the same artis-
tic ideals."
Irma's sense of
harassment sprang, not unreasonably, from the
difficulties incident to
extracting four of her youngest followers
from the grip of officialdom on
Ellis Island. • . .
"But they are not the only ones who worry me, the others
are so excited at being in New York, that rehearsals are only
mad whirls
of high spirits and dizzy heads. You can imagine
DUNCAN DANCER
that
coming as we did with very little preparation and in, as you
might say, one
jump from Moscow to Manhattan, with only a
foot touching the ground briefly
at Berlin, was enough to take
away the breath of the seasoned traveler, not
to speak of a group
of emotional young Russian girls who have never been to
Amer-
ica. And we really didn't know until the very last minute that
we
could actually come. That is the reason for the many rumors
and
counter-rumors here about the dance festival. We were not
sure till we were
actually on board the train and over the border,
anything can happen in
Soviet Russia, you know ..•" she said
as a matter of familiar and accepted
fact. We called on W ednes-
day ..• and the Duncan Memorial Festival flung
wide its
doors last Thursday night at the Manhattan Opera House.
Among
the many dance enthusiasts who always flocked back-
stage to greet me were
quite a few dancers who, then practically
unknown, have since made names for
themselves. One of my
female admirers said, "I saw you leave a mere slip of
a girl and
here you have come back to us in beautiful, dominant
woman-
hood. Isadora's ideal of the highest intelligence in a beautiful
body has been most certainly realized in you." I considered that
quite a
compliment.
The reviewer of the New York American wrote:
A new
generation of Duncan Dancers, was locally introduced
to us, a company of
lithe young Russian girls ... formed this
latest contingent of classic
dancers to perform publicly in New
York, and the shade of Isadora must have
smiled benignly at the
fascinating artistry of her young disciples of a
second generation.
. . . The spectator realized forcibly that not in her
most fruitful
and successful epoch did the great California dancer produce
any
more delightful or captivating pupils than those seen last night.
.
• . Irma was the leading spirit in her elfin group. The others
were-Tamara,
Alexandra, Marussia, Lisa, Lola, Vera, Manya,
Vala, Lily, Mussia and little
Tamara.
This chapter of the dance deserves an important place in the
history of Isadora Duncan's most important achievements.
The End and a
New Beginning
And the Herald Tribune:
As their leader and teacher, Irma
has found her own valuable
niche . . . that she has so successfully
instilled into the brains
and bodies of the later generation that devotion
which is deeper
than outward gesture, is sufficient evidence of artistic
worthiness
in her capacity as heiress and guardian of the Duncan formulae.
We appeared in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Bos-
ton, Montreal,
Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis,
and Pittsburgh. Later, on
our return engagement in New York,
when the public had a chance to appraise
our work, we danced in
Carnegie Hall-scene of my former triumphs as one of
the six
original Isadora Duncan Dancers-to standing room only.
Ev-
erything was joy and harmony. How long would it last?
My manager
informed me in June that in view of the suc-
cess we had attained he wished
to engage us for another season.
I agreed to this, although the Russian
girls had obtained per-
mission from their government for only one season. In
this re-
spect, I envisioned no difficulties and decided to spend the
summer in France for economical reasons. A performance was
arranged in
Paris in memory of Isadora at the Salle Pleyel. I
wrote to Paris Singer and
notified him of this, as I very much
wanted him to be there. He answered
from Bad Nauheim in
Germany:
My dearest Irma:
I have been thinking
of you for days and wondering if you
were back from the U.S.A. and now I
have your note. I am so
sorry I shall not be there to see you dance, but
since I saw you in
Paris things have been very bad with my health and I was
brought up here on my back by a heart doctor and have been
here a month.
I have to be here all July also but it has done me
a little good and I have
great hopes.
Is there any chance of your looking me up on your way to
Russia? It is close by Cologne or nearer still to Frankfurt on
Main. How
was poor old Gus? I feel always so anxious about
330 DUNCAN DANCER
him.
Au revoir, my dear little Irma, do drop me a little reply
to this--
Your
old friend,
Paris
I regretted he could not be present at my performance.
I had
so hoped he would take an interest in the furtherance of her
ideas
and, by way of a memorial, help endow her school. To
keep her ephemeral art
alive from one generation to another,
by means of public performances, was
becoming too great a
burden for me to bear alone.
I can't describe with
what deep emotion I looked forward to
dancing again in Paris. My artistic
association with Isadora al-
ways seemed to take on a closer tie here in this
beautiful city of
so many wonderful memories. Here, I first appeared with
her
as a child in the old Gaite-Lyrique. Then in the Chatelet, and
subsequently-when I was grown up and learned to appreciate
her art
fully-we danced together at the beautiful Theatre des
Champs-Elysees. And
then that final wonderful season at the
imposing Trocadero in January, the
year she and I left for Rus-
sia. She had choreographed an entire Wagner
program. We
girls danced the "Flower-maidens" scene in Parsifal, and I
re-
call the garland of flowers I wore that night-fresh anemones,
the
large kind, in vivid shades of red, purple, pink, and white, a
lovely
combination of colors. I had not danced in Paris since.
Would our French
audiences remember me, I wondered? I
thrilled at the idea of being able to
show them what she and I
had accomplished in Russia. Our huge posters
bearing the an-
nouncement: "Isadora Duncan Dancers de Moscou," and in
smaller print underneath: "Sous la direction d' IRMA DuNCAN,"
blazed on
every street corner where the advertising columns
stood.
The performance
was given at the Salle Pleyel. I can tell of
the French public's reaction
and the impression we made only
through newspaper clippings. But I have a
letter from Madame
Cecile Sartoris, the same journalist who saw me dance at
Isa-
The End and a New Beginning 331
dora's studio before that eventful
trip to the land of the Bol-
sheviks. She wrote:
My dearest Irma:
I
did not come round last evening because I saw crowds of
people going and my
emotions could not be expressed to you.
I suffered and was happy at the same
time during the perform-
ance. The great spirit of Isadora hovered over you
all, and she
must be proud and pleased with you for what you have
accom-
plished. At moments her breath seemed to pass through you, and
the
children were beautiful.
I think those last Russian dances remarkable with
the singing
and it seems to me that you should go towards that expression
more and more as it moves with the spirit of today. I was happy
that you
had such a large and appreciative audience . . . I quite
understand you
haven't had a minute but I would like to see
you. This evening I will call
up on chance of making an appoint-
ment.
Be proud of yourself, you have
done a great work and you
ha'Ue Isadora's school. Don't let worries
undermine you-yes-
terday you accomplished a great feat.
Very
affectionately yours,
Cecile
That performance on July 2. was the only
one we gave in
Paris. Later in that month we danced at the Casino Theatre in
Le Touquet, where the Prince of Wales spent the summer, and
we danced
before a very mondaine, chic audience, entirely
dressed in black and white.
The gentlemen attended in full dress
and the ladies all in black evening
gowns with ermine wraps.
What a contrast to the high boots and shawls of the
worker au-
dience in Russia!
It rained every day, and the Hotel Atlantic
at the end of the
boardwalk had no heat. I had no desire to stay there any
longer
than I needed to. I returned to the comfortable little hotel on
the Rue de Bassano, not far from the Etoile, while the girls with
Elisaveta Gregorievna spent the rest of the summer at Pont-
332 DUNCAN
DANCER
chartrain in the country. I wrote once more to Singer, who had
returned to his lovely house on the Place des Vosges with his
wife, his
former nurse, whose acquaintance I had made in I 91 7
at the time of his
break with Isadora. Isadora had left a packet
of letters he wrote her in my
care, and these I now sent back to
him. He answered me:
Many thanks
dear, for your letter and for the letters of Isa-
dora's which a nice young
man brought to me.
We are off to Paignton for a month, then Saint-Jean until
I have to go to Palm Beach in December. I think I am better
but still
sleeping very badly.
Irma darling, I wish you every success in America this
time
like the last and with better financial results without all those
worries. I can always prove Isadora wanted you to take on her
school for
she told me so in Nice just before her death. vVith
love, dearest Irma,
Your old friend,
Paris Singer
This was the last word I had from my
old friend, whom I
had known since my childhood days and who gave me that
mar-
velous voyage on the Nile, which remains one of my most
treasured
memories. He died two years later of a heart attack.
Paris Singer had wished
me success in America for my second
season and without worries; but, instead
of diminishing, my
worries mounted and mounted until I was engulfed by
nothing
but trouble.
There was trouble with my impresario over financial
matters.
Instead of my suing him for nonpayment of salary due me as
per
contract, he sued me for $6o,ooo and also attached my bank
account! Some
evil forces were conspiring against me. Ill-
meaning persons tipped off the
unofficial representative of Soviet
Russia in Washington. America had not
yet recognized the re-
gime in that country. This man, by the name of
Borowsky, held
a secret meeting with my Russian girls, threatening them with
dire reprisals on their relatives in Russia if they refused to re-
The
End and a New Beginning 333
tum home at once. The girls wanted to remain
with me; so they
told me during a tearful session in the privacy of my room.
But
after that talk with Borowsky, they were afraid even to say
"How do
you do" to me. He had ordered their return to their
homeland and, as every
Soviet citizen knows, failure to comply
means banishment to Siberian
concentration camps for those in-
nocent pawns left behind.
Once their
government had stepped in, I wielded no more
power over them. My strenuous
protests were of no further
avail. Intimidated and afraid of what might be
done to their
families, they all meekly obeyed and left on the appointed
date
for home. Not one of my pupils had the courage to throw in
her lot
with me, as I had done formerly with Isadora. For I had
no intention,
especially after having breathed the air of freedom
in America, of returning
to a country where people are treated
as abject slaves. It was a hard
decision to make. It meant the loss
of all my work that had occupied the
best years of my life. But
no sacrifice seemed too great for the sake of
artistic integrity and
the adherence to one's principles that may only
flourish in a
liberal climate. The same day I saw the girls sail away, I
recalled
Isadora's words when she once said to me, "Courage, it's a long
way but light is ahead . • . these red-tunicked kids are. the fu-
ture,
so it is fine to work for them. Plough the ground, sow the
seed, and prepare
for the next generation that will express the
new world."
Well, I had
done exactly that. Now it was up to that new
generation to sow the seeds. I
wished them luck and hoped they
would succeed as well as I did with them in
trying to propagate
Isadora's ideal.
Russia being the iron-walled
society it is, I have had no
further contact with my former Soviet pupils.
Overnight, all the
work I had built up at such expense of my young energies
and
sacrifice fell like a house of cards into the sand. No one knew
what
untold misery and regret it caused me. Nor did the news
item telling of
their homecoming in that "Worker's Paradise"
334 DUNCAN DANCER
help me.
Cabled from Moscow by the International Press, it
said:
The twelve young
girl dancers who toured the United States
last season under the direction of
Irma Duncan, and who were
forced to return to Russia last winter have been
thrown into
prison by Soviet authorities, it was learned yesterday. The
chil-
dren were imprisoned, according to reports, because of their
failure to send the Soviet authorities all or portions of their
Amer-
ican earnings while on tour in this country.
Immediately upon
arrival in Moscow from New York, the
youngsters' baggage including
phonographs, trunks, musical in-
struments, etc., were confiscated. The girls
said shopping tours
in America had converted them from Communism to admirers
of capitalism. At the conclusion of Miss Duncan's American con-
tract at
Christmas time, I 929, local Soviet representatives in-
formed her that the
girls must be sent home forthwith. Over the
strong objections of Irma Duncan
the girls were taken from her
and sent back to Russia.
This indictment
of that barbaric country speaks for itself.
I was relieved to be able to
wash my hands of the whole matter.
For I was one of the few people in
America at that epoch who
knew through personal experience-by trying to earn
a living in
Soviet Russia-that conditions in that country, political and
eco-
nomic as well as ideological, would not improve in time. On the
contrary. And therefore I saw no future there for me or my
work.
Never one to cry for long over spilt milk (although this was
actually a
tragic event in my career), I girded myself for fur-
ther struggles on a new
front. I gathered together a group of
young American girls, who had had-more
or less-some train-
ing in the Duncan dance, and worked with them. By magic
and
sheer hard work, I soon shaped them into a group that could
appear
with me professionally. Teaching is a gift, and my powers
in that field had
been early recognized by both Elizabeth and
Isadora. We appeared at Lewisohn
Stadium in New York and
The End and a New Beginning 335
at Robin Hood
Dell in Philadelphia in the summertime, dancing
out of doors to the music of
a large symphony orchestra and to
an enthusiastic audience that filled every
seat and open space,
crowding even into the aisles. My American pupils were
as well
received as my Russian ones had been by the public and the
press. I am not in a position to laud my own efforts. The review
in the
Minneapolis Tribune, where I presented my American
group for the first time
to the public, had this to say:
Having seen the magnificent art of Irma
Duncan, herself the
greatest exponent of the school founded by Isadora
Duncan and
by many pronounced as even superior to her adopted mother in
her power of interpretation, it is a foregone conclusion that what-
ever
group she leads, whether from Moscow, Paris or New York,
the result can be
but the same, and that is--perfection of the art
of interpretive dance as
has not been surpassed in this genera-
tion.
Of our Lewisohn Stadium
performance the Herald Tribune
of July 14, 1932, remarked in part:
Miss
Duncan, who has done wonders in two years with her
first non-Russian pupil
group, demonstrated again last night her
supremacy as a torch bearer ..•.
The girls, at first a little
nervous of the platform-edge, soon found
themselves at ease and
gave an exhibition of intense training and
temperamental de-
velopment which was admirable in every sense.
My
press-clipping book is filled with such comments about
my art and work. They
and a collection of photographs form
the only record. The dancer's is an
ephemeral art, no sooner
performed than it vanishes into thin air. There is
nothing left in
concrete form for posterity to judge. With this in mind, I
thought of doing a documentary film back in 1929, while I was
still in
my prime and had the Russian pupils of Isadora's school
with me. I proposed
this scheme to several moving picture pro-
ducers; but only one, Walter
Wanger, showed enough interest
at least to discuss the idea with me. He
thought we should wait
DUNCAN DANCER
until a story went with it. Well,
the story has now been written,
but-as always-too late.
In April I9JO,
while I went through this personal upheaval
in my career, I had no one to
advise me or protect me. I was
still officially a foreigner in this country;
my first papers had
lapsed, so that I needed to start all over again to
apply for
citizenship. From out of the blue, I received an invitation from
Mr. and Mrs. Silas Newton, whom I had met only once, to be
their house
guest for a while. I accepted with pleasure, and we
became close friends.
They had a house on East Sixty-eighth
Street between Lexington and Park
avenues. He had natural gas
and oil wells in Texas. His wife Nancy was a
sports writer-
golf mainly-for the New York Journal.
Those were the days
of the speakeasy and, because Silas was
a teetotaler, his wife would take an
occasional drink with her
girl friends at one of the better-known
subterranean establish-
ments. One sunny afternoon she invited me to Belle
Livingstone's
place on Park A venue. As one of the notorious speakeasy
queens,
Belle presided over the house in grand style; that is, rowdy in
manner and lewd of language. It was the fashionable spot to
imbibe
forbidden spirits, and much frequented by writers and
artists of note. The
day I called with Nan the doors had not yet
opened for business, since it
was too early in the afternoon. We
found Belle alone in her negligee taking
a rest. She invited us
upstairs to her room and offered us a cup of tea! But
Nan or-
dered champagne and the reputation of the speakeasy was saved.
Nan, a typical Irish girl with red hair and gray eyes, and the
fun and
laughter that go with them, liked Belle and invited her
to a party at her
house.
That party had been secretly planned to take place during
her
husband's absence in Texas, where he periodically inspected
his oil wells.
That night, the sixth of April, Belle telephoned
beforehand to inquire
whether she could bring a couple of men
friends along. They had apparently
dropped in just as Belle,
all dressed in black lace and gardenias for the
occasion, was about
The End and a New Beginning 337
to leave. Nan told
her yes, the more the merrier! And so Belle
showed up with her two escorts.
They were the writer Cameron
Rogers and his older brother Sherman Rogers,
who was a lawyer.
I had on a long evening dress in a lovely shade of red,
the
color of the American Beauty rose. I happened to be pouring
the
martini cocktails when I was introduced. Cameron remained
with Belle, but
his brother asked me if he could sit beside me.
The sitting room held a
crowd of dinner guests, and all we had
to sit on was the piano bench. We
talked animatedly and he,
being so fair with blond hair and blue eyes, gave
me the im-
pression he might be a Scandinavian, except for his Harvard
accent. He did not leave my side and followed me around every-
where. We
sat together at dinner; and afterward, when the
guests went upstairs to play
roulette or bridge, we repaired to
the room where they had music and we
danced.
Ten years before, almost to the day, a clairvoyant with a
genuine gift for prophecy, a Mademoiselle Berly who lived in
Paris,
foretold that I would marry. She described my future
husband to me, saying
he was very blond, had piercing eyes, and
was a lawyer. The moment Sherman
put his arms about me and
we danced, her prophecy came back to me in a
flash. "Why," I
said to myself, "shades of Mademoiselle Berly! Here he is in
the flesh!" The young man, only two years out of law school,
apparently
had taken a real fancy to me, for he said, "What do
you say we go somewhere
where we can talk? There are too
many people here."
I suggested we go to
Belle Livingstone's place, because no-
body would be over there. I was right.
The place was deserted
except for a woman covered with diamonds who had had
too
much to drink; she was telling the captive audience in the per-
son
of the bartender all her troubles. Up in the room with the
silver mattresses
on the floor, Dwight Fiske played softly the
tune of the hour, "What is this
thing called love?" We talked
till dawn. He told me he had been separated
from his wife of
two years, but that the divorce had not yet been
instituted.
DUNCAN DANCER
A son of California, he was born in a house in
Mission Can-
yon, Santa Barbara. Of pioneer stock, he came of a distinguished
family that traced its ancestry to the Mayflower. His father also
belonged to the legal profession, but was at heart a poet. He was
the
author of "The Rosary." These lovely words, written to his
wife, became
world famous when Ethelbert Nevin set them to
music. By a strange
coincidence, when that song was given its
first public performance at a
concert by Nevin at the Carnegie
Lyceum in I 898, Isadora Duncan appeared on
the same pro-
gram. I was delighted to discover that Sherman too possessed
the soul of a dreamer.
At dinner one wonderful night in May at the
restaurant
"2 1 ," he wrote on the back of the menu the following lines
to me:
A REVERY
Music and laughter-a single flower glows
Bright
crimson in the darkness of your hair;
Behind the jade-green of your eyes,
who knows
What pagan Goddess beckons to me there.
Pagan Goddess or
Hamadryad?
Two thousand years ago you danced for Pan,
Danced while he
piped, white limbs with ivy clad;
What brings you here to dance for mortal
man?
Let us enjoy your dancing; it is not long
I feel, before the shaggy
one returns
To claim you. Even now his song
Shrills wild and in your
hair a crimson flower burns.
Our attachment grew stronger with each day that
passed. He
left for Paris that winter to obtain his divorce. But quite a few
more years had to pass before he was professionally established
and we
could think of marriage. This supreme happiness came
to me at last, somewhat
late in life, but better late where the
right man is concerned than never.
The End and a New Beginning 339
In the early part of 1933, I lived in a
women's hotel on
Mitchell Place, near the East River. I held my dancing
classes
there, as I now taught-for the first time in my career-paying
pupils. I had a livelihood to earn. One rainy morning, sitting by
the
window in my room, I made a watercolor sketch of the view
in the
distance-the Queensborough Bridge over the river and
Ward's Island in the
center. I had not sketched since school days
and had no idea I had any
talent for this art. Just then the
telephone rang. It was the secretary of
Walter Damrosch. Dam-
rosch, who was then nearly eighty, had conducted for
Isadora.
The secretary made an appointment for me to see the old
gentle-
man, since he had something important to discuss with me. The
next day he told me of his plan to present the Ninth Symphony
of
Beethoven as a huge pageant to Peace. He wanted me to stage
the choreography
for the last movement, which contains Schil-
ler's "Ode to Joy." I remembered
Isadora's lifelong ambition of
dancing the Ninth. I enthusiastically agreed
to his plan. Isadora
had written of her vision:
I was possessed by the
idea of a school-vast ensemble-
dancing in the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven.
At night I had
only to shut my eyes and these figures danced through my
brain
in mighty array, calling on me to bring them to life. "\Ve are
here! You are the one at whose touch we might live! . . ." I
was
possessed by the dream of Promethean creation that, at my
call, might spring
from the Earth, descend from the Heavens,
such dancing figures as the world
had never seen.*
Damrosch told me, "Isadora Duncan's delineation of
Be-
thoven's Seventh Symphony, twenty-five years ago, helped to
open my
eyes and mind to the significant connection between the
art of music and
dance. When I started to work on the scenario
of the dramatization of the
Ninth, it was as if Beethoven's mu-
sic controlled me and prevented me from
introducing any ele-
ment which smacked of the theatrical or artificial."
*Life, p. ZI 3·
340 DUNCAN DANCER
The scenario, which Walter
Damrosch worked out for me to
follow in staging the last movement with its
stupendous choral
"Ode to Joy," gives an indication of what we tried to
express.
I will append it here the way he wrote it:
First, war and the
desolation of war. The unhappy restlessness
of the world. Then remonstrance
by the Priest of the Temple of
Peace with some hopeful pleading in
pantomime, after which
comes the soft beginning by the orchestra only
playing the Hymn
of the brotherhood of man, gradually increasing in strength
as if
coming nearer and nearer from a great distance-indicating a
world
awakening. During this music the dancer might begin to
decorate the altar
and the temple with garlands. The stage be-
comes brighter and at the
fortissimo reiteration of the hymn, the
dance becomes more and more joyous
and triumphant in char-
acter. A short interruption by the renewed loud
dissonance of
battle as the High Priest comes forward and slowly sings:
"0 Friends, no longer these sounds of war, let us intone more
peaceful
and joyful ones! "
The great chorus now begins to chant the Hymn of Joy.
Representatives of all the nations of the world in their native
costumes
begin to pour in through the two side entrances of the
auditorium and march
up the middle of the aisle with their
banners, garlands, etc., towards the
steps leading to the altar
of Peace. As the chorus chants the words: "And
the cherub
stands before God," there is a great devotional climax from the
entire multitude.
To the music that follows this devotional climax a
march of
youths, half-naked like athletes with garlands and banners
sym-
bolizing the joyousness of youth in a world freed from war come
dancing forward. They ascend the stage and together with the
maidens
execute a wild dance of joy. To the words: "Be em-
braced 0 Ye Millions, this
kiss to the whole world!" they all
embrace and in pantomime express the
symbolical words chanted
by the chorus:
"Brothers! over yonder starry
tent a loving Father must be
dwelling! 0 ye millions, ye fall down, feel ye
not the Creator?
The End and a New Beginning 341
Search Him above the
starry tent, far above the stars he must
dwell."
Then the chorus chants
the Hymn of Joy in quicker time and
new accentuations accompanied by dancing
by the multitude. The
banner bearers and the soldiers carrying arms deposit
them around
the altar on which a flame of eternal Peace had been lighted
followed by a general expression of joy.
The night dedicated to the
grand music and dance festival at
Madison Square Garden in New York, at a
time when warlike
rumbles were heard once more in Europe, was that of
January
25, I933· Damrosch conducted the orchestra of a hundred men
and
a mixed chorus of a hundred voices in a magnificent render-
ing of
Beethoven's mighty symphony. I danced at the head of
a group of fifty men,
women, and children-all humanity-as
my great teacher had always envisioned
it. As the theme of the
"Ode to Joy" began, that hymn of the brotherhood of
man,
played very softly by the strings alone, I stepped out onto the
big
stage-a single figure dancing. As the grandiose melody
built higher with the
whole orchestra coming in, two others
joined me, then more and more, until
the entire stage was filled
with dancing figures in mighty array, exactly as
Isadora Duncan
had dreamed it. Before the dance had ended, I surreptitiously
stole away from the whirling mass of dancing figures and stood
quietly
in the shadow of the wings to watch them dance the
closing measures. No one
had noticed my departure.
Among that crowd of eighteen thousand spectators
filling
every seat in that vast auditorium, there was only one person,
the man I was going to marry, who knew that this was my swan
song-my
last dance in public. As I stood and watched, I sud-
denly sensed a presence
near, hovering over me, and seemed to
hear these whispered words: "I see the
Future, it is there-and
we will dance the Ninth Symphony yet!"
I had
come a long way. In my mind's eye I saw the little
girl in Hamburg, skipping
along the darkened street with a red
342 DUNCAN DANCER
paper torch light
in her hand. This light had turned into a
brighter flame as I had to uphold
the torch of an ideal. All things
must come to an end. I had had my own
share of public acclaim
during nearly thirty years of dancing on the stage.
I did not
regret leaving the glaring spotlights for the obscurity of a
pri-
vate existence. Life, at that moment, seemed to prove that won-
ders
never cease; that out of the hardship and miseries of
existence should bloom
the marvel of a great, true love.
And so, with a fervent heart, I thanked
Providence for all
the blessings I had received and-at the end-for giving me
this unique opportunity to close that part of my life in harmony
and
beauty and artistic fulfillment. For being able, through Bee-
thoven's
immortal music and Schiller's inspired poem to the
brotherhood of
mankind-for which all men of good will must
strive-to say a glorious and
joyful farewell to my dance career.
Index of Names
Adamson, Fire
Commissioner, I 54
Alexander, King of Greece, I 98
Alexandra, Queen, 8
I-8 2, 2 I 2
Andre Vladimirovitch, Grand Duke, 66-68
Arts of the
Theatre, The, 79
Aubert, Johnny, 18I-I82
Auguste Victoria, Empress, 42,
7S
Axen, Mrs. Anna, 247, 306-308
Bach, Johann Sebastian, I6S, IS2, 205
Bacchae, The, I 5 S
Baker, Josephine, I99
Baker, Miss, I48, I 50
Balashova, Alexandra, 2 26, 2 3 2
Baltanic, S.S., 218-2 19, 22 I
Bara, Theda, I 6 I, I 79
Bauer, Harold, 200
Baumgarten, Otto, I 79-I
So, I 84
Beethoven, Ludwig von, 20, II9, 168, 173, 193, 197, 205, 241, 251,
339, J41, 34-2
Begas, Mrs. Reinhold, 39
Bentley, Alys, I 70
Benson, Stuart, 160, I So-I 8 I
Berault, Count and Countess de, 122-123
Berly, Mademoiselle, 337
Black Crook, The, 326
Blake, William, I I 5
Bloch, Mr. and Mrs. Ernest, I 56
Boissevain, Eugen, I6o, I82-184, IS6
Bonaparte, Jerome, 89, 99
Borodin, Mrs. Fanny, 2S9-293, 300--301, 314
343
344 DUNCAN DANCER
Borodin, Michael, 28 5, 287, 293-298, 30 I-302
Borowsky, 3 3 2-33 3
Bourdelle, Antoine, I 30
Bourgeois, Stephan, I
6o, I So, z I 4-
Brahms, Johannes, I 70
British Museum, 2 I 7
Brooklyn Eagle, I 6o
Broun, Heywood, I 8 2
Bynner, Witter, I4-9,
ISZ-I53
Canonia, S.S., 190
Capablanca, Jose, z 59
Chang Tso-lin,
z8o-281, 284-, 287, 30o-301
Chen, Eugen, 293-294, 299, 302
Cheremeteff,
Colonel Serge, 2 7 2
Chiang Kai-shek, 284-285, 287, 292-293
Chicago
Tribune, 263
"Child-Dancers, The," 149
Chopin, Frederic, 7I, 170, 174,
176, 182-183, zoo, 205, 212, 277, 279,
296
Coburn, Charles, 164-165
Collier, John, I 5 I
Collier's Magazine, 160
Comedia, 310
Cornedie Fran~aise, 14 7
Contemplatione della Marte, I s8
Colonne,
79
Copanos, Athens, 191
Cope au, Jacques, 2 I o
Copeland, George,
167-I68, 176-179, I88
Corelli, Arcangelo, 50
Corey, Mrs. W. E., 86-88,
90
Craig, Edward Gordon, Iz, 34, 4-2, 57, 6o, 79-80, 256, 263
D'
Annunzio, Gabriele, I 58
Dante Alighieri, s.s., I 56
Dante, 168, 318
Dallies, Christine, I 87, I 89, 263
Damrosch, Walter, 339-34I
Dean,
Priscilla, I 6 r
Debussy, Claude, I67-168
Index of Names
Deirdre,
6I, 86, 88, I q.-I IS, I30, IJ2, I68
"Delight," 83
Denis, Maurice, I 30
Denver Times, I 76
Der Ling, Princess, 279
345
Desti, Mary
(Sturges), 90, 99, I3I, 139, 205, 2I8, 279, 3II, 3I3, p6,
319
Diaghilev
Ballets Russes, 71
Divoire, Fernand, I 28
Dodge, Mabel, I 5 I
Dourouze, Madame, I 56, I 59
Duchamp, Marcel, I6o
Dumas, Alexandre,
3 I 2
DuMaurier, George, I98
Duncan, Angus, I41-142, 184
Duncan,
Anna, 16-I7, 106, 145-I46, 157, 169, 171, 174, 182, 184,
I86-I89, 193, 205,
2I4, 236-237, 276
Duncan, Augustin, I6, I3I, I4I-I42, 145-I46, 148, ISO,
IS2-IS3, IS7•
I64-I6], 173, 180, 18S-I86, 203-204, 207, 266, 329
Duncan,
Elizabeth, 6, I 7, 28, 30-3I, 37-38, 40-41, 43-44, 47-49, 5 I-
sS, 6o-6I,
63-64,67, 76-78, 86-9I, 93, 97, 99, IOI-103, I06-I I I,
IIJ-II4, II6-I17,
II9-I20, I24, 143-144, I66, I73> 266,321,334
Duncan, Erica, IS, 18, 32,
61,95-96, 107, I57, I69, 17I, I79, I8I, 185
Duncan, Isadora, 3-6, 10-13,
16-17, 2o-31, 33-34, 36-41, 43-45, 47-
49, 51-62, 64, 66-72, 74-75, 78,
8o-82, 85-86, 88-91, 93, 97, 99-
1o4, I07-110, 112-119, 121-124, 126-133,
I37-147, 15o-161,
I63-174· 180, I83-2I4, 2I]-225, 22]-234. 236-238, 24Q-242,
249-257, 260, 262-271, 277-280, 283-284, 292, 294, 309-325,
327-330,
332-335· 338-339· 34I
Duncan, Lisa (Liesel), I], 106, IS], I69, I]I, I]4,
I82, I83-I84, I87,
I92-I93> 205-206, 209, 211, 213-214, 236-237, 256,
276, 309,
3I8-3I9
Duncan, Margherita, I41-142, I4S-I46, I48, 150, I53,
I8o, 184, 323
Duncan, Margot (Gretel), I7, I06, IS], I69, I]I, 177, I84-I85,
I88,
192-I93, 205, 2II, 214, 236, 263-264
Duncan, Mary Dora (Gray),
I74-I75
Duncan, Raymond, I 56, 266, 3 I 9
Duncan, Temple, I6, 61, 95,
107, J3I, 276
Duncan, Theresa (Maria-Theresa), I6, I06, II], 157, I69, I]I,
I88,
I93. 205, 209, 2II, 2I3-214., 276
Duncanides, I 02
DUNCAN
DANCER
Dupin, 122
Duranty, Walter, 253, 259
Duse, Eleonora, 8 I, I 3
7-q.o
Eastman, Max, I6o, 182-I84, I86, 259
Ederle, Gertrude, 3 26
Edlinger, Ferdinand, 130
Edward VII, King, 81-82, 2 I 2
Electra, I58
Ellis Island, I 48
Emanuel, 44
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 262
Essenine, Sergei, 2 3 o-2 3 I, 2 3 6, 24 I
Euripides, I 58
Falchetto, Benoit, 3 I6
Falck, Edward, I 8 2
Federn, Karl, 34
Fiske, Dwight, 337
Flagg, James Montgomery, I64
Florinsky, Count,
r6o, zzi
Foch, Marshal Ferdinand, I67
Fokine, Michael, 69-71
Ford,
Mr. and Mrs. Ellsworth, I49
Fortuni, I 8<)-190
Franck, Alicia, I 48
Franck, Cesar, I 3 9, 3 I 5
Freeman, Helen, I 53
Frederick, Pauline,
I 61
Friganza, Trixie, 177
Frohman, Charles, So, 90
Gallagher,
Lieutenant, I 55
Galli-Curci, Amelita, I 84
Galsworthy, John, 83, 85
Garden, Mary, I 53
Geltzer, Ekaterina, 222-223, 250
Genthe, Arnold,
I6o, ISo-182, I86
Germanic Museum (Nuremberg), 106
Gilman, Mabel, 86-87,
97
Gilman, Mrs., 87-89, 92-93, 97-99
Index of Names
Gish, Lillian,
I6I
Gluck, Christoph Willibald, 35, 128, J4.I, 174-, I83, 192
Goethe,
Johann Wolfgang von, I59> I68
Grandjouan, Jean, 122
Grieg, Edvard, I
8 I
Gretchaninoff, Alexander, 2 55
Guilbert, Yvette, I 7 4-
Hamilton,
Bill, 160, 180
Hamlet, 318
Harle, Norman, 203, 207, 2I8
Harrach,
Countess, 39
Harriman, Averell, 2 59
Harting, Fraulein, 96-99
Heifetz, Jascha, 184
Hermitage Museum, 70
Hesse, Alix, Princess of
(Tsarina), I I 1
Hesse, Elenore, Grand Duchess of, I I 1, I42
Hesse,
Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of, 91, III-liZ, 14-Z
Hochschule fiir Musik, 107
Hoffa, Dr., 3 3
Hohle, Professor, IOS-106
Hoover Commission, 226,
259, p6
Howe, F. C., I48, I86
Humperdinck, Engelbert, 39, 49
Hurok,
Sol, I85, 203-204, 322-323
Ile de France, S.S., 324
Imperial Ballet
School, 69, 208
Iphigenia in Tauris, I52
Isabelle, I 7, 82, I 84
lsvestia, 229, 2 3 8, 3 24-
Jaques-Dalcroze, Emile, 38
Kahn, Otto H.,
I 53
Kalenina, Madame, 257, z64
Kaltenborn, Hans and Olga von, I6o
Kantorovich, A. I., 301
Karsavina, Tamara, 71
Keats, John, 54, 2I2
347
Kellerman, Annette, 28
Kling, Dr., 106
DUNCAN DANCER
Kom
Ombo Temple, 119
Konegen, Fraulein, IS-I91 53
Krassine, Leonide, 208
Kreisler, Fritz, I 6o
Kschessinska, Mathilde, 66-68, 70
Kun, Bela,
227
Lady Evelyn (yacht), II 5
Lanner, Joseph, 64-
Lapland, S.S.,
I<t-8
Lederman, Minna, 15 I
Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich, 213, 222, 225,
230, 238-24-0
Leopoldina, S.S., 186
Lessing Society, I4-2
Lewis,
Sinclair, 259
Lincoln Center, I6I
Lindsey, Judge and Mrs. Ben B., 176-I
77
Lippach, Fraulein, IS-I6, 53
Lippmann, Walter, I 51
Liszt, Franz,
254-, 3 I 3, 3 I6
Litvinoff, Mrs. Maxim, 22D-22I
Livingstone, Belle,
336-337
Lodge, Senator Henry Cabot, I 84-
Louis XIV, King, 294-, 3 I 2
Luboshutz, Pierre, 2 3 5
L'Humaniti, 240
Lunacharsky, Anatole V.,
209, 222, 224-225, 228, 230, 238, 265, 286,
305, 323
Lyons, Eugene, 259
Macdougall, Allan Ross, 3 2 3-3 24-
MacKaye, Percy, 149
Maeterlinck,
Maurice, 3 5
Maitland, Fuller, 278
Malone, Dudley Field, 184, 186, 3 24
Manchester, Duchess of, So-8 I
Maria Pavlovna, Grand Duchess, 24 I
Mason, Redfern, 174
Maurice and Hughes, 200
Maxwell, Elsa, 1 6o
Index of Names
Mayflower, 338
Meighan, Tom, 174
Meiningen,
Princess von, 39
Mendelsohn, Frau von, 39
Merz, Max, 67, 90, 103-112,
124, 127, 143-145, 251, 321
Metchik, Mark, 249, 2 52, 2 54
Midsummer
Night's Dream, A, 141
Millay, Edna St. Vincent, 160, 324
Minneapolis
Tribune, 335
Mitchel, John Purroy, I 5 I
Mitchell, Ruth, 218, 220
Morgen Post, 24
Moscow Conservatory, 275
Moskvin, Ivan M., 223
Mouraviev-Amoursky, Count, 304
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 168, 182, 205
Mysovsky, Elisaveta Gregorievna, 241, 270, 288, 304, 326, 331
Narkompross, 28 5, 303
National Museum, Athens, 191
National
Zeitung, 49
Nazimova, Alia, 164
Nevin, Ethelbert, 338
New Gallery,
34, 278
Newton, Mr. and Mrs. Silas, 336-337
New Russia, The, 260
New
York American, 328
New York Globe, 109
New York Journal, 336
New
York Mail, 151, 169
349
New York Tribune and Herald Tribune, 154, 182,
310, 327, 329, 335
Nicholas II, Tsar, 68-69, 71, 208, 227
Nietzsche,
Friedrich W., 34, 168, 241
Nijinsky, Vaslav, 7o-71
Oedipus Rex, I 54
Olga Alexandrovna, Grand Duchess, 64
Orczy, Baroness, 271.
Passmore,
Professor, 30
Pasternak, Boris, 3 2 2
Patrick, 114, II6, 130, 158, 168
350
Pavlova, Anna, 65, 71
Peter Ibbetson, I98
Petipa, Marius, 69
Picabia, Francis, I6o
Plato, 168, 320
DUNCAN DANCER
Podvowsky,
Commissar, 237, 24-9, 25I-252, 264-, 321
Poe, Edgar Allan, 2 54
Poiret,
Paul, 113, 125, 187
Polk, Secretary of State, 186
Poppe, Pastor,
14-5-14-6
Pratt, George, I 72
Press Association, Berlin, 2 5
Princeton University, 8 5
Prussia, Prince and Princess Henry of, 14-2
Reiss, Wienold, 160, 175, 179, I8.j.-I85
Renneville, de, 21 o
Reuss,
Princess Henry VII of, 37, 39
Roberts, Mrs. Mary Fanton, I 51, 182
Robinson, Attmore, I 53
Rogers, Cameron, 3 3 7
Rogers, ShermanS.,
337-338, 341
Romanovsky-Krassinsky, Princess Mathilde, 68
Roosevelt,
Franklin D., 273
"Rosary, The," 338
Rothbart, Albert, 1 8 I
Rousseau, Marta, I 64
Rubinstein, Beryl, I 8 I-I 82, I 84-
Rummel,
Walter, 187, I88-189, I99, 20I, 205
Sanborn, Pitts, I69
San Francisco
Examiner, I74
Sappho of Lesbos, I 58
Sartoris, Cecile, 210, 227, 310,
33o-331
Sauret, Henriette, 3 I 5
Schiller, Friedrich, I68, 342
Schleswig-Holstein, Princess Henry of, 34
Schneider, llya, 222-224, 232,
255, 264, 272-273, 282, 303
Schubert, Franz, 48, 128, 15I, 168, 174, I84,
205, 235, 315
Schumann-Heink, Ernestine, 3
Schumann, Robert, II, 48-5I,
182, 2I2
Segurola, Andres de, 160
Seroff, Victor, 3 II, 3 I 3
Index
of Names 35 I
Shakespeare, William, 14- I, 168, 3 I 8
Shaw, Bernard, 159
Shein (Sheyne), Moyssei Borissovich, 275, 279, 296, 326
Sheridan, Anne,
22 5
Sides, Alfredo, 309, 310
Singer, Paris, JOI, I I3-I I4, I 16-I 17,
122, 129-130, 141, 157-158,
196, 252, 263, 3I6, 329-330, 332
Skene,
Hener, I I<)-I20, I27-128, I39, q.6, 170
Soong, T. V., 29I
Spaeth,
Sigmund, I69, 182
Stanislavsky, Constantine, I46, 323
Steichen, Edward,
I 90, I 92
Stockhausen, Annie von, I So-1 8 I, 184
Strauss, Johann, 183
Sturges, Mary, see Mary Desti
Sturges, Preston, 90
Sun Yat-sen, 280,
284-285, 290
Sun Yat-sen, Madame, 29o-29I, 293, 297, 302
Susanna, 96,
104-106
Swanson, Gloria, I 79
Taisho, Emperor of Japan, 282
Talmadge, Norma, I6I
Tante Miss, see Elizabeth Duncan
Tchaikowsky,
Peter llich, I93, 212, 228, 323
Terry, Ellen, 8o
Thompson, Dorothy,
259-260
Three Musketeers, The, 3 I 2
Touchstone, The, 1 5 I
Toy,
Frederick H., I 54
Traveler's Aid Society, 96
Trojan Women, The, 158
Trollope, Anthony, 272
Trotsky, Leon, 2I3, 225, 242, 258, 275
Tzu-Hsi, Empress, 279
Ungern-Sternberg, Baron, I 6o
Valentino,
Rudolph, 200
Varese, Edgard, 1 6o
352
Venizelos, Eleutherios, 192
Victoria, Queen, I I I
Vienna Conservatory, I07
Vogue, 186
DUNCAN DANCER
Votichenko, Dolly, I88-I89, 205-207
Votichenko, Sash
a, I 64, I 8 8-I 89
Wagner, Richard, 20, 36, 39, 131, 202-203, 236, 254,
279, 330
Wagner, Siegfried, 39
Wales, Edward Prince of, 3 3 I
Walker, James J. ("Jimmy"}, 326
Walton, Florence, 200
Ward, Mrs.
Humphry, 272
Watkins, Mary, 327-328
Weimar, Grand Duke and Duchess of,
124
Whittimore, Professor, I I 8
Whitman, Sarah, 15 3
Whitman, Walt,
24-I
Wilhelm, Crown Prince and Crown Princess, I43-I44
William I,
Emperor, 39, 199
Wolff, Albert, 3 I 5
Wu Pei-fu, 290, 292
Young,
Art, I 86
Ysaye, Eugene, I68
Zappeion Museum, I93
Zelli, Joe, 200
Zschetzsching, Frau, 58-60, 62, 79
*