Isadora: A Sensational Life - Softcover

Kurth, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0349116199 ISBN 13: 9780349116198

Publisher: Abacus, 2003

Synopsis

Known by many as the greatest dancer of her time, Isadora Duncan was the matriarch of creative self-expression. A pioneer in the dance world and the women's movement, her name is synonymous with originality, spontaneity, and intrigue. She was the first woman to break simultaneously the barriers of art, love, fashion, sex, religion and marriage. Dorothy Parker christened her 'Duncan disorderly', praising her as 'magnificent, generous, gallant and fated'.
Finally, here is a biography that does justice to the life of this unforgettable and exceptional woman. Hers was a life marked by tragedy - she never recovered from the accidental drowning of her two small children and was plagued by alcoholism. She died in a car accident in 1927; her scarf became entangled in the wheel of her car during a joy ride on the French Riviera and she was strangled.Never before has the life of Isadora Duncan been given such thorough and sweeping treatment.

About this title

Review:

A product of 10 years' labour, Peter Kurth's Isadora: The Sensational Life of Isadora Duncan is a substantial and very thorough biography. The events of the dancer's flamboyant life have long been overshadowed by her dramatic and horrific death--strangled by own her scarf when it became entangled in the wheel of a sports car (the scarf was actually a tasselled batik shawl). Kurth, who only allocates a couple of pages to her demise, redresses this in balance by providing a wealth of pertinent information about her formative years. Duncan was raised by her independent-minded mother in California during the 1880s, a time when the state was obsessed by all things Greek. (Kurth maintains that Isadora's dance always bore the hallmarks of this distinctly Californian trend.) A rebellious spirit, the young Duncan outraged her teachers by announcing that Santa Claus was a lie. She never mellowed with age, always defying convention in life and in art, usually with little regard for the consequences. Arriving in Chicago at the age of 18, she declared "I have discovered the true movement of man" and at no point does her self-belief ever appear to have wavered. Her dance first scandalised and then beguiled audiences in Paris, London, Moscow, New York and Berlin. Isadora worked with Stanslavski, mingled with Rodin, Gertrude Stein and the Fitzgeralds. She appears to have had a truly voracious appetite for sex--conducting intemperate love affairs with Ellen Terry's son, Gordan Craig, the millionaire dilettante Paris Singer; the Russian poet Sergei Esenin (who she briefly married); and, apparently, competing with Jean Cocteau for sailors.

Such adventurous living had its costs. At 40 she was a "prematurely aged and bloated woman, coarsened by terrible trials" (including the tragic drowning of her two children), "labouring through gossamer steps and classical evocation". Kurth describes her decline with a great deal of compassion; unfortunately it is actually quite difficult to like Duncan. She emerges as a distinctly indulgent and, frankly, unpleasant, racist prima donna--a belle époque Joan Crawford with a dash of Judy Garland thrown in. This "Muse of the Modernists" might have danced like an angel but, as this exemplary book reveals, she was a bit of a devil offstage.--Travis Elborough END

Review:

Peter Kurth's biography is exhaustive - a long, loving tribute to a woman whose spirit still lives in legend. (THE TIMES)

The best biography yet of an astonishing woman, brimming with juicy snippets. (SUNDAY TIMES)

[A] sympathetic and enjoyable biography. (SUNDAY TELEGRAPH)

There is never a dull moment in Peter Kurth's action-packed biography ... Kurth has done her proud with his excellent biography. (DAILY MAIL)

About this edition

• Publisher: Abacus
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0349116199
• ISBN 13: 9780349116198
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 781