Isadora Duncan, 1877-1927: The Mother of Modern Dance
MARIO RITTER: I’m Mario Ritter with PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English. Today Jim Tedder tells about modern dancer Isadora Duncan.
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JIM TEDDER: Angela Isadora Duncan was born in San Francisco, California in eighteen seventy-seven. She was the youngest of four children. Her parents’ marriage ended in divorce when Isadora was three years old. Isadora and her brothers and sister were raised by their mother, Mary.
The family was very poor. Isadora taught dance lessons to local children to earn extra money. She began teaching when she was only five years old.
Mary Duncan taught her children about music, dancing, the theater and literature. Young Isadora believed this was all the education she needed. She did not attend school for very long. She said it restricted her from dancing and thinking about the arts.
Isadora wanted to make dancing her life’s work. And she wanted to live by her own rules, not by what other people thought was right or wrong. The kind of dancing Isadora wanted to do was new and different from other dances at the time. She thought dancing should be an art, not just entertainment.
Isadora Duncan did not like ballet. She said that ballet dancers had too many rules to follow about how they should stand and bend and move. She said ballet was “ugly and against nature.” She wanted her “modern” dance style to be free and natural. Isadora liked to move her arms and legs in very smooth motions. She said this was like waves in the ocean, or trees swaying in the wind.
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When she danced, Isadora Duncan wore very thin clothing. She wanted people to see her body as she ran across the stage.
Isadora spent most of her teen-aged years in the San Francisco area. She continued to teach dancing classes, mostly to young girls.
She also visited local libraries to read the works of Shakespeare and to study about the ancient Greeks.
When she was eighteen years old, Isadora urged her mother to move to Chicago and then to New York. She thought dancing in these two large cities would help her career. She found work in several dance companies or groups of dancers. But she had to dance as she was directed to do. She did not dance alone on the stage and could not become the “star” of the show.
Sometimes Isadora Duncan was paid to dance in the homes of wealthy people or at parties they gave in their gardens. But soon it was hard to find jobs that paid her enough money just to survive. In a short time, she was out of work and poor once again. Using her last dollars, she bought a ticket on a cattle boat and sailed to Europe in eighteen ninety-nine.
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Isadora Duncan arrived in London. She visited the British Museum every day for several months. She studied Greek vases and sculpture with their images of ancient Greek women dancing. In nineteen hundred, she danced for a large audience at London’s Lyceum Theater. The people liked what they saw. Soon art lovers in the city were talking about this new dancer from the United States.
People began to think of her as a great talent. Isadora Duncan began using the music of Chopin, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner in her performances. Her fame, and wealth, began to grow.
When she danced, Isadora Duncan wore very thin clothing. Sometimes she dressed in long white tunics, the kind of clothing worn by ancient Greek women. She wanted people to see her body as she skipped, jumped and ran barefoot across the stage. Some people criticized her for doing this. They thought it was not moral to dress this way. At the time, most women wore dresses that covered as much of the body as possible, especially the arms and legs.
Isadora Duncan moved on to Paris, Berlin, Vienna and the other great cities of Europe. She danced and opened dancing schools. Newspapers wrote about her. Artists created sculpture, jewelry, photographs and paintings of her. And by nineteen ten, Isadora Duncan had become the most famous dancer in the world.
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Isadora Duncan was often asked to explain her style of dancing and to say how dance as an art might change over time. In nineteen-oh-three, when she was twenty-six, she made a famous speech in Berlin. She said:
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Isadora Duncan said ballet was “ugly and against nature.” She wanted her “modern” dance style to be free and natural.
“Nature is the source of the dance. The movement of the waves, of winds, of the earth is ever in the same lasting harmony. We do not stand on the beach and inquire of the ocean what was its movement of the past and what will be its movement in the future. Every creature moves according to its nature … that is according to its feelings and physical structure. The movements of the savage were natural and beautiful. So too were the movements of the classical Greeks wearing simple tunics and sandals.
“In my school, I shall not teach the children to imitate my movements …but to make their own. The primary or fundamental movements of the new school of the dance must have within them the seeds from which will evolve all other movements, each in turn to give birth to others in an unending sequence of still higher and greater expression, thoughts, and ideas.
“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. This is the mission of the dancer of the future. She is coming, the dancer of the future: the free spirit, who will inhabit the body of new women; more glorious than any woman that has yet been; more beautiful than all women in past centuries: The highest intelligence in the freest body.”
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JIM TEDDER: Isadora Duncan had very liberal ideas for the time. She believed in equal rights for women. She did not think a couple had to be married to have children. She had two children, Deirdre and Patrick, by two different men. She was not married to either of them. She also did not hide the fact that she was bisexual. She had a number of lovers, both men and women. She thought the Bolshevik Revolution and Communism were good for Russia. She said:
“My motto is: no limits. Virtuous people are simply those who have not been tempted sufficiently. We may not all break the Ten Commandments, but we are all certainly capable of it. Within us lurks the breaker of all laws, ready to spring out at the first real opportunity. You were once wild. Don’t let them tame you.”
JIM TEDDER: Isadora Duncan is remembered as the mother of modern dance. But she is also remembered for the tragedy in her life. In nineteen thirteen, Isadora’s two children, Deirdre and Patrick, along with their nurse, were drowned in the Seine River in Paris. The car they were riding in had stopped running.
The driver got out to fix the engine, but he did not set the brakes. When the car suddenly started again, it ran down a bank into the river. Isadora was greatly saddened by this. For a while she thought she would never dance again.
In nineteen twenty-two, she married a Russian poet named Sergei Yesenin. He was almost twenty years younger than she was. He became a violent alcoholic and then had a mental breakdown. Three years later, he killed himself.
In the late nineteen twenties, Isadora Duncan’s dancing career was over. People began to think of her as a sad person whose best days were gone. She was seen in public many times after she had too many alcoholic drinks. She ran out of money, but continued to stay at the finest hotels. She had many debts that she could not pay. Newspapers carried stories of her “reckless” and “scandalous” life style.
In nineteen twenty-seven, her life ended suddenly. Isadora Duncan was in Nice, France. She was riding in a car that had the roof down. She wore a long scarf around her neck. One end of the scarf got caught in the rear wheel of the car. The heavy silk tightened around her neck and broke it. She died instantly at the age of fifty.
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The famous American poet Carl Sandburg wrote this about Isadora Duncan:
“The wind? I am the wind. The sea and the moon? I am the sea and the moon. Tears, pain, love, bird flights? I am all of them. I dance what I am. Sin, prayer, flight, the light that never was on land or sea? I dance what I am.”
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MARIO RITTER: This program was written and voiced by Jim Tedder. It was produced by Dana Demange. Shirley Griffith was the voice of Isadora Duncan. I’m Mario Ritter. You can find transcripts, MP3s and podcasts on our website, voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English.
Getting a Feel for the Finger Lakes and Champlain, Not a Great Lake but Still Nice
BARBARA KLEIN:
Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I’m Barbara Klein.
STEVE EMBER: And I’m Steve Ember. This week on our program, we tell you about Lake Champlain and the Finger Lakes in the northeastern United States.
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BARBARA KLEIN: Lake Champlain borders two states, New York and Vermont, and Quebec, Canada. Many people like to vacation at this freshwater lake. They enjoy sailing and fishing, water skiing, swimming, or just sitting at the water’s edge, daydreaming. The waters can look so still and blue, like a painting, though they can also become rough with waves when the wind blows.
STEVE EMBER:
The Finger Lakes region of west-central New York is known for its waterfalls and gorges. A 2006 photo of visitors on a trail through a gorge in Watkins Glen State Park, at the southern end of Seneca Lake.
Much of the area around Lake Champlain has a country feeling. Nearby are woods where people can hike. In the fall, visitors can watch the sugar maple trees surrender their colorful autumn leaves.
Many animals and birds live around Lake Champlain. Road signs warn drivers to watch out for moose, big animals that can walk into the road.
Visitors at the lake also keep their eyes open for “Champ.” Champ is like an American Nessie, the sea monster that supposedly lives in Loch Ness in Scotland.
BARBARA KLEIN: Over the years there have been reports of some thing in Lake Champlain. A nineteen seventy-seven photograph only fed the mystery. In the distance it shows what appears to be a large creature in the water.
Bags of Finger Lakes Popcorn on sale in 2006 at the Ithaca Farmers Market
Champ can also be found helping the local economy by appearing on souvenirs like T-shirts and coffee cups.
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STEVE EMBER: Lake Champlain is a long, narrow body of water. The lake is one hundred ninety-three kilometers long and nineteen kilometers at its widest. It reaches a depth of one hundred twenty-two meters.
The lake flows north from Whitehall, New York. Over the Canadian border it makes its way into the Richelieu (RISH-ah-loo) River in Quebec. The Richelieu joins the Saint Lawrence River which feeds into the Atlantic Ocean at the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.
Lake Champlain lies in a valley between the Green Mountains of Vermont and the Adirondack Mountains of New York.
A number of communities are near Lake Champlain. The largest is Burlington, a city of thirty-eight thousand people in Vermont.
BARBARA KLEIN: Lake Champlain has more than seventy islands. One island in Vermont, Isle La Motte, is known for its prehistoric geological formations. The Chazy (SHAY-zee) Reef on the island contains coral, like a reef in a warm, tropical ocean.
Scientists say this is because when the Chazy Reef began to form hundreds of millions of years ago, it was in the southern half of the world. Then the plates that form the surface of the Earth began to move around and gave the reef a new home.
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STEVE EMBER: Lake Champlain is named for the French explorer Samuel de Champlain who first saw it in sixteen-oh-nine.
In the seventeen hundreds, the Champlain Valley became a battleground in the French and Indian War, also known as the Seven Years” War. French troops in Canada built a fort to control passage to the lake as a defense against British troops moving north. The French named it Fort Carillon. But in seventeen fifty-nine, the British took control of the fort and renamed it Ticonderoga.
Troops from the English colonies that would become the United States supported the British army in the war. But later, during the American Revolution, colonial troops fought against the British at Fort Ticonderoga.
And later still, during the War of Eighteen Twelve, the Americans defeated the British in the Battle of Lake Champlain. The defeat not only ended British demands for territory in New England. It also put an end to British hopes of controlling the Great Lakes area.
BARBARA KLEIN: The Great Lakes are Michigan, Erie, Huron, Superior and Ontario. Champlain is smaller than any of them. But in March of nineteen ninety-eight, it joined the list — Congress declared Champlain the sixth Great Lake.
This was because of efforts by Patrick Leahy, a senator who has represented Vermont for more than thirty years. Senator Leahy was trying to get research money for Lake Champlain from the National Sea Grant Program. This program operates under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The program pays for water research at universities that border either the oceans or the Great Lakes. So Senator Leahy got the words “Great Lakes including Lake Champlain” into the bill.
Many people in Midwestern states that border the Great Lakes were not at all happy. John Glenn, the former astronaut who was then a senator from Ohio, put it this way: “I know the Great Lakes. I’ve traveled the Great Lakes. And Lake Champlain is not one of the Great Lakes.”
STEVE EMBER: Still, there are similarities. Lake Champlain has wildlife and rock formations that are similar to or even the same as the Great Lakes. All six were formed from the same huge piece of ice. And all six flow into the Saint Lawrence River in Canada.
Lake Champlain also has the same kinds of environmental problems, including pollution and nonnative sea life, as the Great Lakes.
BARBARA KLEIN: For people in the Champlain area, having it declared a Great Lake was great news. They saw it as a chance to get more help for the lake’s problems, and more national attention for the area.
But the measure that declared Lake Champlain a Great Lake lasted less than three weeks. The angry reaction from the Midwestern states succeeded in killing it. Vermont, however, still won the right for its researchers to ask for money under the National Sea Grant Program.
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A boat sits near a dock on the western side of Cayuga Lake as a rainbow shines over the opposite shore
STEVE EMBER: In central New York state, there are five lakes that look like fingers on a map. Their names come from American Indian culture. Seneca. Cayuga (ky-YOU-gah). Keuka (KYOO-ka). Canandaigua (can-an-DAY-gwa), and Skaneateles (skan-ee-AT-lis).
These are the five major Finger Lakes. Cayuga Lake is the longest among them. But Seneca Lake is the biggest and the deepest, at almost two hundred meters.
Compare that to the nine-meter depth of Honeoye (HUN-ee-oy) Lake. Honeoye is among what are considered the six minor Finger Lakes in central and western New York. The others are Owasco, Otisco, Canadice, (KAN-ah-dice), Hemlock and Conesus (kon-EE-sus).
BARBARA KLEIN: Most of the eleven lakes contain cold water fisheries like trout as well as bass and other warm water fishing.
The Finger Lakes area is home to industries and large cities like Syracuse and Rochester. But there are still many farms. And the area has a large number of grape vineyards and wine producers.
STEVE EMBER:Several colleges and universities are in the Finger Lakes area. They include Ithaca College, Colgate University and Cornell University.
Cornell honors Cayuga Lake in its school song, which begins: “Far above Cayuga’s waters / With its waves of blue / Stands our noble alma mater / Glorious to view.”
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BARBARA KLEIN: The first people to view the beauty of the Finger Lakes were the Indians. The Iroquois believed that the Great Spirit formed the lakes. The Great Spirit was closely linked with nature.
STEVE EMBER:Science tells us that a large body of ice moved across the land. The last glacier covered large areas of what is now the northeastern United States about twenty thousand years ago. The glacier moved south and then north again.
In doing so, it moved through many river valleys. It made the valleys deeper and wider than they were before. Then the ice started melting and moved north again. The glacier left huge amounts of soil and rocks in what scientists call the Valley Heads Moraine. A moraine is a landform created by all the material carried and left by a glacier.
BARBARA KLEIN: The Valley Heads Moraine prevented old rivers from flowing south, as they had before. This left the valleys filled with water. And this is how scientists say the Finger Lakes came to be.
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STEVE EMBER: Our program was written by Jerilyn Watson and produced by Caty Weaver. I’m Steve Ember.
BARBARA KLEIN: And I’m Barbara Klein. Transcripts and MP3s of our programs can be downloaded at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.
American History: Teddy Roosevelt Exercises US Power Around the World
BOB DOUGHTY: Welcome to the MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English.
Theodore Roosevelt was president of the United States during the early years of the twentieth century. He was a forceful leader. His national policies led to social reforms and federal protection of nature.
His foreign policy led to greater American involvement in world events.
This week in our series, Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe continue the story of the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.
KAY GALLANT: In nineteen-oh-three, Panama declared its independence from Colombia. Fifteen days later, Panama and the United States signed a treaty. The treaty gave the United States the right to build a canal across Panama.
To protect the canal, President Roosevelt declared greater responsibility for a wide area around the canal. The greatest responsibility was financial. Roosevelt said the United States would guarantee repayment of loans made to Latin American countries.
He did this to prevent European countries from using the issue of non-payment as an excuse to seize new territory in the Western Hemisphere.
HARRY MONROE: Some Latin American nations were in serious economic trouble. Venezuela was one.
At that time, Venezuela owed millions of dollars to Britain and Germany. The Venezuelan ruler refused to make payments on the loans. Britain and Germany decided to use force to get the money.
Their ships began blocking Venezuela’’s ports. When they began shelling coastal areas, President Roosevelt intervened. He urged them to let the international court of arbitration at The Hague settle the dispute.
They agreed. And the blockade of Venezuela ended.
KAY GALLANT: Less than two years later, a similar financial problem arose in the Dominican Republic. Revolutions and dictatorships there prevented re-payment of foreign loans.
The United States offered a solution. It would take over collection of import taxes at ports in the Dominican Republic. Forty-five percent of the money would be paid to the Dominican government. The other fifty-five percent would be used to repay loans. The Dominican Republic agreed. The plan succeeded.
Some countries in Latin America and the Caribbean questioned the right of the United States to act as policeman for the Western Hemisphere. But none openly opposed President Roosevelt’’s policy.
HARRY MONROE: Theodore Roosevelt had become president after the assassination of President William McKinley. He completed the last three years of McKinley’’s term. Then he was ready to be elected in his own right.
Republican Party leaders, however, were not so sure. Roosevelt had made businessmen angry, because of his attempts to control big companies. But he made voters happy, because of his fight for social reforms.
Roosevelt’’s only serious competitor for the nomination was a long-time senator and presidential adviser. But the man died before the nominating convention. So, Roosevelt won the nomination easily.
KAY GALLANT: The Democratic Party, in the past two elections, had nominated a progressive, Congressman William Jennings Bryan, as its candidate. This time, the Democrats chose a more conservative candidate. He was a New York judge, Alton Parker.
Judge Parker had no chance to win the election. Theodore Roosevelt was the best-known man in America. He won easily.
On inauguration day, Roosevelt made a short speech. He said America’’s capitalist economic system had done much good for the country. But it also had created a crisis in social relations. And the crisis had to be solved. “If we fail,” Roosevelt said, “the cause of self-government throughout the world will suffer greatly.”
HARRY MONROE: During his new term in office, President Roosevelt was able to get Congress to approve two major new laws. One was the Hepburn Act. This law gave the Interstate Commerce Commission power to limit how much railroads could charge for transporting goods. The purpose was to keep the cost of railroad transportation reasonable.
The other new law was the Pure Food and Drug Act. This law declared it illegal to make or sell foods and medicines containing harmful chemicals. The purpose was to protect the health of all Americans.
KAY GALLANT: President Roosevelt’’s most important foreign policy success came as a result of a war between Russia and Japan.
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A Japanese painting from 1904 showing the Battle of the Yalu River between the forces of Japan and Russia
At that time, Russia occupied Manchuria in northern China. Japan occupied Korea. Japan wanted control of Manchuria. It needed that area’’s coal and iron ore. Japan also wanted to end any Russian threat to Korea. So, it decided to fight.
Japan’’s navy easily defeated all the Russian fleets sent to the Pacific. But the two sides continued to fight on land. When both began to run out of money, they accepted President Roosevelt’’s offer to make peace.
HARRY MONROE: Roosevelt invited Japanese and Russian diplomats to meet with him in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He told them his greatest hope and prayer was for them to find a just and lasting peace quickly. A quick settlement, however, was not easy.
Japan demanded six hundred million dollars for war damages. It also wanted Sakhalin Island. Russia rejected both demands. It had agreed to give up southern Manchuria. Russia would give up nothing else.
Negotiations lasted many days. President Roosevelt became more and more angry when neither side would compromise. But he remained calm and kept the talks going.
Later, he said: “What I really wanted to do was give an angry shout, jump up, and knock their heads together.”
KAY GALLANT: Finally, Roosevelt made a secret appeal to the Emperor of Japan. He asked the Emperor to drop demands for money and for Sakhalin Island. He warned that Russia was ready to fight again if the peace talks failed.
The Emperor agreed to drop the demand for money. But, he still demanded half of Sakhalin Island. Russia agreed to this compromise. The two sides signed a peace treaty.
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President Roosevelt with representatives of the Russian Czar and the Japanese Emperor
HARRY MONROE: Theodore Roosevelt received the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating an end to the Russian-Japanese war. However, his efforts were denounced in Japan. Roosevelt was held responsible for the loss of war damage payments. It was money Japan needed badly.
Anti-American riots broke out in some parts of the country. At the same time, tense relations developed between American citizens and Japanese immigrants in California.
Poor Japanese immigrants were willing to work for low pay. As a result, Americans lost jobs. They protested. Then school officials in San Francisco barred Japanese children from attending school with white children.
President Roosevelt opposed the decision. He asked the officials to lift the ban. In exchange, he agreed to ask Japan to stop its poor farmers and laborers from going to live in America.
Japan said it would. The understanding became known as the Gentleman’’s Agreement.
KAY GALLANT: Roosevelt worked hard to improve America’’s relations with Japan. Yet he made clear that the United States would defend its interests in Asia and the Pacific.
As a warning, he sent a naval force on a voyage around the world. The force included sixteen battleships and twelve thousand men. It was called the Great White Fleet.
The voyage lasted fourteen months. The fleet sailed down the Atlantic coast of South America. It went around the bottom of South America into the Pacific Ocean, then on to Hawaii, Australia, and Japan.
Surprisingly, it received its warmest welcome in Japan.
An American reporter said: “The fleet made a deep and far-reaching impression. It caused the Japanese to understand the great power of the United States, as nothing else could possibly have done.”
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A cartoon from Harper’’s Magazine shows President Roosevelt carrying his “big stick” while trying to end a dispute of European powers over Morocco
President Roosevelt believed this show of American strength prevented war with Japan. “Sending out the fleet,” he said, “was the most important thing I did for peace.”
HARRY MONROE: Theodore Roosevelt greatly enjoyed playing the part of peace-maker. After successfully ending the war between Russia and Japan, he was asked to settle another international dispute. At issue was control over Morocco.
That will be our story next week.
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BOB DOUGHTY: Our program was written by Frank Beardsley. The narrators were Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe. You can find our series online with transcripts, MP3s, podcasts and images at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English.
Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION — an American history series in VOA Special English.
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This is program #151 of THE MAKING OF A NATION
