Isadora duncan scarf. The tragic death of Isadora Duncan after the equally tragic death of Sergei Yesenin
Respectable people ... Respectable people are simply those who have not been subjected to a strong enough temptation ... Inside us is a violator of all laws, ready to jump out at the first opportunity ...
Aseidora Duncan.
"My life".
... And some woman
Forty plus years
Called a nasty girl
And my sweet.
Sergey Yesenin,
"Black man".
« Tragic death Isadora Duncan, after the equally tragic death of Sergei Yesenin, whose sophisticated cruelty cannot be forgotten, reminded me again of the dramatic atmosphere in which this monstrously paradoxical couple constantly lived, "wrote a month after Duncan's death in a Paris newspaper, the Belgian poet and translator Ellens, who for several years in close proximity observed the relationship of this married couple.
"Shock is our way!" - such words could be the motto of Duncan and Yesenin's short life together.
By the time she met, she was 44 years old, and he was 26 ... She never entered into a "legal marriage" for reasons of principle, and by that time he had already been married twice. She lost three children: in 1913, two died in a car accident, in 1914 she gave birth to a son who lived only a few hours. Yesenin has three children (there is a version that four). She did not know Russian, but tried to communicate in Russian.
But he did not know a single foreign language and did not want to learn.
All his many friends and acquaintances hated her, called her "old woman." Her entourage contemptuously called him “savage”, “herdman”, “gigolo”. Nobody ever knew and will never know what they really were. Because there is no truth. There are assessments, opinions of friends and enemies, there are memoirs.
But, you must admit, this is also interesting.
Isadora's friend Mary Desti recalls: “The day before leaving for Russia turned out to be extremely hectic for us, but we still found time to visit the fortuneteller ...” The fortuneteller said that Isadora was going on a long journey, that she would have a lot of troubles and misadventures. Isadora only laughed: “Of course, I am going to a country where there is a civil war, and I am not afraid of anything. The Russians are waiting for me, they need my art. " But when the fortune-teller said: “You will get married, and the year will not pass,” Isadora became angry: “Nonsense! I am 44 years old, I have not been married and I will not! "
It must be said that it is surprising that a mature woman is enthusiastic about the upcoming trip to new Russia... Before leaving, she gave numerous interviews to European and American newspapers. Here is what she told French reporters: “I am seeking spiritual asylum. I cannot work in Paris anymore. The Soviets are the only government that takes care of art and children in our time. I am eager to make sure that there is a place in the world where commerce is not placed above the spiritual and physical development of children. "
She was told that after the Civil War tens of thousands of children were left homeless in Russia, that many of them witnessed the death and humiliation of their fathers and mothers: “What school of ancient dance do you dream of? This is utopia! " Her answer was: “You don’t like Russians and don’t understand. Maybe they have nothing to eat, but they are rich in spiritual food. "
It was in this mood that the world famous dancer came to Russia in the summer of 1921. Yes, in the West she had problems, but no one has ever condemned her for what she does. They accused her only of what she said.
The Soviet government, oddly enough, was not very ready for the opening of the school. The fortuneteller's prediction came true. In the end, a mansion expropriated from the famous Russian ballerina was allocated for Duncan's work. An antique dance school has opened. True, Duncan dreamed of a thousand girls, and the government allocated money for only 25. And there was no firewood to heat the classes. Isadora gradually switched to a self-sustaining system. She was nervous, losing weight, but did not give up: she was full of ideas and energy. Classes began and ended with the singing of the International. She became the most fashionable woman in Moscow in 1921.
Photo: American dancer and choreographer Isadora Duncan with her students, one of whom is her daughter, during a dance lesson.
Duncan, speaking to the government elite, wondered: “And why did they start such a bloody revolution? They took away the palaces and diamonds from the nobles. They settled in the palaces themselves, diamonds are worn by their inelegant women. Everything turned out the same as it was. Only worse. "
Isadora was much more interesting with people of art. She gladly plunged into bohemian life, every evening she danced somewhere in a tunic with a scarf and barefoot. This is how Sergei Yesenin saw her for the first time. Anatoly Mariengof recalls: “A red, flowing tunic with soft folds, red hair with a sheen of copper, a large body that steps lightly and softly. She looked around the room with eyes like saucers of blue faience, and stopped them on Yesenin.
Her small tender mouth smiled. Izadora lay down on the sofa, and Yesenin at her feet. She dipped her hand into his curls and said:
- Solotaja golova! Then she kissed him on the lips. In the morning they left together.
Yesenin settled in Isadora's studio. A few months later, she became his legal wife. The marriage was registered in Moscow, the Duncan-Yesenin spouses immediately departed for Germany.
Isadora probably wanted to show her young husband the real life. I thought that Yesenin would be amazed and happy, having got from wild Russia to beautiful Europe. She dreamed of showing him museums and theaters, but he ran off with friends and went on a spree in hot places or hid in small boarding houses. She was looking for him.
He told his friends: “Stuck. Tired, - and right there, - she is a very kind woman, my Izadora, only wonderful. I don’t understand her. ”
The scandals began in Russia. In her environment, almost everyone considered Yesenin crazy, but a cunning crazy: he uses the love, kindness and money of a naive rich woman.
Photo: commons.wikimedia.org/public domain
It is painful to read Gorky's memoirs about the meeting with the Duncan-Yesenin couple in Berlin in 1922: “This famous woman, glorified by thousands of European aesthetes, fine connoisseurs of plastic arts, next to the amazing Ryazan poet, as small as a teenager, was the perfect personification of everything that he had no need ... When she danced, he, sitting at the table, drank wine and, looking at her out of the corner of his eye, frowned. Maybe it was at that moment that he formed the words of compassion into a line of verse: “They loved you, mocked you ...”
And one might think that he looks at his girlfriend as at a nightmare, which is already familiar, does not frighten, but still presses ...
Then Duncan, exhausted, dropped to her knees, looking into the poet's face with a languid, drunk smile. Yesenin put his hand on her shoulder, but turned away abruptly. "
For some reason, none of his contemporaries believed that Yesenin had any sincere feelings for Isadora, but everyone saw that she loved him. True, her love for Yesenin was assessed in different ways: some with contempt and mockery (Gorky, Mariengof), while others ...
“I also had the opportunity, with some embarrassment, to observe this union of a young Russian poet and a dancer who was already falling into decline, which at first seemed to me, as I have already said, almost monstrous. I think that no woman in the world understood her role as inspiration more motherly than Isadora.
She took Yesenin to Europe, she, giving him the opportunity to leave Russia, invited him to marry her. It was a truly selfless act, for it was fraught with sacrifice and pain for her.
She had no illusions, she knew that the time of anxious happiness would be short-lived, that she would have to endure dramatic upheavals, that sooner or later the little savage whom she wanted to raise would become himself again and throw off, perhaps cruelly and rudely that kind of loving care with which she so wanted to surround him.
Isadora was passionately in love with the young poet, and I realized that this love was despair from the very beginning, "- the aforementioned Belgian poet F. Ellens introduces Isadora to us after her death.
Undoubtedly, Isadora was haunted by her insatiable maternal instinct. Having lost her children, she strove to bring goodness, beauty and harmony to the world of childhood. You don't have to be an expert on the works of Sigmund Freud to guess that Yesenin's solotaja golova reminded her of the curls of her deceased son Patrick. Therefore, she loved to plunge her fingers into the waves of Sergei's blond hair. Therefore, she could forgive him a lot when Yesenin behaved like a teenage bully.
Perhaps the most touching memories of meeting this “paradoxical couple” were left by the Russian poet, ex-wife of Alexei Tolstoy, the mother of his children, Natalya Krandievskaya-Tolstaya: “She barely slid her lilac eyes over me and stopped them on Nikita, whom I was leading after hand. For a long time, intently, as if with horror, she looked at my five-year-old son, and gradually her atropine-widened eyes widened more and more, filling with tears.
Sidor! - Yesenin shook her. - Sidora, what are you?
Oh, - she moaned, at last, without taking her eyes off Nikita. - Oh, oh! .. - And knelt down in front of him, right on the sidewalk.
Frightened, Nikita was looking at her like a wolf cub. I understood everything. I tried to pick her up. Yesenin helped me. The curious crowded around. Isadora got up and, pushing me away from Yesenin, covering her head with a scarf, walked through the streets without turning around, not seeing anyone in front of her - a figure from the tragedies of Sophocles. Yesenin ran after her in his stupid top hat, confused.
Sidora, - he shouted, - wait! Sidora, what happened?
Nikita wept bitterly, burying himself in my knees. I knew the tragedy of Isadora Duncan. Her children, a boy and a girl, died in Paris in a car accident many years ago. On a rainy day, they drove with the governess in a car across the Seine. The driver braked on the bridge, the car skidded on slippery ends and threw it over the railing into the river. No one was saved.
The boy was Isadora's favorite ... His portrait on the famous advertisement for English soap is known all over the world. The blond naked baby smiles, covered in soapy foam. They said that he looked like Nikita, but to what extent he looked like Nikita, only Isadora could know. And she found out, poor ... "
The endless scandals in which Isadora stopped yielding to Yesenin in extravagance and temperament, exhausted both.
They did not want to receive them in expensive hotels, because they already knew that these handsome gentlemen would smash so many dishes and mirrors in two or three evenings, break so many furniture that the hotel would have to be closed for major repairs. Even if Madame pays for everything, I still don't want to. And not all residents like to listen to deafening Russian swearing, even in English. Especially at night.
The spouses were tired of each other, and each decided for himself that he would leave "his half" as soon as they returned to Moscow. In 1923 the Duncan-Yesenins returned to Russia and parted.
Isadora learned about the death of Sergei Yesenin in December 1925. This news plunged her into a state of shock. She wrote to her friend: "Poor Seryozhenka, I cried so much about him that there are no more tears in my eyes." She sent a telegram to Yesenin's mother to Russia with words of sorrow and sympathy.
Isadora Duncan died tragically on September 14, 1927 in Nice. Her scarf hit the bottom wheel of a racing car and, after a few turns, was pulled around the unfortunate woman's neck in a death noose.
Strange, but the cause of her death and the cause of Yesenin's death is defined in one word - "asphyxiation" (strangulation).
Larisa Mikhailova
Isadora Duncan died on the Promenade des Anglais 90 years ago
The name of this dancer is known to almost every Russian-speaking person who is at least a little familiar with the work of Sergei Yesenin. And, of course, everyone knows the story of Isadora's tragic death in the car. Today, September 14, marks 90 years since the day she got into the ill-fated convertible and left for the Promenade.
Successful in her career and unhappy in her personal life
Isadora was born in San Francisco in 1878. At the age of 13, she dropped out of school and took up exclusively music and dancing. Five years later, the girl surprised the Chicago audience. She moved barefoot and in a Greek tunic, which shocked the conservative public. But later her dance revolutionized the world of choreography, and Isadora herself became an outstanding artist of that era.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Duncan moved to Europe, where she performed very successfully. In 1904, she gave birth to a daughter by her lover, modernist theater director Edward Gordon Craig. The dancer's life with him did not work out. And soon she met Paris Eugene Singer. The couple lived in Beaulieu-sur-mer, Cape Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat and Paris. In 1910, Isadora gave Singer a son. But, unfortunately, this union also fell apart.
Three years after the birth of his son, tragedy struck in Paris. The car, in which there were two of Isadora's children and the nanny, failed the brakes. The car fell into the Seine, and the passengers could not get out. Only the driver survived. After the grief that befell her, Isadora completely surrendered herself to work. She has toured all over the world and taught.
"He is red! And me too!"
In 1921, Duncan was invited to the Soviet Union to create her own dance school. Fascinated by the October Revolution, Isadora without hesitation went to Russia, where she met Sergei Yesenin. Their romance broke out from the first meeting, despite the 18-year age difference. Within six months they lived together, and in 1922 they got married. A little later, the dancer went on tour to the USA, Yesenin went with her. In America, Duncan constantly wore a red scarf, chanting, “It's red! And me too!".
This trip marked the beginning of the end of a beautiful romance. Quarrels, drunkenness, assault filled their relationship, leaving in the past insane passion and love. Duncan forgave Sergei all the antics, but his feelings irrevocably cooled. No longer hesitating, he said in front of everyone: “Here it is! Sticks like molasses! "
In 1923, the couple returned to Moscow, and a month later Duncan left the Soviet Union forever and alone. She arrived in Nice, where a telegram immediately flew in: “I love another. Married. Happy. Yesenin ".
In the heart of the Côte d'Azur, she began to rebuild life. On California Avenue, Duncan opened a dance school, where she successfully taught. As local newspapers write, it was quite difficult to get into her class, there was no end to those who wanted to. Duncan herself settled in a villa near the school. Like any woman, Isadora loved beautiful things. So, the dancer was not indifferent to expensive outfits, jewelry and cars. In Nice, she became a client of Benoît Falchetto, who not only serviced her transport, but also sold interesting cars.
Death at the "Prom"
September 14, 1927, was a warm, sunny day in Nice. Isadora went out into the courtyard to inspect Amilcar, a small convertible that mechanic Benoît Falchetto had driven to her house. Eyes lit up, she certainly wanted to ride on him. Dressed in a light dress and tied with a long white scarf, the 50-year-old dancer sat in the passenger seat. The driver drove onto the Promenade des Anglais, where Isadora saw her friends. She waved her scarf at them and shouted "I'm flying to glory!" Then something terrible happened. Not having passed even twenty meters, Isadora was strangled by this very scarf. Its edges hit the spokes of the wheel. The doctors summoned to the place could only state the death.
Nice, like the entire Cote d'Azur, keeps many stories in its streets, houses and squares. Often walking along them, we do not notice and do not hear the echo of the distant past. But if we look closely, we will see that on some buildings, there are plaques in memory of the people who made the history of our city. For example, if you stay at the house №239 on the Promenade des Anglais, then remember that it was here that Isadora "flew to glory", and a little further there will be a street named after the famous dancer.
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Reading time: 5 min
Isadora Duncan is a famous American dancer, the founder of free ancient Greek dance, as well as the wife of the poet Sergei Yesenin (1922-1924). Isadora, like many women, earned fame not for her famous novel, but for her work and love for music and plastic. Thanks to which she was recognized as the greatest dancer in the world! Once Stanislavsky asked Isadora Duncan: "Who taught you to dance!" She proudly replied: "Terpsichore."
Interesting facts from the biography of Isadora Duncan
At the age of 13, the future dancer dropped out of school, announcing that she considered it a useless occupation, she would achieve more without her!
As contemporaries noted, Isadora danced so easily and sensually that it was impossible to get up from the chair after the end of the performance. She shocked everyone with her movements! Isadora danced barefoot, in a short ancient Greek tunic that opened her knees. Such a length in those days was unthinkable even for America. At the same time, no one called her dances vulgar, the movements were "light, free, graceful."
Tragedy in the life of a dancer
Isadora Duncan seemed to have a presentiment of the approaching death to her and her loved ones. In 1913, a woman was constantly tormented by visions, she dreamed of small coffins, she heard funeral marches, this lasted for several months. And then her children died.
She could not prevent the tragedy. After the visions that tormented her, Isadora began to worry about the children. Together with her husband Sieger and the children, the dancer moved to the cozy place of Versailles. Once, on urgent matters, I had to go to Paris, and Duncan was forced to send the children back to Versailles with the chauffeur. On the way, the car stalled, the driver went out to find out the cause of the breakdown, at that moment the car rolled into the Seine, the kids could not be saved.
The woman fell into severe depression, but spoke in defense of the driver, because she knew that he also had children. Isadora did not cry at all and did not speak with her relatives about the tragedy, but one day, walking along the river, she saw her children holding hands. Isadora screamed and fell to the ground in mad sobs, a young man approached her. The woman whispered, looking into his eyes: "Save me ... Give me a baby." But their child died after a few days of life. Isadora no longer had children of her own.
An interesting fact from the life of a dancer: Duncan was involved in charity work, she opened many children's dance schools around the world. During her short life, the dancer adopted six girls, and raised more than forty children as a mother.
Quivering love
Isadora noted that she fell in love with him because he looked like her blond, blue-eyed son.
But their relationship did not last long. Together they traveled a lot in Europe and the USA, but they perceived the poet only as the young husband of a great dancer. The age difference was 18 years. Yesenin noted that for the first year he loved Isadora very much, admired her, but then her excessive maternal concern ruined all feelings. Yesenin became rude, could raise his hand, wrote poetry about how he hated this woman. In addition, the language barrier and the lack of common interests could not make this love union eternal, the passion passed. Only now Isadora Duncan continued to love her Seryozha after all the troubles she had caused her.
December, 1925, Isadora Duncan learns about Yesenin's death from a letter from her daughter Irma, who lives in Moscow. The woman recalls how in the same hotel "Angleterre" a couple in love stayed several times during their life together, then they were happy. Now her second beloved, fair-haired, blue-eyed, is dying ... The next day, an obituary written by Isadora appears in the Parisian newspapers:
“The news of Yesenin's tragic death caused me the deepest pain ... He destroyed his young and beautiful body, but his spirit will live forever in the soul of the Russian people and in the soul of all who love poets. I strongly object to the frivolous and inaccurate statements published by the American press in Paris. There never were any quarrels between Yesenin and me, and we were never divorced. I mourn his death with pain and despair. "
Isadora Duncan wrote a memoir about Sergei Yesenin, which brought a lot of money - more than 300 thousand francs. But the dancer refused them, asked to give all the funds from the sale of these books to the poet's mother and sisters.
Death of Isadora Duncan
Once Duncan was on tour in Vienna, suddenly a strange girl entered her room with a candle in her hand and loudly exclaimed: "God ordered me to strangle you!" Later it turned out that the girl was mentally ill, but this incident made a terrible impression on Isadora. Or maybe this is not the case? The famous dancer soon died.
On September 14, 1927, Isadora, with the words "Farewell, I am going to fame," in some sources: "I am going to love," got into the car. Before that, she was offered to wear a warm coat, because it is cool outside, the dancer replied that she was more comfortable wearing her favorite red, painted scarf. But it was so long that when the woman got into the car, she did not notice how the scarf caught on the wheel axle. The car started, the scarf tightened. This is how the life of a great dancer, innovator, strong personality and just a sensual woman ended.
The feature films Isadora Duncan, The Greatest Dancer in the World, directed by Ken Russell, Isadora, directed by Karel Reisch, were shot about the life of Isadora Duncan.
"If my art is symbolic, then this symbol is only one: the freedom of a woman and her emancipation from the stale conventions that underlie Puritanism." A. Duncan
American dancer Isadora Duncan is the founder of a new category of dance - free; she developed a unique system based on the plastic traditions of ancient Greece. As she wrote about herself, she began to dance in her mother's womb. We offer you to get acquainted with the biography and life of Isadora Duncan and find out several mystical coincidences that foreshadowed her fatal death.
early years
Dora Angela Duncan was born in 1877, May 27 (Gemini and Ox horoscopes), in San Francisco, California. Childhood passed in an atmosphere of poverty and humiliation, as the father of the future celebrity left his pregnant wife with three children already born and fled, having previously committed an illegal banking fraud.
For the mother, this was the strongest stress with which she fought in a very peculiar manner - she could not take any other food besides oysters, which she washed down with champagne. After Dora was born, the unfortunate woman became even harder - taking care of four babies and constant "fights" with her husband's defrauded creditors fell on her fragile shoulders.
Mary Dora Gray Duncan turned out to be a very strong and strong-willed woman. A musician by profession, she gave a huge number of private lessons, and spent the money she earned on raising and educating children.
First hardships
Unfortunately, due to excessive employment, the mother could not pay due attention to Dora, the youngest of her children, so the girl at the age of 5 was enrolled in school, previously she was assigned a couple of years of age. The little girl was lonely and uncomfortable among her classmates who were much older; she will keep this longing for her life and later will be able to express it in dance.
However, in the evenings, the mother returned home, sat at the piano and played to her beloved children. best works world classics. From childhood, all Duncan's children were distinguished by good taste and education, their mother, despite being constantly busy, managed to raise them to be intelligent people.
Love for life
From an early age, Isadora Duncan, whose photo is presented below, was distinguished by flexibility, musicality and plasticity, and at the age of only 6 she began to transfer her knowledge to neighboring children, teaching them dances. At the age of 10, the future world celebrity earned her first money precisely with her peculiar lessons, on which she constantly invented new movements. Before one of these lessons, a fire broke out, all of the girl's outfits perished in the fire, but she was not taken aback - having tied a sheet under her chest, she began to dance in such a loose dress. Subsequently, this will become her style.
But education in an ordinary school progressed with great difficulty, the sciences seemed boring and useless to the young dancer, she could hardly sit at her desk, waiting for the end of classes.
Soon, the baby first felt in love, a young pharmacist's assistant became her chosen one, Dora's courtship was so persistent that the man had to go to the trick and say that he was engaged and the wedding was just around the corner. The girl will soon forget this person, but dances, eternal love, will remain with her forever.
Major changes
At the age of 13, Dora dropped out of school and decided to seriously take up dancing, for this she got to the famous in those days Loya Fuller, an actress and dancer in the Art Nouveau style. This meeting became fateful, Isadora managed to subdue her mentor and began to perform on an equal footing with her. At the age of 18, dancer Isadora Duncan travels to Chicago, where she begins to show her memorable numbers in nightclubs.
A young girl performed barefoot, in a simple short tunic in the manner of performers of Ancient Greece, therefore she very quickly won the audience, her numbers were perceived as something outlandish and unusual. She deliberately did not want to put on pointe shoes and a tutu, abandoned the movements of classical ballet in favor of her own, flexible and light ones. All this was innovation for that time. Isadora began to be called the dancing sandals.
It never entered anyone's head to call the flexible dancer in light attire vulgar or obscene, her dance was a magical bewitching spectacle. It was at this time that changes took place in Isadora Duncan's personal life, Ivan Mirotsky, an emigrant artist who was much older than the successful dancer, fell madly in love with the girl. Their romance was permeated with notes of romance, lovers walked under the moonlight, kissed in the silence of the forest. And it seemed that things were going to marriage. However, the girl soon learned the harsh truth - the artist is married, his wife lives in Europe, and all this time he was uncountable with both of them. This breakup greatly influenced Isadora, she expressed her pain and resentment in the dance.
World success
The first performances allowed the girl to save enough money to go on a real tour of Europe.
In 1904, 27-year-old Duncan performed with success in Munich, Berlin, Vienna and quickly won the love of the public in these cities, and also visited St. Petersburg, where there is a huge number of admirers of her talent.
Duncan is known to say about dancing:
If my art is symbolic, then this symbol is only one: the freedom of a woman and her emancipation from the stale conventions that underlie Puritanism.
Despite her success, Isadora was unable to amass an impressive amount of money. Everything that she managed to earn, she spent on opening dance schools.
Novels
Isadora was a creative person, during her short life she managed to know love in all its manifestations, the list of her lovers is quite impressive. There are both adult men and young inexperienced youths in it. The dancer longed for love, in which she found inspiration. She was always in love. It is known that her relationship with actor Oscar Berezhi almost ended in a wedding, but the dancer's chosen one exchanged relations with her for a lucrative contract and left for Spain. Duncan was unlucky in love.
Her next chosen one, Gordon Craig, even became the father of her daughter Deirdre, but left the dancer and tied fate with his old friend. This plunged Isadora into a depressive state, she believed that all men are traitors and deceivers. This was followed by a painful relationship with Paris Eugene Singer, heir to an empire specializing in the production of sewing machines, he very persistently sought her location, but also did not marry, although the dancer gave birth to his son Patrick.
Tragedy
In 1913, a terrible tragedy occurred in Isadora's life, both of her children died in a car accident, before that for several weeks the woman could not find a place for herself from a foreboding, but could not correctly interpret it. Despite the pain and despair, the mother, who had lost the most valuable thing, came out in defense of the driver, believing that in the tragedy he was only a pawn in the hands of fate and could not do anything against evil fate.
From pain and despair, the woman entered into a relationship with a young Italian, from whom she became pregnant, but the baby died just a few days after his birth.
This is how the woman felt about the loss of life:
Life is like a pendulum: the more you suffer, the crazier then the happiness; the deeper the sadness, the brighter the joy will be.
Love of all life
The story of Yesenin and Isadora Duncan began almost immediately after that. The Russian poet became the dancer's only husband and the greatest and brightest love of her life. It is noteworthy that Sergei was 18 years younger than his chosen one and there is a version that the maternal instinct leaped into Duncan, because she did not have living children at that time.
The relationship was strange, the lovers traveled around Europe, enjoyed passion and were happy, but soon reality intervened in their idyll: Yesenin did not speak English at all, and Isadora spoke poor Russian. Abroad, everyone perceived the young poet as a "page" under the great Duncan, which could not but hurt his pride. The passion subsided and was replaced by the pain of disappointment.
The poet returned to Russia, the dancer remained in Europe, they did not remain faithful to each other. Very soon Yesenin's life was tragically interrupted.
Death
Find out how Isadora Duncan died. Her whole life was filled with tragic omens and forebodings, so a close friend of the dancer was sure that the death of a celebrity would be associated with cars, and so it happened. Interestingly, before the tragic incident that took her life, Isadora could have died in car accidents many times, but she managed to avoid death.
It happened on September 14, 1927. Hurrying to meet her lover in Nice, Isadora got into the car, losing sight of the fact that the end of her long shawl got under the rear wheel vehicle... When the car drove off, the shawl pulled tight and broke the dancer's neck. So absurdly ended the path of a great woman who managed to forever write her name in world history.
Having considered the life and creative way Isadora Duncan, we suggest, in conclusion, to get acquainted with some curious facts from her life:
- It is believed that it is largely thanks to her that women of the last century abandoned uncomfortable corsets that cause health problems. The dancer inspired designer Paul Poiret to create a collection of tunics and loose shirt dresses.
- Paris Eugene Singer, one of Duncan's lovers, helped her financially and even took over the maintenance of one of Isadora's schools in Gruneveld, where 40 children were taught the art of dance.
- The dancer was an ardent opponent of official marriage, believing that it deprives a woman of her freedom.
- Having received an invitation from the Soviet government to open in Russia dance school Isadora agreed without hesitation.
She did not have followers, since the dancer did not create an integral system of movements, she always expressed in her dance what was in her soul, and this is much more than just a pas, it was the very perception of life. It is impossible to imitate this, since the delightful dance came from the depths of Isadora's soul.
Isadora Duncan is an American dancer, the founder of free dance, the wife of a Russian poet.
Isadora Duncan was born on 05/26/1877 in San Francisco. Born Dora Angela, she was the youngest of four children of Joseph Charles Duncan (1819-1898), a banker, mining engineer and renowned art connoisseur, and Mary Isadora Gray (1849-1922). Soon after Isadora was born, the head of the family went bankrupt, and the family lived in extreme poverty for some time.
Duncan's parents divorced when she was not even a year old. Mother moved with the children to Auckland and got a job as a seamstress and piano teacher. There was little money in the family, and soon young Isadora left school in order to earn dancing lessons for local children with her brothers and sisters.
Dancing
From childhood, Isadora perceived dancing differently than other children - the girl "followed her imagination and improvised, dancing as she pleases." Dreams of a big stage led Duncan to Chicago, where she unsuccessfully went to auditions in various theaters, and then to New York, where in 1896 the girl got a job at the theater of the famous critic and playwright John Augustine Daley.
In New York, the girl took lessons from the famous ballerina Marie Bonfanti for some time, but, quickly becoming disillusioned with ballet and feeling underestimated in America, Isadora moved to London in 1898. In the capital of Great Britain, Isadora began performing in wealthy houses - good earnings allowed the dancer to rent a studio for classes.
From London, the girl went to Paris, where her fateful meeting with Loi Fuller took place. Loi and Isadora had similar views on dance, viewing it as a natural movement of the body, rather than a rigid system of practiced movements, as in ballet. In 1902, Fuller and Duncan embarked on a dance tour of European countries.
For many years of her life, Duncan toured Europe and America with performances, although she was not at all delighted with tours, contracts and other fuss - Duncan believed that this distracted her from her true mission: training young dancers and creating something beautiful. In 1904, Isadora opened her first dance school in Germany and then another in Paris, but it was soon closed due to the outbreak of the First World War.
Isadora's popularity at the beginning of the 20th century is not in doubt. The newspapers wrote that Duncan's dance determines the power of progress, change, abstraction and liberation, and her photos, which show the "evolutionary development of dance", each movement of which is born from the previous one in an organic sequence, became famous all over the world.
In June 1912, French fashion designer Paul Poiret hosted one of the most famous evenings "La fête de Bacchus" (recreation of the "bacchanalia" of Louis XIV in Versailles) in a posh mansion in the north of France. Isadora Duncan, dressed in a Greek evening dress made by Poiret, danced on tables among 300 guests, who in a few hours managed to drink 900 bottles of champagne.
After another tour in the United States in 1915, Isadora was supposed to sail back to Europe - the choice fell on the luxurious liner Lusitania, but due to a quarrel with creditors who threatened not to let the girl out of the country until she paid $ 12,000, Duncan ended up had to board another ship. The Lusitania, torpedoed by a German submarine, sank off the coast of Ireland, killing 1,198 people.
In 1921, Duncan's political sympathies brought the dancer to the Soviet Union. In Moscow, the People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR A.V. Lunacharsky offered the American woman to open a dance school, promising financial support. However, in the end, Isadora paid most of the costs of maintaining the school from her own money, while experiencing hunger and everyday inconveniences.
The Moscow school grew rapidly and gained popularity. The first performance of the students of the institution took place in 1921 on the stage The Bolshoi Theater in honor of the anniversary October revolution... Isadora, together with her students, performed a dance program, which, among others, included the "Warszawianka" dance to the melody of a Polish revolutionary song. The program, during which the revolutionary banner was picked up from the hands of the fallen fighters by full strength fighters, was a success with the audience.
However, not everyone was impressed. Some were puzzled that this "elderly woman" risked going on stage too naked. Short (168 cm), with flabby full thighs and a less elastic bust, Duncan could not be as light and graceful as in her youth - the years took their toll.
The dancer lived in Soviet Russia for 3 years, but various troubles forced Isadora to leave the country, leaving the management of the school to one of her students, Irma.
Personal life
In her professional and personal life, Isadora violated all traditional foundations. She was bisexual, atheist and a real revolutionary: during her last tour of the United States, on the last chords of a concert at Boston's Symphony Hall, Isadora began waving a red scarf over her head, shouting: “This is red! And I am the same! "
Duncan gave birth to two children out of wedlock - Derdry's daughter Beatrice (born 1906) from theater director Gordon Craig and son Patrick August (born 1910) from Paris Singer, one of the sons of the Swiss tycoon Isaac Singer. Isadora's children died in 1913: the car in which the kids were with their nanny crashed into the Seine at full speed.
After the death of her children, Duncan fell into a deep depression. Her brother and sister decided to take Isadora to the island of Corfu for a few weeks, where the American made friends with the young Italian feminist Lina Poletti. The warm relationship of the girls caused a lot of gossip, but there is no confirmation that the ladies were in a romantic relationship.
In his autobiography My Life. My Love, published in 1927, Duncan described how, out of a desperate desire for another child, she begged a young Italian stranger - the sculptor Romano Romanelli - to have an intimate relationship with her. As a result, Duncan became pregnant with Romanelli and gave birth to a son on August 13, 1914, who died shortly after giving birth.
In 1917, Isadora adopted six of her charges, Anna, Maria-Teresa, Irma, Liesel, Gretel and Erica, whom she taught at school in Germany. The collective of young talented dancers was nicknamed "Isadorables" (a play on words from the name of Isadora and "adorables").
After leaving school, where Isadora's sister Elizabeth later taught (Duncan was constantly on the road), the girls began performing with Duncan, and then separately, having great success with the public. A few years later, the team broke up - each girl went her own way. Erica was the only one of the six girls who did not connect her future life with dancing.
In 1921, in Moscow, Duncan met the poet Sergei Yesenin, who was 18 years younger than her. In May 1922, Yesenin and Duncan became husband and wife. The dancer took Soviet citizenship. For more than a year, the poet accompanied Duncan on her tour of Europe and the United States, not hesitating to spend her money on prestigious housing, expensive clothes and gifts to relatives. At the same time, Yesenin felt a strong longing for Russia, which he indicated in his letters to friends.
After two years of communication without knowing languages (Isadora knew hardly more than 30 words in Russian, and Yesenin even less in English), friction began between the spouses. In May 1923, the poet left Duncan and returned to his homeland.
There are no direct dedications to Isadora in Yesenin's verses, but the image of Duncan is clearly traced in the poem "The Black Man". The poem "Let you be drunk by others .." is dedicated to the actress Augusta Miklashevskaya, although Duncan claimed that the poet dedicated these lines to her.
Later, Duncan started an affair with the American poet Mercedes de Acosta - they learned about this relationship from the letters that the girls wrote to each other. In one of them, Duncan admitted:
“Mercedes, lead me with your small strong hands, and I will follow you - to the top of the mountain. To the edge of the world. Wherever you wish. "
Death
V last years Duncan's life did not perform much, accumulated a lot of debt and was known for scandalous intimate stories and a love of drinking.
On the night of September 14, 1927, in Nice, Isadora left her friend Mary Desti (mother of Preston Sturges, director of the film Sullivan's Wanderings) and got into the Amilcar car to the Franco-Italian mechanic Benoit Falchetto, with whom the American, probably tied a romantic relationship.
Scarf and car wheel - cause of death of Isadora Duncan
As the car pulled away abruptly, the wind lifted the hem of the dancer's long, hand-painted silk scarf and lowered it over the side of the car. The scarf immediately got tangled in the spokes of the wheel, the woman was pushed into the side of the car. Duncan died instantly. The body was cremated; an urn with ashes was placed in a columbarium in the Parisian cemetery of Pere Lachaise. The car that killed the American dancer was sold for a huge sum at that time - 200,000 francs.