February 26, 2021 • 10 mins
Holly and Tracy talk about Holly's childhood perceptions of Isadora Duncan and how the famous dancer broke convention. They also talk about the peccadillos of Duncan's autobiography, and her relationship with sexuality.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, A production
of I Heart Radio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Holly Frying.
I'm Tracy B. Wilson. This week we talked about Isadora Duncan.
We sure did so. UM. I have a particular affinity
(00:25):
for Isadore Duncan because, as you know, I studied dance
as a kid all the way up through college. And
I remember, like, I went to a ballet school when
I was a kid that was a little bit serious, right, Like,
while my friends were having recitals that involved frilly costumes
and stuff, mine was pink tights, black leotard's it's about technique.
(00:45):
There was no like proof in our recitals. Um. We
eventually got to wear flowers in our hair, and that
was like big news, Um, simple two flowers. So I
remember as a kid who was um, I truly loved
ballet and I still do. But I also had that
part of me that was like, wouldn't it be cool
(01:06):
if we could wear not a black leotard and pink
tights every single time? And I remember having a History
of Dance book and seeing pictures of Isadore Duncan in
those chiffon robes that just draped and like her her
little leotard that matched the color of her skin underneath
and nothing else, and thinking like that looked amazing, And
she doesn't have shoes on. What is this? Um? So
(01:28):
I have like a weird My childhood romance with her
definitely informs my ongoing interest in her story. Yeah, even
though our website does not have a place to have
pictures anymore, I still get pictures for episodes as much
as possible. Um. And I was looking through all these
Isadora Duncan pictures and in a lot of them, I
(01:51):
was like, this too revealing. We actually put it anywhere
so you can imagine what was going on in Tino
six when she was dressing like that. Yeah, she also
is interesting. It's it's hard, right, this was a two
part episode, and even so I had to cut out
some stuff that I really found exciting and the thronging right,
(02:12):
Like she had clothes made for her by Paul poiret
um because you can see where there is aesthetics completely
overlapped um. And he also made a little dress for
her daughter dear drew at one point that like she
talks about like the embroidery on these little frills and
how dear Dred just felt like the fanciest kid in
the world when she wore them. And she also met
(02:35):
Alistair Crowley at one point. Crowley wrote about her when
she was kind of getting into her mysticism phase. Is
all pretty interesting, um, And like I said, I really
really a dore. I love her memoir. It's so fascinating
and fun to read. Some of it gets a little
confusing because, like I said, she never calls Paris Singer
(02:56):
by his name. She always calls him long Green. It's
so initially the first time I read it, she was
just in a lot of places, she just does L
period And I'm like, who is this l person? Backtracking through?
And I'm like, is is that the same ber? Is
this the I'm cross referencing. The other thing is she
includes no dates. She is freewheeland and that that thing.
(03:17):
So you have to like look at another biography or
other like newspaper accounts to be like, all right, in
this year she was in this city. Now I see
what's going on here. The timeline is a little bit tricky. UM.
I have another quote from her from the book that
didn't really fit anywhere in the episode, but it is
(03:38):
about her relationships with her lovers and how she viewed them,
and I just loved it, she wrote as a parenthesis,
you may notice in this autobiography that I have always
been faithful to my loves, and in fact would probably
never have left any of them if they had been
faithful to me, for just as I love them, I
(04:00):
love them still and forever. If I have parted from
so many, I can only blame the fickleness of men
and the cruelty of fate. I would say, sort of love.
I also feel like this is her, on a subconscious level,
rebelling against her mother, who you know, hated her father
(04:20):
after they broke up and said the horrible things, and
she's like, no, I love all of my exes. We
stay close forever. I don't live like my mom. I'm different. Mhmm.
It's kind of interesting. There. Seems like, uh, an interesting
family dynamic there that we didn't explore a ton of
(04:41):
an episode, but with her relationship with her mother and
her relationships with her siblings, and yeah, yeah, they really
were like they kind of love their own little insular worlds. Dora.
I will say, I have only ever seen one photograph
of her, and she was breathtakingly beautiful. Um, you can
see where is Dora. Duncan got her looks for my money.
(05:02):
At least in that picture, Dora is even even more
striking than her daughter. It is interesting that her mom
kind of raised her to be this freewheeling spirit, but
then like still had those those limitations in her own
cultural morains, that she was like, no, no, no, no,
not not that free spirited, backing up a little bit
(05:24):
to free spirited to free spirited. It is really interesting
to me that her I mean, her mother clearly had
her own baggage. Everyone does that. When Augustine met a
young woman and got married and essentially broke up their
magical family circle, her mom was really angry about the
whole thing. Like she describes her as being very betrayed
(05:47):
and feeling like, you know, Augustine had turned his back
on them, even though he was still very much in
their lives, which is just a um. As you said,
there's a lot of family dynamic to unpluck. I think
you know, some therapy for everyone, all of them, could,
(06:08):
I mean, you know, we we we were not in
a time when that would have been readily available for
everyone or even viewed in an appropriate manner. Um. It is.
There are moments reading her her books she says on
occasion some very strange racist things about dance and dance
(06:29):
from Africa, which I did not get into because that
is like a whole other weird raft. Um. I feel
like her entire life is kind of dictated by the
fact that she was incredibly confident, but clearly, to my
mind anyway, was also driven by this constant need for validation.
(06:53):
As much as she was like, I don't care about
anyone else's rules, Like, she clearly wanted people to like
her and her art, and I am forever fascinated by
the psychology of that and how it drives people to
behave Uh. Yeah. Her writing about her kids is very moving.
Pictures of her with her children, I mean, she obviously
(07:16):
was a very devoted, dedicated mother. You know, she was
at that point in a position where Singer was paying
for her to have things like Nanny's, but she was
still very hands on with her kids. She talked about
how you know, she did what anybody who loses someone
tragically does, where you backtrack and go if I had
made this decision differently, if I had made this decision
(07:36):
differently like one of her I don't know if it
was the same nanny or or someone else that worked
in their household had said early in the day, Oh,
like the weather isn't great, do you think the kids
should go out? She was like, oh, of course, they
should go have lunch with Patrick's father, and and she
blamed herself forever for that. She talks about it over
and over in her book after that tragedy that she
(07:57):
thinks about that conversation again, um, which is I can't
imagine carrying that around. She never really recovered from that.
I don't know how anyone would be expected to. But no, uh, yeah,
that is the sad, beautiful, enthralling, strange story of his
Doory Duncan, who I loved as a child, did. I
(08:20):
never got into modern dance until I was in college,
which is kind of interesting, and then I loved it. Um,
but yeah, I was a bun head up until that point,
and so it was very free and lovely. And I
do encourage you go look at videos of that have
been recorded of of the people who have passed down
(08:40):
her choreography and danced it today and then think about
how that would have looked to people in the early
nine hundreds who were really pretty much like exposed to
ballet as a form of professional dance, and they'll be like, whoa,
because even by today's standards, there are people who are like,
I don't I don't get this, this isn't for me. Um.
(09:02):
And then to consider how completely dramatically different it was
from everything that had gone before, you realize how she
changed the the entire landscape of dance as a profession.
I'm gonna end this one by just thinking about all
of the fun stories of her as a kid, being
very very precocious and knocking on doors, knocking on right,
(09:27):
yelling to other kids that the things they believed in
were not real, and um lying to people that she
was a teenager when she was not so that she
could charge them more money as a professional teacher. I
love all of this. Uh So that that is our
little discourse on Isadora Duncan. And I hope that people
(09:47):
now understand that she was a lot more than that
one horrible day in September of h I hope everyone
has a wonderful weekend. If you get some time off,
I hope you enjoy it and get some rest and
take care of yourself and stay safe. We will be
right back here next week to talk about more stuff. Uh,
and we hope you are too. If you'd like to
(10:08):
subscribe in the meantime, do that on the I heart
Radio app, at Apple podcast or wherever it is you listen.
Stuff you missed in History Class is a production of
I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, A production
of I Heart Radio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Holly Frying.
I'm Tracy B. Wilson. This week we talked about Isadora Duncan.
We sure did so. UM. I have a particular affinity
(00:25):
for Isadore Duncan because, as you know, I studied dance
as a kid all the way up through college. And
I remember, like, I went to a ballet school when
I was a kid that was a little bit serious, right, Like,
while my friends were having recitals that involved frilly costumes
and stuff, mine was pink tights, black leotard's it's about technique.
(00:45):
There was no like proof in our recitals. Um. We
eventually got to wear flowers in our hair, and that
was like big news, Um, simple two flowers. So I
remember as a kid who was um, I truly loved
ballet and I still do. But I also had that
part of me that was like, wouldn't it be cool
(01:06):
if we could wear not a black leotard and pink
tights every single time? And I remember having a History
of Dance book and seeing pictures of Isadore Duncan in
those chiffon robes that just draped and like her her
little leotard that matched the color of her skin underneath
and nothing else, and thinking like that looked amazing, And
she doesn't have shoes on. What is this? Um? So
(01:28):
I have like a weird My childhood romance with her
definitely informs my ongoing interest in her story. Yeah, even
though our website does not have a place to have
pictures anymore, I still get pictures for episodes as much
as possible. Um. And I was looking through all these
Isadora Duncan pictures and in a lot of them, I
(01:51):
was like, this too revealing. We actually put it anywhere
so you can imagine what was going on in Tino
six when she was dressing like that. Yeah, she also
is interesting. It's it's hard, right, this was a two
part episode, and even so I had to cut out
some stuff that I really found exciting and the thronging right,
(02:12):
Like she had clothes made for her by Paul poiret
um because you can see where there is aesthetics completely
overlapped um. And he also made a little dress for
her daughter dear drew at one point that like she
talks about like the embroidery on these little frills and
how dear Dred just felt like the fanciest kid in
the world when she wore them. And she also met
(02:35):
Alistair Crowley at one point. Crowley wrote about her when
she was kind of getting into her mysticism phase. Is
all pretty interesting, um, And like I said, I really
really a dore. I love her memoir. It's so fascinating
and fun to read. Some of it gets a little
confusing because, like I said, she never calls Paris Singer
(02:56):
by his name. She always calls him long Green. It's
so initially the first time I read it, she was
just in a lot of places, she just does L
period And I'm like, who is this l person? Backtracking through?
And I'm like, is is that the same ber? Is
this the I'm cross referencing. The other thing is she
includes no dates. She is freewheeland and that that thing.
(03:17):
So you have to like look at another biography or
other like newspaper accounts to be like, all right, in
this year she was in this city. Now I see
what's going on here. The timeline is a little bit tricky. UM.
I have another quote from her from the book that
didn't really fit anywhere in the episode, but it is
(03:38):
about her relationships with her lovers and how she viewed them,
and I just loved it, she wrote as a parenthesis,
you may notice in this autobiography that I have always
been faithful to my loves, and in fact would probably
never have left any of them if they had been
faithful to me, for just as I love them, I
(04:00):
love them still and forever. If I have parted from
so many, I can only blame the fickleness of men
and the cruelty of fate. I would say, sort of love.
I also feel like this is her, on a subconscious level,
rebelling against her mother, who you know, hated her father
(04:20):
after they broke up and said the horrible things, and
she's like, no, I love all of my exes. We
stay close forever. I don't live like my mom. I'm different. Mhmm.
It's kind of interesting. There. Seems like, uh, an interesting
family dynamic there that we didn't explore a ton of
(04:41):
an episode, but with her relationship with her mother and
her relationships with her siblings, and yeah, yeah, they really
were like they kind of love their own little insular worlds. Dora.
I will say, I have only ever seen one photograph
of her, and she was breathtakingly beautiful. Um, you can
see where is Dora. Duncan got her looks for my money.
(05:02):
At least in that picture, Dora is even even more
striking than her daughter. It is interesting that her mom
kind of raised her to be this freewheeling spirit, but
then like still had those those limitations in her own
cultural morains, that she was like, no, no, no, no,
not not that free spirited, backing up a little bit
(05:24):
to free spirited to free spirited. It is really interesting
to me that her I mean, her mother clearly had
her own baggage. Everyone does that. When Augustine met a
young woman and got married and essentially broke up their
magical family circle, her mom was really angry about the
whole thing. Like she describes her as being very betrayed
(05:47):
and feeling like, you know, Augustine had turned his back
on them, even though he was still very much in
their lives, which is just a um. As you said,
there's a lot of family dynamic to unpluck. I think
you know, some therapy for everyone, all of them, could,
(06:08):
I mean, you know, we we we were not in
a time when that would have been readily available for
everyone or even viewed in an appropriate manner. Um. It is.
There are moments reading her her books she says on
occasion some very strange racist things about dance and dance
(06:29):
from Africa, which I did not get into because that
is like a whole other weird raft. Um. I feel
like her entire life is kind of dictated by the
fact that she was incredibly confident, but clearly, to my
mind anyway, was also driven by this constant need for validation.
(06:53):
As much as she was like, I don't care about
anyone else's rules, Like, she clearly wanted people to like
her and her art, and I am forever fascinated by
the psychology of that and how it drives people to
behave Uh. Yeah. Her writing about her kids is very moving.
Pictures of her with her children, I mean, she obviously
(07:16):
was a very devoted, dedicated mother. You know, she was
at that point in a position where Singer was paying
for her to have things like Nanny's, but she was
still very hands on with her kids. She talked about
how you know, she did what anybody who loses someone
tragically does, where you backtrack and go if I had
made this decision differently, if I had made this decision
(07:36):
differently like one of her I don't know if it
was the same nanny or or someone else that worked
in their household had said early in the day, Oh,
like the weather isn't great, do you think the kids
should go out? She was like, oh, of course, they
should go have lunch with Patrick's father, and and she
blamed herself forever for that. She talks about it over
and over in her book after that tragedy that she
(07:57):
thinks about that conversation again, um, which is I can't
imagine carrying that around. She never really recovered from that.
I don't know how anyone would be expected to. But no, uh, yeah,
that is the sad, beautiful, enthralling, strange story of his
Doory Duncan, who I loved as a child, did. I
(08:20):
never got into modern dance until I was in college,
which is kind of interesting, and then I loved it. Um,
but yeah, I was a bun head up until that point,
and so it was very free and lovely. And I
do encourage you go look at videos of that have
been recorded of of the people who have passed down
(08:40):
her choreography and danced it today and then think about
how that would have looked to people in the early
nine hundreds who were really pretty much like exposed to
ballet as a form of professional dance, and they'll be like, whoa,
because even by today's standards, there are people who are like,
I don't I don't get this, this isn't for me. Um.
(09:02):
And then to consider how completely dramatically different it was
from everything that had gone before, you realize how she
changed the the entire landscape of dance as a profession.
I'm gonna end this one by just thinking about all
of the fun stories of her as a kid, being
very very precocious and knocking on doors, knocking on right,
(09:27):
yelling to other kids that the things they believed in
were not real, and um lying to people that she
was a teenager when she was not so that she
could charge them more money as a professional teacher. I
love all of this. Uh So that that is our
little discourse on Isadora Duncan. And I hope that people
(09:47):
now understand that she was a lot more than that
one horrible day in September of h I hope everyone
has a wonderful weekend. If you get some time off,
I hope you enjoy it and get some rest and
take care of yourself and stay safe. We will be
right back here next week to talk about more stuff. Uh,
and we hope you are too. If you'd like to
(10:08):
subscribe in the meantime, do that on the I heart
Radio app, at Apple podcast or wherever it is you listen.
Stuff you missed in History Class is a production of
I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
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Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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