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Etude Révolutionnaire

Etude Révolutionnaire

Etude Révolutionnaire

This solo is part of a dance ensemble, Impressions de Russie, and corresponds to Isadora Duncan’s Muscovite period. Duncan draws from historical events, to which she intuitively adheres, the social content and strength of conviction of this dance.

A woman stands upright in the centre of the stage, her hands behind her back. She straightens herself and already her gestures and posture possess the force of a powerful social manifesto. Everything expresses the Promethean struggle: the work gestures on the ground that stir, press the earth, deploy a quality of wrenching away. The successive advances of the woman are like so many insistent breakaways. Marking a pause, she sweeps with her gaze the space around her: the imaginary vision of her fellows returns the image of her own condition. Then her worker’s hands lift her from the ground with clenched fists. She harangues this invisible crowd, her mouth opening to cry out. She surges up again, accentuating the fervour of her broad gestures. In an imaginary confrontation, fists and feet hammer the air, the ground. Their percussive rhythm accelerates until she dramatically frees herself. A future opens up before her. She rushes into it. The dance ends with a last vengeful punch.

Source Dictionnaire de la Danse (CCN - Ballet de Lorraine 2004 - 2005)

Duncan, Isadora

Born Isadora Angela Duncan in San Francisco on May 26, 1877, Isadora discovered the joy of dance in nature, amidst the wind, sea and waves at the beach as a young child. Her home provided artistic and intellectual riches – even though her father left the family in financial straits soon after Isadora was born. Isadora’s mother, Mary Dora Gray, was a skilled pianist and teacher, who played Beethoven and Schubert for the children and read Shakespeare, Shelley and Browning to them. Isadora’s brother Raymond was a dramatist, Augustine an actor, and Elizabeth and Isadora danced and taught dance classes from early ages as the family scrambled financially. 


Isadora left San Francisco for Chicago with her mother in 1895 where she danced at the Masonic Temple Roof Garden and auditioned for Augustin Daly’s theatre company. She joined Daly’s company, moving to New York with most of her family. She toured America and went to London with the Daly company. Displeased with what she considered a trivial role of dance in the theatre productions, she quit the company in 1898. Isadora danced in private salons, and first danced at the Music Room in Carnegie Hall, in collaboration with composer Ethelbert Nevin, in a program including Nevin’s Narcissus, Ophelia and Water Nymphs on March 24, 1898. She described her dance as “movement expressive of thought” in her early lectures. 


In May 1899 Isadora and family traveled to London, in search of ways to deepen and broaden her art. Isadora studied the Greek and Roman antiquities at the British Museum. After meeting artist Charles Hallé, she performed for prominent Londoners at his New Gallery, dancing the legend of Orpheus, to music of Gluck. In “The Art of the Dance” Isadora described herself as neither the narrator nor the character of the myths she danced, but the “soul of the music”, a “role reserved by the Greeks for the Chorus.” 


The following year Isadora followed her brother Raymond to Paris, where he sketched and she studied the Louvre’s Greece vase collection. After a tour with Loie Fuller’s company, Isadora was invited to perform her own programme in Budapest, Hungary (1902), where she danced to sold-out performances with full orchestra. Her famous encore was The Blue Danube. Performances followed in Berlin, Vienna and Munich. Many artists were to draw and photograph her including Emile-Antoine Bourdelle, Peter Berger, Robert Henri, August Rodin, Jose Clara, Jules Grandjouan, Valentine Lecomte and Abraham Walkowitz. Her European success allowed for a trip to Greece (1903), time to appreciate the art and ruins, to purchase land, and to perform in front of the Greek royal family, including King George.


In January 1905, Isadora accomplished a long-time goal, as she opened her first school for twenty children in Grunewald, Germany. In true visionary style, the children were given free room, board and instruction in dance, music and literature. They wore tunics and sandals and were surrounded by great artworks indoors and nature outdoors. Among these first students were the six who were adopted in order to enter the United States during World War 1 and would later be dubbed “the Isadorables” by the French press: Anna, Erika, Irma, Lisa, Margot and Marie-Theresa. She was able to establish a second school which she named Dionysian at a mansion in Bellevue, outside of Paris, in 1914, with financial help from Paris Singer. Bellevue was later given to the Red Cross as an army hospital at the start of World War I. Isadora and her students then met in America, where “the Isadorables” debuted at Carnegie Hall, in December 1914. Isadora regularly left her schools to tour and perform in order to sustain the school and to support members of her family, a recurrent theme throughout her life. While away, her sister Elizabeth often acted as school director and teacher. 


Isadora’s legacy as the “Mother of Modern Dance” is seen in the progression of her repertory, from the lyrical dances to classical composers like Chopin, Brahms, Strauss and Schubert (a radical use of classic music at the time), to the dances of Greek myths, archetypes, human emotions and later in her heroic dances of nationalism (La Marseillaise, Rakoczy March). Isadora and Irma traveled to Russia in 1921, at the invitation of the Russian government, where they formed a third school for children. Isadora danced the Revolutionary, and dedicated songs and dances to the Russian workers and for the Russian children. What had started as lyrical, free spirited, barefoot dance, a rejection of the stilted ballet world of her time, deepened with her life experiences, travel, and with the influence of a wide range of artists, poets, composers and intelligentsia in her circle. Although Isadora was drawn to Greek myths and philosophy, she recreated, rather than copied, ancient themes. She defined the solar plexus as the “central spring of all movement” (Duncan, “My Life”). As a performer, she continued to move audiences deeply throughout her career, as evidenced by reviews and personal accounts.


A revolutionary thinker in women’s issues, espousing freedom for body and spirit, Isadora vowed never to marry. From her first long-term relationship with famous British set designer, Edward Gordon Craig, her daughter Deidre was born (September 24, 1906). With Paris Singer, she bore her son Patrick Augustus Duncan (born May 1, 1910). Both children died in a tragic accident on April 19, 1913. Isadora’s devastation is later reflected in her choreography Mother


Although Isadora’s success blossomed in Europe and led to travel to Egypt, South America and Russia, she returned to tour America several times. Many of her Isadora’s programs are shared in Private Collections. Isadora was generally well received in America, until her visit in 1922 with Soviet poet and husband Sergei Esenin, (married to allow him a travel visa), when anti-Soviet feelings ran high in the United States. 


In 1927, Isadora agreed to publish her memoirs “My Life” and finished writing and dictating them to her secretary. Her last performance was at the Mogador Theatre in Paris on July 8. Isadora was accidentally killed in an automobile, near her studio in Nice, on September 14, 1927, at age 50. Her enduring legacy continues to inspire new generations of dancers.


Source : Isadora Duncan’s Archives website


More information : 

http://www.isadoraduncanarchive.org/ 

Schwartz, Elisabeth

Elisabeth Schwartz - dancer, choreographer, historian, trained in New York studying ballet with Margaret Craske, modern technique with Merce Cunningham, and Viola Farber. During this time quite by accident she began studying the dance of Isadora Duncan with Julia Levien, world renowned specialist in the repertory of Isadora Duncan. Since her return to Paris is 1984 she has presented solo and group works of Isadora Duncan with her company L’Onde at Festival de Monpellier, Chateauvallon, Biennale de Lyon…and in Prague, Geneva, Budapest and Berlin. In 1996, she became certified as a CMA and began teaching Effort Shape at the Université Paris VIII Saint Denis. Ms. Schwartz has done extensive research on “free dance” and has collected film archives of dancers from the beginning of the century. This montage has been presented at Cinémathique Francaise in Paris and throughout France. She has also written many articles on dance specifically analyzing the styles and techniques of Rudolf Laban, Ted Shawn, Mary Wigman, Isadora Duncan, Doris Humphrey, Martha Graham, and Velska Gert.


In addition to La Danse Libre, Ms. Schwartz has been part of a number of film projects in France including Jaillissements (1990 DIRECTOR: Raoul SANGLA) a film which evokes the artistic proximity of Auguste RODIN and Isadora DUNCAN through the communal movements of sculpture and dance. This contemporary interpretation of Isadora DUNCAN's dance reveals its innate modernism. Recently she appeared in interviews and danced in the Elizabeth Kapnist film, Je n'ai fait que danser ma vie.

Elisabeth holds a PhD in Arts and Performance (with a focus on Isadora Duncan) from the Université Charles De Gaulle, Lille 3, France, under the direction of professor Claude Jamain.


Elisabeth Schwartz is a nationally known and respected dancer and teacher throughout France and is now the Inspectrice de la danse for Les ecoles des arts de la Ville de Paris. She has made innovations in dance offerings and implementations for teachers and students. Ms. Schwartz is also a certified Labanotation reconstructor and has used her expertise to set historic works on professionals as well as students. In one recent project she set Ted Shawn’s Polonaise on the French Hip Hop group Acsendance. Ms. Schwartz recently directed dancers from the Paris Opera Ballet in two Duncan solos,performed as part of the special event, 20 dancers for the 20th century. Her openness to mix historic and contemporary forms has brought divergent audiences together to celebrate the past, present and future of dance as an evolving art form.


Source : Website of Isadora Duncan’s archives


More information :

http://www.isadoraduncanarchive.org/dancer/108/ 

Bourgeais, Isabelle

Faggianelli, Tristan

CCN - Ballet de Lorraine

Since acquiring the CCN title in 1999, the Centre Chorégraphique National - Ballet de Lorraine has dedicated itself to supporting contemporary choreographic creation. As of July 2011 the organization is under the general and artistic direction of Petter Jacobsson.
The CCN – Ballet de Lorraine and its company of 26 dancers is one of the most important companies working in Europe, performing contemporary creations while retaining and programming a rich and extensive repertory, spanning our modern history, made up of works by some of our generations most highly regarded choreographers.
The CCN functions as an art center and venue for multiple possibilities in the fields of research, experimentation and artistic creation. It is a platform open to many different disciplines, a space where the many visions of dance of today may meet. 

More information : http://ballet-de-lorraine.eu 

Etude révolutionnaire

Choreography : Isadora Duncan // Transmission de la danse : Elisabeth Schwartz

Interpretation : Valérie Ferrando

Additionnal music : Scriabine - "La Pathétique" n°12 op. 8

Lights : Thibault Leblanc

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