I was recently privileged to attend the Allure of France tour in Paris with the Isadora Duncan International Institute (www.idii.org) with Director Jeanne Bresciani, following in the footsteps of Isadora Duncan, the places where she performed, lived, taught, learned and inspired.
A bas relief of Vaslav Njinsky and Isadora Duncan by Antoine Bourdelle, outside the Theater Champs d'Elysees, where Isadora performed for the Parisienne audiencesParis was for Isadora, as it was and is for so many artists, a place that galvanized her artistic vision and capability. It was Paris that first fully embraced Isadora and her art, and it was in Paris that Isadora experienced her most complete maturation as an artist. Not only did she have access to some of the greatest museums and collections of art in the world, but she also communed with the greatest artists of the day -- August Rodin, Antoine Bourdelle, Jean Cocteau, Leon Bakst and many others.
Paris is a place steeped in a love of beauty. And not merely superficial beauty, but deep, profound, meaningful, mythic beauty. Images of ancient archetypes - Beauty, Truth, Hero, God, Wisdom - fill not only the museums, but the streets, the environs, the surrounds. Buildings, plazas, streets, bridges and parks are filled with statues, bas reliefs, paintings, architecture and embellishments of the ancient mythological gods and goddesses, saints and heros, kings and queens.
Statues of the mythic gods and heroes surround the bridges and palaces throughout ParisWith the beauty and majesty of their visages filling our every gaze, something of their "beyond-ness", something of their magic, fills our own everyday selves, transporting us to a place of birthright that too few of us in modern society ever experience. The birthright of exalted beauty.
When we dance at the Isadora Duncan School for Creative Movement & Dance, we are reaching for this place of "beyond-ness." We cultivate not just steps for the body to perform, but a truly and deeply meaningful connection to a larger experience of humanity. We hope that each student will come to a greater appreciation of themselves, and of others, through dance and an opportunity to express the truth of the inner self.
Outside Isadora Duncan's first Paris school at 5 Rue Danton, where her main students, known as the "Isadorables," first came to Paris from Germany to study and perform with herWe believe all people and especially children, deserve this vital birthright: to know beauty deeply within one's self, within nature and withinall humanity.
