Synopses & Reviews
The visionary choreographer and dancer Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) not only revolutionized dance in the twentieth century but blazed a path for other visionaries who would follow in her wake. While many biographies have explored Duncan's crucial role as one of the founders of modern dance, no other book has proved as critical--as both historical record and vivid evocation of a riveting life--as her autobiography. From her early enchantment with classical music and poetry to her great successes abroad, to her sensational love affairs and headline-grabbing personal tragedies, Duncan's story is a dramatic one. still stands alone as "a great document, revealing the truth of her life as she understood it, without reticence or apology or compromise" (). Now, in this fully restored edition, with its risqué recollections and fervent idealism, can be appreciated by a new generation.
Review
"For dance aficionados, Isadora Duncan's memoir , with an introduction by Joan Acocella, completes the portrait of one of the twentieth century's most unforgettably Dionysian figures by restoring the bits originally deemed too spicy for print." Megan O'Grady
Synopsis
My Life, the classic autobiography first published just after Duncan's death, is a frank and engrossing life account of this remarkable visionary and feminist who took on the world, reinvented dance, and led the way for future great American modernists Ruth St. Denis, Agnes de Mille, and Martha Graham.Documenting Duncan's own life as a dancer and as a woman from her enchantment with classical music and poetry as a child in San Francisco and her intense study of classical Greek art in Athens, through the great strides she made in teaching, founding schools, performing, and collaborating with international artists, to her notorious love affairs and the tragic deaths of her own children My Life reissued here is still as extraordinary as the woman who wrote it more than sixty years ago.
Synopsis
One of the most remarkable books on dance returns with a revealing, new introduction by New Yorker critic Joan Acocella.
Synopsis
A remarkable account of a wildly artistic life, finally restored to its unexpurgated form, with a revealing new introduction by Joan Acocella.
Synopsis
A remarkable account of a wildly artistic life, finally restored to its unexpurgated form, with a revealing new introduction by Joan Acocella.
About the Author
Isadora Duncan was one of the primary founders of modern dance. Born in California, she lived throughout Europe from the age of twenty-two until her death at fiftyJoan Acocella, author of Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints, is the dance critic for The New Yorker.