Dancing in the Blood

Abstract

Th e initial response to modern dance hardly suggested that it would constitute a cultural revolution. After performing in the homes of aristocrats and patricians in New York, London, and Paris, Isadora Duncan was engaged by Loïe Fuller for a tour in Central Europe; she soon went her own way, and in 1902 and 1903 gave public performances in Budapest, Munich, Berlin, and then again back in Paris. Th e response was mixed. One reviewer in Berlin commented that audiences had been enthusiastic, but "one really has to wonder why" because "Miss Duncan lacks not only shoes and stockings but also a few other things that her colleagues in the ballet have"-namely talent and technical ability. Duncan was clearly "no genius of the dance art." Nor did she display any particular fi re or "passion"; her performance was "prim" and suff ered from "English sentimentality." Another Berlin reviewer found Duncan's performance "lovely, but academic and boring. .. sweetly pretty" rather than powerful. A Dutch newspaper reviewer reported similarly in January 1903 that Duncan "takes things very much in earnest." In March a Vienna paper reported that her dance appealed through its "gentle prettiness" and was a little "pedantic." In June a Paris reviewer reported that her audience, "which is very fond of its ballet tradition," had laughed at her histrionics. Late in the year a German theater journal called her "didactic virtue in motion. .. this isn't dance, it's a lesson.. .. Her choreographic training is mediocre, and her temperament cool." It was all very nice, but her chaste spirit was disquieting. Wasn't the dance supposed to have something sensual at the back of it? By early 1904 another Vienna reviewer remarked that "Th is Miss Duncan," with her "sweet, childlike demure eyes," her "touchingly pretty face," and her boring "skipping around," was "starting to get on our nerves." 1