![]() ![]() She died almost instantly of a broken neck. In a freak accident, Isadora Duncan was jerked from the open cab and briefly dragged along the cobblestones before the driver stopped. As the car began to move forward, one end of the scarf snaked down and around the rear axle and wheel. I go to glory!" However, The New York Times reports that writer Glenway Wescott later said that Desti confided in him, admitting that Isadora said, "I am off to love." Desti found this embarrassing, as it seemed like Duncan was yet again telling everyone about her sexual escapades. Either way, it's clear that Duncan wanted to make an impression on the people who were watching the still-famous, if somewhat fading, American dancer.ĭuncan reportedly told her friend, Mary Desti, "Farewell, my friends. A newspaper account from the time claimed that the color of her neckwear was a reference to her communism. She was dressed to impress, or at least dressed dramatically, with an enormously long red scarf trailing from her neck. According to History, Isadora was in Nice, France. Two years after the split, he was found in Leningrad's Hotel Angleterre, dead of an apparent suicide. ![]() "I married for her money and for the chance to travel," he said, per The New York Times. Hounded by debt, they moved back to Russia, where Yesenin left Duncan after only nine months of marriage. Observers and friends noted the utter mess they left behind them, which often included damaged hotel furniture produced during yet another row between the couple.Īccording to the introduction to My Life, Yesenin had even thrown himself through a plate glass window once. The pair moved to different locations across Europe, causing scenes wherever they went. ![]() He reportedly embarrassed her in public, going so far as to say, "Woman very old!" when he was particularly upset with her. Yesenin also struggled with alcoholism, often becoming violent and abusive towards his wife. Yesenin spoke only Russian, while Duncan knew only a few words in his language. "I believe that in that moment I reached the height of suffering that can come to me on earth," she later wrote.Īccording to The New York Times, the relationship was an utter disaster, almost from the very beginning. In August 1914, she gave birth to a son who lived for only a few hours. She happily accepted the news, believing that the new child was the spirit of Deirde or Patrick returning to her. Duncan was obliterated by grief.Īfter a 1914 affair with sculptor Romano Romanelli, Barefoot Dancersays, Duncan learned that she was pregnant. The driver survived, the San Francisco Call reported, but Patrick, Deirdre, and Annie drowned. Tragedy struck in 1913, when a car carrying the two children and their governess, Annie, accidentally drove into the River Seine in Paris. Duncan skirted outright censure by saying that they were her adopted children, but she remained a single parent. Her second, Patrick, was the son of Paris Singer, himself the son of sewing machine tycoon Isaac Singer. The barefoot, chiffon-wearing dancers of Duncan's work represented her drive to break dance out of its rut and into a brave new artform.ĭuncan's first child, Deirdre Beatrice, was the daughter of theater designer Gordon Craig, per Done Into Dance. For her, dance could not develop and grow into a richer art form if its practitioners were always bound up in corsets and toe shoes. According to The New Research in Dress History conference, it was all part of her deeply-held beliefs about the importance of dance and self-expression. For viewers used to the Victorian standard of dress, which often covered and restricted women's bodies, Duncan's fashion could be astonishing.ĭuncan wasn't just doing this to shock people and gain notoriety. She became somewhat notorious for her Grecian-style dresses she wore during performances, made out of sheer fabric that clung to her form. Ballet had already gained a bit of a racy reputation, with many assuming that the dancers were loose women benefiting from lecherous "patrons." Duncan, who generally wasn't bothered by petty concerns like conventional morality, actually updated the revealing ballet look. This free love approach actually wasn't out of line with the history of dance, the National Museum of Women in the Arts reports. ![]()
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