Isadora Duncan

American dancer and choreographer (1877–1927)

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Lived 1877–1927, aged 50United States

United States WritersWriter / Author

Wikipedia
85 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1877–1927
Aged 50
Known for
That's Dancing!
1985

Summary

Updated 2026-06-21

She rewrote how the body could move on stage, then died when her scarf caught in a car's open-spoked wheel — the freak exit eclipsed nothing about the revolution she'd already finished.

Biography

About

Born in California in 1877 or 1878, Angela Isadora Duncan left the States at 22 and spent the rest of her life dancing across Western Europe, the U.S., and Soviet Russia. She built modern contemporary dance from scratch, stripping away the corset and the rigid positions, performing to wild acclaim in cities that had never seen a body move that free. The work made her a pioneer; the stages kept filling. On September 14, 1927, riding in an open car in Nice, her scarf tangled in the wheel and axle. She was gone in an instant, mid-tour, mid-career, the legend already made.

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Isadora Duncan

Isadora Duncan

said1927

Bernard Shaw says that as long as men torture and slay animals and eat their flesh we shall have war. I think all sane, thinking people must be of his opinion.

— My Life (1927), chapter 28; Liveright Publishing, 2013, p. 276.

Isadora Duncan

said1912

To seek in nature the fairest forms and to find the movement which expresses the soul of these forms — this is the art of the dancer.

— As quoted in Modern Dancing and Dancers (1912) by John Ernest Crawford Flitch, p. 105.

Isadora Duncan

saidundated

I could have played the part of Saint Joan. I ought to have played it. I have the ample figure, the hardy physique of a farm-servant. Joan was a buxom creature.

— As quoted in Isadora Duncan: An Intimate Portrait (1928) by Sewell Stokes, p. 180

Isadora Duncan

saidundated