Isadora: A Sensational Life (Hardcover)

by Peter Kurth (Author) "First, her name. "I am called Isadora," she wrote..." (more)
Key Phrases: unidentified news, miscellaneous manuscripts, New York, Isadora Duncan, Miss Duncan (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
It's a bit of a stretch to suggest, as Peter Kurth does in his biography of the expatriate artist, that Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) single-handedly invented modern dance, a claim that Vaslav Nijinsky and George Balanchine, among others, would almost certainly contest.

But Kurth has that claim on good authority, namely Duncan herself, who recalled, "I was possessed by the dream of Promethean creation that, at my call, might spring from the Earth, descend from the Heavens, such dancing figures as the world had never seen." Never shy of self-promotion, Duncan captivated audiences wherever she took the stage, earning a following--but also stirring controversy--in her native United States, and even greater exaltation and stormier criticism in Europe, where she made her home for most of her adult life. There she emerged as a textbook bohemian, avidly practicing and preaching free love and other convention-flouting doctrines, breaking hearts, taking up with political radicals and some of the great artists of the day, and drinking far too much. She also defined the figure of the artist as celebrity, living each day, as one Russian critic remarked, "as though bewitched by music" and unconcerned by the mundane. She even died spectacularly, done in by a fashion accessory and bad timing.

Toward the end of her life Duncan remarked, "I am not a dancer. I have never danced a step in my life." She was a dancer, of course, and one whose influence has endured. She was also an original, self-aware and certain of her greatness. Kurth tells her story well in this vivid biography, one of value to students of modern dance and the history of the Lost Generation. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly
Kurth (Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson) presents an exhaustive march through an exhausting, tragic life, organizing endless material into a coherent chronology. Duncan's contributions to dance are better documented and analyzed elsewhere. With minimum commentary, Kurth follows Duncan's frenetic existence from her 1877 birth in San Francisco until her infamous death (when her scarf caught in the wheel of her car, strangling her) in France in 1927. Duncan, her sister and two brothers, professionally entwined throughout their lives, spent early childhood vacillating between luxury and penury (her financier/swindler father, an integral part of San Francisco's 1877 banking collapse, was prone to long disappearances), a tendency which prevailed throughout their adulthood. Duncan seemed marked by tragedy: various fires destroyed belongings and homes (her earliest memory was of being tossed from the window of a burning building); her father died in a shipwreck; two of her children perished when a chauffeur rolled their car into the Seine; the third died shortly after birth. Throughout adulthood, Duncan moved restlessly and incessantly about, principally from Paris to Berlin to Russia. She danced, drank and enjoyed volatile long-term relationships while simultaneously leaping into bed with numerous so-called geniuses. Occasional professional successes peppered Duncan's life, but perhaps her most defining experience was her 1922 marriage to the mad, alcoholic and abusive Russian poet Esenin. By the time of his suicide in 1925, the couple had essentially destroyed each other professionally and personally. Neither a dance history nor a portrait of an era although Duncan knew everyone and participated in everything this book instead offers a meticulous chronology of an extraordinary life. (Nov. 15)Forecast: This is not, as the publisher claims, "the first major biography" of Isadora (Frederika Blair's predates it by 15 years). Its exhaustive rather than illuminative qualities will limit its readership to the most dedicated dance fans.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 608 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown; First edition. edition (November 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316507261
• ISBN-13: 978-0316507264
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #843,932 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars She Was Large...She Contained Multitudes, January 2, 2002

By	Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Here is an excellent biography of someone whose life combined artistic achievement with personal dysfunction. Arguably the creator of what we now refer to as "modern dance," Isadora Duncan certainly filled her "sensational" personal life with a series of adventures and misadventures while struggling to sustain a career during which so many of her knowledgeable contemporaries praised her artistic talents and achievements. Consider these comments:

"I got an impression of enormous grace, and enormous power in her dancing -- she was very serious, and held the audience and held them completely." (Frederick Ashton)

"She moved with those wonderful steps of hers with simplicity and detachment that could only come through the intuition of genius itself." (Tamara Karsavina)

"She incarnated music in her dance." (Serge Kousevitsky)

"The soul becomes drunk with this endless succession of beautiful lines and groupings [of movement]." (Ernest Newman)

"The greatest woman I have ever known....Sometimes I think she is the greatest woman the world has ever known." (Rodin)

Impressive accolades indeed which, for me, increase the poignancy (at times the tragedy) of her poor judgment and irresponsible behavior when not performing before an always adoring audience. Even for those who know little (if anything) about dance, Kurth has written an absorbing, at times compelling biography of a woman who (in the words of a contemporary, Janet Flanner) embodied "the grandeur of permanent ideals...[but was] too expansive for personal salvation."

By the time I approached the final chapter of Kurth's biography, I had observed a number of similarities between Isadora's life and the lives of Edna St. Vincent Millay and Sylvia Plath. For example, their original and substantial talent, their excessive self-indulgences, their passion for experiencing (both physically and emotionally) as much as possible each day, and their vulnerabilities which so many others exploited shamelessly. With Whitman in mind, Robert Gottlieb observes: "For Isadora there were no rules, there was only the Song of Herself; she lacked the discipline, the emotional and moral resources, to keep liberty from lapsing into license." Such is often the fate of a genius which, by most accounts, Isadora Duncan was. "Sensational" indeed.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Should have won a Pulitzer Price, November 10, 2007

By	Martijn13Maart1970 (Husavik Iceland) - See all my reviews

I have read many biographies, from Saint-Exupérie to Rockefeller, and thanks to the feedback system of Amazon and the editioral reviews, it is quite possible to filter out the good ones from the mediocre.
Needless to say this biography stands out from many others and I think it is one of my favourites I have read so far. I said in the title that it should have won the Pulitzer price, although I do not know whether biographies are eligible for this. But it shows why Peter Kurth, the author, needed 10 years to complete it.

What can my review add on the information available?
First of all, read the editiorials, they give good information on what this book, and what Isadora is about. Usually only the positive reviews are kept, but in this case, for a reason. This biography is indeed written as all biographies should be written; well researched, not confusing, as detailed as possible without getting boring, and intertwined with the times that in this case Isadora lived, and finally neutral in style yet intriguing.
Peter Kurth does all these things. Even the title does her life justice, for after reading this book, one can only conclude her life, as well as her death, truly was sensational. Especially for a woman in those days to achieve and do what she did is amazing. Even now, a Madonna would not make the grade in comparison to Isadora.
Isadora virtually created the 'natural' modern dance as opposed to the Russian ballet, which she considered merely as stiff and hysterical hopping that proved flying indeed was impossible for human beings. As some said, it was as if she gave something back to the people, something natural that was lost and found again.
She was probably as influential as Martha Graham was later in the century, but totally opposite style. Some said you should have seen her dance to die happily. We will never know, since apart from all the crowds she drew which no longer are with us, she was never caught on film. Maybe better that way, since it only adds more to the cachet of legend she has and had.
It is just wonderful to read a story on how some humans do it; rise from nothing to stardom, 'just' with hard work, perseverance, good ideas, and genius. Her life was a constant struggle to renew her art and to sell her idea to the world that often was not ready for it. Of course like all of us she needed love, and she knew how to get it. But just like Callas' tragedy, or Dalida's dictum `my life was a success, but what was it, really?', it also casts yet another light on that mystery called fame, and the Faustian bargain that somehow always comes with it. When Isadora met her mother years later, she asked herself; `We had set off to look for fame and fortune. Both had been found, so why the result was so tragic?'
The reason for this was that her life was not only full of the glamour of travel, intrigue, and meeting everyone from Steichen to Fairbanks to Valentino to Chaplin, but also because it was full of tragedy.
She never really found the right lover, or husband in her life. She never could keep a secure fortune, and like so many artists, she could not really cope with aging.
But perhaps her life is also a glorious proof of how wonderful life is, no matter the tragedy, and how she somehow was always driven to go on with her art and her glamorous lifestyle, despite even having lost all of her three children. In short; what a life, and apart from the tragedy, what fun she must have had! Her equally legendary death only adds to the thrill of this all!

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book brings her back to life, September 20, 2002

By	Moe811 (New York USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Isadora Duncan was a larger than life figure of the first part of the century. Both her work and her lifestyle guaranteed her the attention of the world. Mr. Kurth's biography brings the innovative dancer back to life clarifying many details at the same time. Ms. Duncan tended to either gloss over or sensationalize various aspects of her history and this book separates fact from fantasy. The photographs are very good, as is the narrative.