Isadora Duncan (dancer)

Duncan's approach to dance was unconventional from the start. She improvised rather than followed codified steps, and she performed barefoot in a flowing white Greek tunic, a stark contrast to corseted ballet costumes and pointe shoes. Her career took her from New York to London, Paris, and throughout Europe, where she performed in the drawing rooms of the wealthy and on grand stages. She founded schools in Berlin, Paris, and Moscow to teach her philosophy of dance to young women. In Berlin, she adopted six of her students, known as the Isadorables, who carried on her technique after her death.

Duncan's personal life was as dramatic as her performances. She bore three children out of wedlock: Deirdre, fathered by theatre designer Gordon Craig, and Patrick, fathered by Paris Singer, one of the sewing machine magnate's sons. Both children drowned in 1913 when their car accidentally went into the River Seine. A third child, a son, died shortly after birth in 1914. In 1922, she married the Russian poet Sergei Yesenin, who was eighteen years her junior; the marriage was brief and ended in divorce. She also had a documented relationship with poet and playwright Mercedes de Acosta, as revealed in their letters.

In 1921, Duncan moved to Soviet Russia, where she founded another school in Moscow. She became a Soviet citizen, and her will was the first of a Soviet citizen to undergo probate in the U.S. She died on September 14, 1927, in Nice, France, when her long silk scarf became entangled in the wheel of a car, pulling her from the vehicle and breaking her neck. She was 50 years old. Her autobiography, My Life, was published shortly after her death. Duncan is remembered as a pioneer of modern contemporary dance, and her likeness was carved in bas-relief over the entrance of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. Her legacy persists through her adopted daughters and the Duncan Dance Guild, which continues to teach her technique.