Desti considered this embarrassing, as it suggested that she and Falchetto were going to her hotel for a tryst.

I go to glory!') but according to the American novelist Glenway Wescott, Desti later told him that Duncan's actual parting words were, 'Je vais à l'amour' ('I am off to love').

Je vais à la gloire!' ('Farewell, my friends. As they departed, she reportedly said to Desti and some companions, ' Adieu, mes amis. Desti, who saw Duncan off, had asked her to wear a cape in the open-air vehicle because of the cold weather, but she would only agree to wear the scarf.

She wore a long, flowing, hand-painted silk scarf, created by the Russian-born artist Roman Chatov, a gift from her friend Mary Desti, the mother of American film director Preston Sturges. On the night of September 14, 1927, in Nice, France, Duncan was a passenger in an Amilcar CGSS automobile owned by Benoît Falchetto, a French-Italian mechanic. Costumes were not the only inspiration Duncan took from Greece: she was also inspired by ancient Greek art, and utilized some of its forms in her movement.īetween 19, Duncan lived and worked in Greece, Germany, Russia and Scandanavia. Inspired by Greek forms, her tunics also allowed a freedom of movement that corseted ballet costumes and pointe shoes did not. This is exemplified in her revolutionary costume of a white Greek tunic and bare feet. Her movement was feminine and arose from the deepest feelings in her body. Duncan took inspiration from ancient Greece and combined it with an American love of freedom. To restore dance to a high art form instead of merely entertainment, she strove to connect emotions and movement: 'I spent long days and nights in the studio seeking that dance which might be the divine expression of the human spirit through the medium of the body's movement.' She believed dance was meant to encircle all that life had to offer-joy and sadness. While still occasionally coaching younger dancers, in 1996 Gamson returned to painting, an earlier interest.Duncan's philosophy of dance moved away from rigid ballet technique and towards what she perceived as natural movement. Gamson’s own choreography revealed the dynamic influence of her predecessors, and she passed on her knowledge of their work to younger performers.

She celebrated the twentieth anniversary of her solo career in 1994. Later, she added the solos of Eleanor King, an American modern dancer who had performed with the Humphrey-Weidman Company. Her performances of Summer Dance, Pastorale, and the Witch Dance brought her additional critical acclaim. To generations of dance lovers, for whom Duncan was a legend previously accessible only through writings and artistic representation, Gamson imbued the dances with a musicality and dynamic spirit that, while never intending to mimic Duncan, gave some sense of what was essential in Duncan’s choreography and the apparent spontaneity of her performance.įollowing this success, Gamson began work on the solos of another pioneer of modern dance, German expressionist Mary Wigman. Through her extraordinary performances, Gamson gave audiences the opportunity to understand and appreciate the craftsmanship of Duncan’s choreography, forever doing away with the rumor that Duncan’s dances were improvised. The Duncan pieces made an enormous impression. In 1974, at the American Theater Laboratory in New York City, she performed Duncan’s Water Study (Schubert), Five Waltzes (Brahms), Dance of the Furies (Gluck), and Étude (Scriabin), as well as her own work. In the early 1970s, Gamson resumed her studies with Levien, for there was something in Duncan’s work she had not found in any other kind of dancing.

Isadora duncan dance water study