Wednesday 9 November 2016

Isadora Duncan during her time in Holland,Noordwijk.

Isadora Duncan,pregnant with Deidre, in Villa Maria.Noordwijk,1906.
In 1906 Isadora was expecting her first child. To prepare herself for childbirthing and to hide from people's curiosity, she decided to rent for a summer  a house in Holland,Noordwijk. During that period she was spending her time by having a walk on the beach,writing  in her diary about teaching of her art and observing her niece Temple,who came from Grundewald school for a short time, dancing on the sea coast.The other children wasn't with her to prevent reporters or anyone else from finding out Isadora's hiding. Also, they played with Gordon's Craig dog Black, which he left to the care temporary. Watching Temple's dances, she was inspired to write an essay "A Child Dancing"  
"SEATED on the beach at Noordwijk, I look on while my little niece, who has come to visit me, from the Griinewald School, dances here before the waves. I gaze across the vast expanse of surging water — wave after wave streaming endlessly past, throwing up the white foam. And in front of it all the dainty little figure in her white fluttering dress, dancing before the monstrous sea! And I feel as though the heart-beat of her little life were sounding in unison with the mighty life of the water, as though it possessed something of the same rhythm, something of the same life, and my heart rejoices at her dancing.
 For a long time I am lost in contemplation, and her dance by the sea seems to me to contain in little the whole problem on which I am working. It seems to reflect the naturally beautiful motions of the human body, in the dance. She dances because she is full of the joy of life. She dances because the waves are dancing before her eyes, because the winds are dancing, because she can feel the rhythm of the dance throughout the whole of nature. To her it is a joy to dance; to me it is a joy to watch her. It is summer now, here by the sea, and life is filled with joy; but I think of winter, in the towns, in the streets, in the houses, of life in the towns in the gloomy winter. How can the life of nature, the joy of summer, of sunshine, the joy of a child dancing by the sea, how can all this beauty be drawn into life, into the towns? Can the dancer sugget all this and remind men of it in the winter time, in the cities? Can she call up within me the same delight which she is giving me now as I sit here on the beach and watch her dancing?
 I look more closely and study her movements. What is this dance she is dancing? I see that the simple movements and steps are those she has learnt in our school during the past two years. But she invests them with her own spontaneous child-like feelings, her own child-like happiness. She is only dancing what she has been taught, but the movements taught her are so completely in harmony with her child-like nature that they seem to spring direct from her inmost being."

Isadora Duncan with her niece Temple and  Gordon's Craig dog Black
The dancer didn't invite anyone,except her "faithful friend who came over from The Hague on his bicycle, bringing me books and magazines, and cheering me with his discourses on recent art, music and literature."Gordon Craig,the father of the child, have visited Isadora time to time.
Kathleen Bruce with her son. National Portrait Gallery
 On a last term of pregnancy, she asked her friend  Kathleen Bruce to stay with her.  From the words of Kathleen, Isadora was scared of her situation with  illegitimate pregnancy. One night, she found Isadora  standing in a deep waters. She took her out of there,changed her clothes and helped to get dry.It is not clear, but according to Fredrika Blair's book "Isadora: Portrait of the Artist as a Woman" it was her first try of suicide. 

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