Ian Handford: Dancer whose genius was tragically lost

As commenced in Part One the controversial life of Isadora was continuous. Having had a child by actor Gordon Craig (he sired seven children by various  previous lovers) like them Isadora was abandoned. With her child Deirdre she later met her "dreamed of millionaire" Paris Singer (interestingly introduced by his sister Winnaretta) and soon besotted he unlike previous lovers would regularly offer marriage - always refused. Their love affair lasted eight years and her second child was born after Paris suffered a first stroke.

Isadora was by now 30 and with Paris having completed his new home at Oldway Paignton, this six foot four, handsome man owned property everywhere. In an attempt to impress Isadora he then brought her to Torbay having especially mirrored Oldway Mansion ballroom so that she might watch the dancing. Yet it was Devon's incessant rain that year and our parochialism she loathed. With Paris having suffered a stroke, after just eight weeks in Torbay Isadora (already pregnant) fled to America and then France. Paris did recover and with a private nurse returned to her in America.  Now with her babies, plenty of money, her art skills and a Temple (a thousand roomed hotel in Paris that Paris had bought as her school) her man was back what could go wrong.

Yet it would be in 1913 in France while dancing to the haunting melody of Chopin’s “Funeral March” that Isadora dreamt of her children at risk. Days later Paris came to inform her Deidre, Patrick and their car driver had been drowned in the River Seine. With the dark times back Paris now left and that inner strength failed her for a year until her poetry and positive dreaming finally returned. By 1914 she was on stage again and Paris was back and soon a new baby was due, but then it died days after its birth.

On the night of the Russian Revolution in 1917 her mind was set, and with Paris in his normal balcony box he could not have known he was watching her perform for the last time. Immediately after the performance she fled to Russia a place Paris would not go. There she met the Russian poet Essenin and for four years they were lovers until then she broke her promise to never marry and did in 1922.  Essenin would leave his fortune to her after death but even this she waived, stating the Essenin family were in far greater need than she. When interviewed later and asked which period of her life was the happiest she quickly responded "Russia, Russia, Russia – in all my years there with Essenin - for all the suffering, everything in my life was together”.  

Yet even his love affair could not survive forever and in 1925 after two years of marriage Isadora divorced Essinen and returned to her beloved America and also her school in Paris. Having lost her, Essenin then committted suicide. The final irony of this black or  "controversial life" came in September 1927 when after leaving the theatre in a chauffeur driven open top sports car suddenly one of her long Grecian silk scarves was caught up in a rear wheel. Literally yanked out of the back seat and already dead - all dreams ended then forever.

Buried at the Pe’re Lachaise Cemetery in Paris it would be twenty years before Russia honoured the 25thAnniversary of Isadora opening the Duncan school in Moscow. Later in  1946 the school was renamed the Moscow State Theatre studio. This "star of the aphrodite" like her father had been a dreamer throughout life yet actually achieved most of what she wished for. Today no plaques or memorials exist (even in Torbay) and her only true legacy are the unique skills of dance and choreography she adopted from ancient Greece, which today many believe are a precursor to most modern dance routines.