DUNCAN DANCER: The Autobiography of Irma Duncan

This fascinating and touching autobiography tells the story of the ""Duncan Dancers,"" educational arm of the mighty psyche of the innovating, evangelical dancer, Isadora Duncan. From Hamburg, Germany in 1905, eight-year-old Irma was miraculously enfolded into a school of sixteen little girls, presided over somewhat grimly by Tante Elizabeth, sister of Isadora. Sandalled, tuniced, limbs gleaming in a rigid European society, they caused a sensation in their public appearances across Europe. But Isadora's genius did not lie in administration--lack of money hounded Art. Her love affairs and sorrows (she lost her own three children), debt and broken promises, caused her to leave the school in alien and unsympathetic hands. Hardships followed--grim governesses, near starvation in a terrible French rural winter, grueling travel. Irma, in her twenties, found herself the sole performing survivor of a long defunct school. Lured to Russia by Isadora, Irma valiantly carried on her teaching work with a mammoth project sponsored (in name only) by the new revolutionary government, even travelled to China (an incredible experience), and after Isadora's death danced a farewell in an Ode to Joy performance in New York in 1933. A dance shelf special.