Solving a Charade: Notes on the Margins of Steegmuller’s book «Your Isadora»
Maria Prussak
The Institute of Literary Research of The Polish Academy of Sciences (Poland)
Abstract
The author discusses Francis Steegmuller’s book “Your Isadora”: The Love Story of Isadora Duncan and Gordon Craig Told through Letters and Diaries Never Before Published, translated into Polish by Agnieszka Kreczmar. The author notes that its focus on Duncan and Craig’s romantic relationship pushes artistic matters into the background and perpetuates the unfair tendency to portray the dancer-choreographer in terms of her love and sex life. Based on information from Polish-language periodicals, the author lists the errors and simplifications in Steegmuller’s book. She also adds to its findings by evoking biographical details about Duncan’s public profile (the deliberate shaping of her image in the press), politics (the pro-Polish aspect of her asking the Governor General’s to leave theatre box) or her role in reforming the performing arts (her aesthetic innovations in dance and choreography). The author of the article also supplements the biographer’s findings with information about the Berlin school of Isadora and Elizabeth Duncan.
Keywords:
dance, dance history, Isadora Duncan, Francis SteegmullerReferences
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Authors
Maria PrussakThe Institute of Literary Research of The Polish Academy of Sciences Poland
dr Maria Prussak
historian of literature and theatre, editor, translator. Graduated from the Polish Studies at the University of Warsaw and completed her doctoral studies at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences, with which she later connected her professional life. Her main interests include philological research, the development of scholarly editing, and the history of 20th century theatre and drama. She has published, among others, in Pamiętnik Teatralny and Dialog. From 1972 to 1982, a lecturer of the history of drama at the State Theatre School in Warsaw.
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Copyright (c) 1986 Maria Prussak
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