Isadora Duncan

Before Martha Graham and Aronofsky's Black Swan, there was a legend called Isadora Duncan. Died in a freak accident in 1927, Duncan was widely acknowledged as the creator of modern dance. Born in San Francisco in 1877, at an early age, she dropped out of school, which she considered to be restricting her originality. She and her sister started giving dance lessons to help their family. She moved to Europe in 1899, settling in Paris. Rejecting the traditional form and strict nature of ballet, she set up her own dance school, emphasizing on free and natural body movements as inspired by the Greek classical arts, nature, folk dance and spirituality. She was a dance theorist and her philosophy of "free movement" and natural expressionism paved the way to what is today's contemporary dance.

All images sourced from Google Images