My father told me his mother’s best friend, Viola, was a “fruitcake” and a Isadora Duncan freak. Isadora was born in Oakland – in spite of the need of some historians to get her the hell out of there!

We Presco children knew Viola loved Melba – with a passion! That is Melba and Viola dressed up as dancers in the Oakland Hills near Joaquin Miller’s house, so says the caption on the back. I believe these close friends for life are giving one another a kiss. Did they know Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Tolklas were lesbians? Consider the book ‘Love Match’ by the author who was working on Christine’s missing biography. Pierrot claims Christine Rosamond read this book, and hired Faulkner after seeing her photo on the jacket.
Hmmmmmmm!

These images are going to the Oakland Museum.

Fruit Vale was a city by itself, founded by refugees of the San Francisco earthquake, my kindred having fled to a farm where they grew fruit for a living. This fruit was taken to the canneries by the estuary. This part of town is now a Art Colony called Jingletown. I almost rented a water tower here to use as a studio.

Rena became a dancer and choreographer. Of course I am guilty of entertaining ‘What If’. Of course I wanted Rena Victoria to be my dear friend – for life!

Jon Presco

Copyright 2013

She was born Alice Babette Toklas in San Francisco, California, into a middle-class Jewish family (her father had been a Polish army officer[1]) and attended schools in both San Francisco and Seattle. For a short time she also studied music at the University of Washington. She met Gertrude Stein in Paris on September 8, 1907, the day she arrived. Together they hosted a salon that attracted expatriate American writers, such as Ernest Hemingway, Paul Bowles, Thornton Wilder, and Sherwood Anderson, and avant-garde painters, including Picasso, Matisse, and Braque.

Acting as Stein’s confidante, lover, cook, secretary, muse, editor, critic, and general organizer, Toklas remained a background figure, chiefly living in the shadow of Stein, until Stein published her memoirs in 1933 under the teasing title The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. It became Stein’s bestselling book.

Fruitvale (formerly, Brays and Fruit Vale) is a neighborhood in east Oakland, California, in the United States. It is located about two miles southeast of Lake Merritt and is home to Oakland’s largest Latino population, with Latinos comprising 49.5% of Fruitvale’s population [1]. Fruitvale’s ZIP code is 94601. It lies at an elevation of 49 feet (15 m).
The name (originally Fruit Vale) comes from the many fruit orchards (largely apricot and cherry) which dominated the area in the late 19th century. After the 1906 earthquake, the onslaught of refugees from San Francisco caused a population boom, and the unincorporated neighborhood was annexed into the City of Oakland by 1909.

Angela Isadora Duncan (May 27, 1877 – September 14, 1927) was an American dancer. Born in California, she lived in Western Europe and the Soviet Union from the age of 22 until her death at age 50. She performed to acclaim throughout Europe after being exiled from the United States for her pro-Soviet sympathies.
Duncan’s fondness for flowing scarves was a contributing factor to her death in an automobile accident in Nice, France, when she was a passenger in an Amilcar. Her silk scarf, draped around her neck, became entangled around the open-spoked wheels and rear axle, breaking her neck.[1]
Duncan restored dance to a high place among the arts. Breaking with convention, she traced the art of dance back to its roots as a sacred art. She developed within this idea, free and natural movements inspired by the classical Greek arts, folk dances, social dances, nature and natural forces as well as an approach to the new American athleticism which included skipping, running, jumping, leaping and tossing. In 1987, she was inducted into the National Museum of Dance’s Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Hall of Fame.

Contents
 [hide] 
1 Early life
2 Work
3 Philosophy
4 Personal life
5 Later life
6 Death
7 Legacy
8 In popular culture
9 References
10 External links
Early life[edit source | edit]
Angela Isadora Duncan was born in San Francisco, California, as the youngest of four siblings. Her two brothers were Augustin Duncan and Raymond Duncan; her sister Elizabeth Duncan was also a dancer.[citation needed]
Their parents were Joseph Charles Duncan (1819–1898), a banker, mining engineer and connoisseur of the arts, and Mary Isadora Gray (1849–1922). Soon after Isadora’s birth, her father lost the bank and he was publicly disgraced and the family became extremely poor.[citation needed]
Her parents were divorced by 1889 (the papers were lost in the San Francisco earthquake), and her mother moved with her family to Oakland. She worked there as a pianist and music teacher. In her early years, Duncan did attend school but, finding it to be constricting to her individuality, she dropped out. As her family was very poor, both she and her sister gave dance classes to local children to earn extra money.[citation needed]
In 1896 Duncan became part of Augustin Daly’s theater company in New York. She soon became disillusioned with the form.[citation needed] Her father, along with his third wife and their daughter, died in the 1898 sinking of the British passenger steamer SS Mohegan.[citation needed]
Work[edit source | edit]

Isadora Duncan performing barefoot. Photo by Arnold Genthe during her 1915–18 American tour.
Duncan began her dancing career by teaching lessons in her home from the time she was six through her teenage years. Her different approach to dance is evident in these preliminary classes, in which she “followed [her] fantasy and improvised, teaching any pretty thing that came into [her] head”.[2] A desire to travel brought Duncan to Chicago where she auditioned for many theater companies, finally finding a place in Augustin Daly’s company. This job took her to New York City where her unique vision of dance clashed with the popular pantomimes of theater companies.[3] Feeling unhappy and limited with her work in Daly’s company and with American audiences, Duncan decided to move to London in 1898. There she found work performing in the drawing rooms of the wealthy and inspiration from the Greek vases and bas-reliefs in the British Museum.[4] The money she earned from these engagements allowed her to rent a dance studio to develop her work and create larger performances for the stage.[5] From London, Duncan traveled to Paris, where she drew inspiration from the Louvre and the Exposition Universelle of 1900.[6]
One day in 1902, Loie Fuller visited Duncan’s studio and invited Duncan to tour with her. This took Duncan all over Europe creating new works using her innovative dance technique.[7] This style consisted of a focus on natural movement instead of the rigid technique of ballet.[8] She spent most of the rest of her life in this manner, touring in Europe as well as North and South America, where she performed to mixed critical reviews.[9] Despite the critics’ mixed reactions, she became quite popular for her distinct style and inspired many visual artists, such as Antoine Bourdelle, Auguste Rodin, and Abraham Walkowitz, to create works based on her.[10]
Duncan disliked the commercial aspects of public performance like touring and contracts because she felt they distracted her from her real mission: the creation of beauty and the education of the young. To achieve her mission, she opened schools to teach young women her dance philosophy. The first was established in 1904 in Grunewald, Germany. This institution was the birthplace of the “Isadorables” – Anna, Maria-Theresa, Irma, Lisel, Gretel, Erika, Isabelle and Temple (Isadora’s niece)[11] – Duncan’s protégées, who would go on to continue her legacy.[12] Later, Duncan established a school in Paris that was shortly closed due to the outbreak of World War I.[13]
In 1914, Duncan moved to the United States and transferred the school there. A townhouse on Gramercy Park was provided for its use, and its studio was nearby, on the northeast corner of 23rd Street and Fourth Avenue, which is now Park Avenue South.[14] Otto Kahn, the head of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. gave Duncan use of the very modern Century Theatre at West 60th Street and Central Park West for her performances and productions, which included a staging of Oedipus Rex, which involved almost all of Duncan’s extended entourage and friends.[15]
Duncan had been due to leave the US in 1915 on board the RMS Lusitania on the voyage on which it sank, but historians believe her financial situation at the time drove her to choose a more modest crossing.[16]
In 1921, her leftist sympathies took her to the Soviet Union where she founded a school in Moscow. However, the Soviet government’s failure to follow through on promises to support her work caused her to move West and leave the school to Irma.[17]
Philosophy[edit source | edit]

Isadora Duncan in a Grecian-inspired pose and wearing her signature Grecian tunic
Duncan’s philosophy of dance moved away from rigid ballet technique and towards what she perceived as natural movement. To restore dance to a high art form instead of entertainment, she sought the connection between emotions and movement: “I spent long days and nights in the studio seeking that dance which might be the divine expression of the human spirit through the medium of the body’s movement.”[18] Duncan took inspiration from ancient Greece and combined it with an American love of freedom. This is exemplified in her revolutionary costume of a white Grecian tunic and bare feet. Inspired by Grecian forms, her tunics also allowed a freedom of movement corseted ballet costumes and pointe shoes did not.[19] Costumes were not the only inspiration Duncan took from Greece. She was very inspired by ancient Greek art and utilized some of those forms in her movement (see image).[20]
Duncan wrote of American dancing: “let them come forth with great strides, leaps and bounds, with lifted forehead and far-spread arms, to dance.”[21] Her focus on natural movement emphasized steps, such as skipping, outside of codified ballet technique. Duncan also cites the sea as an early inspiration for her movement.[22] Also, she believed movement originated from the solar plexus, which she thought was the source of all movement.[18] It was this philosophy and new dance technique that garnered Duncan the title of the creator of modern dance.
Personal life[edit source | edit]
Both in her professional and private lives, Duncan flouted traditional mores and morality. She was bisexual,[23] and alluded to her Communism during her last United States tour, in 1922–23; Duncan waved a red scarf and bared her breast on stage in Boston, proclaiming, “This is red! So am I!”[24]

Isadora Duncan and Sergei Yesenin
Duncan bore two children, both out of wedlock – the first, Deirdre (born September 24, 1906), by theatre designer Gordon Craig, and the second, Patrick (born May 1, 1910),[25] by Paris Singer, one of the many sons of sewing machine magnate Isaac Singer. Both children died in an accident on the Seine River on April 19, 1913. The children were in the car with their nurse, returning home after lunch with Isadora and Paris Singer. The driver stalled the car while attempting to avoid a collision with another car. He got out to hand-crank the engine, but forgot to set the parking brake. The car rolled across the Boulevard Bourdon, down the embankment and into the river. The children and the nanny drowned.[25]
Following the accident, Duncan spent several months recuperating in Corfu with her brother and sister. After this, she spent several weeks at the Viareggio seaside resort with actress Eleonora Duse. The fact that Duse had just left a relationship with the rebellious young lesbian feminist Lina Poletti fueled speculation as to the nature of Duncan and Duse’s relationship, but there has never been definite proof that the two were involved romantically.[26] In her autobiography, Duncan relates that she begged a young Italian stranger — the sculptor Romano Romanelli[27] — to sleep with her because of her desperation to have another baby. She did become pregnant after the deaths of her elder two children. She gave birth to a son, who lived only a few hours and was never named.[citation needed]
In 1922 she married the Russian poet Sergei Yesenin who was 18 years her junior. Yesenin accompanied her on a tour of Europe and the United States. The following year he left Duncan and returned to Moscow. He committed suicide in 1925, aged 30.[citation needed]
Duncan had an affair with poet and playwright Mercedes de Acosta which is documented in numerous revealing letters they wrote to each other.[28] In one she wrote, “Mercedes, lead me with your little strong hands and I will follow you—to the top of a mountain. To the end of the world. Wherever you wish.”[29]
Later life[edit source | edit]
By the end of her life Duncan’s performing career had dwindled and she became as notorious for her financial woes, scandalous love life and all-too-frequent public drunkenness as for her contributions to the arts. She spent her final years moving between Paris and the Mediterranean, running up debts at hotels. She spent short periods in apartments rented on her behalf by a decreasing number of friends and supporters, many of whom attempted to assist her in writing an autobiography. They hoped it might be successful enough to support her.[citation needed] In a reminiscent sketch, Zelda Fitzgerald recalled how she and her husband sat in a Paris cafe watching a somewhat drunk Duncan. He would speak of how memorable it was, but what Zelda recalled was that while all eyes were watching Duncan, Zelda was able to steal the salt and pepper shakers from the table.[30]
In his book Isadora, an Intimate Portrait, Sewell Stokes, who met Duncan in the last years of her life, describes her extravagant waywardness. Duncan’s autobiography My Life was published in 1927. Composer Percy Grainger called Isadora’s autobiography a “life-enriching masterpiece.”[31]
Death [edit source | edit]

Tomb of Isadora Duncan at Père Lachaise Cemetery
Duncan’s fondness for flowing scarves was a contributing factor to her death in an automobile accident in Nice, France, at the age of 50. The shawl was hand-painted silk by the Russian-born artist Roman Chatov, and was a gift from her friend Mary Desti, the mother of American film director Preston Sturges. Desti, who saw Duncan off, reported that she had asked Duncan to wear a cape because it was cold out, and the car was an open-air one, but Duncan would only agree to wear the shawl.[32]
On the night of September 14, 1927, Duncan was a passenger in the Amilcar automobile of a French-Italian mechanic Benoît Falchetto, whom she had nicknamed “Buggatti” [sic].[citation needed] This is the reason that many writers have erroneously said she was killed in a Bugatti car.
Before getting into the car, she reportedly said to her friend Desti and some companions, “Adieu, mes amis. Je vais à la gloire!” (“Farewell, my friends. I go to glory!”), however, according to American novelist Glenway Wescott, who was in Nice at the time and visited Duncan’s body in the morgue, Desti admitted that she had lied about Duncan’s last words. Instead, she told Wescott, Duncan said, “Je vais à l’amour” (“I am off to love”). Desti considered this embarrassing, as it suggested that she and Falchetto were going to her hotel for a tryst. Her silk scarf, a gift from Desti, draped around her neck, became entangled around the open-spoked wheels and rear axle, breaking her neck.[1] Desti claims that she called out to warn Duncan about the shawl almost immediately after the car left. Desti brought Duncan to the hospital, where she was declared dead.[32]
As The New York Times noted in its obituary: “Isadora Duncan, the American dancer, tonight met a tragic death at Nice on the Riviera. According to dispatches from Nice, Miss Duncan was hurled in an extraordinary manner from an open automobile in which she was riding and instantly killed by the force of her fall to the stone pavement.”[33] Other sources described her death as resulting from strangulation, noting that she was almost decapitated by the sudden tightening of the scarf around her neck.[34] The accident gave rise to Gertrude Stein’s mordant remark that “affectations can be dangerous”.[35] At her death, Duncan was a Soviet citizen. Her will was the first of a Soviet citizen to be probated in the U.S.[citation needed]
Isadora Duncan was cremated, and her ashes were placed next to those of her children[36] in the columbarium at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. The headstone of her grave contains the inscription École de Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris (“Ballet School of the Opera of Paris”).
Legacy[edit source | edit]
Duncan restored dance to a high place among the arts. Breaking with convention, she traced the art of dance back to its roots as a sacred art.[34] She developed within this idea, free and natural movements inspired by the classical Greek arts, folk dances, social dances, nature and natural forces as well as an approach to the new American athleticism which included skipping, running, jumping, leaping and tossing.
While her schools in Europe did not survive for long, her work had impact in the art and her style is still danced by a new generation of loyal followers based on the instruction of Maria-Theresa Duncan, Anna Duncan, and Irma Duncan, three of her six adopted daughters.
Already in 1913, when the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées was built, Duncan’s likeness was carved in its bas-relief over the entrance by sculptor Antoine Bourdelle and included in painted murals of the nine muses by Maurice Denis in the auditorium.
In 1987, she was inducted into the National Museum of Dance’s Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Hall of Fame.

Angela Isadora Duncan (May 27, 1877 – September 14, 1927) was an American dancer. Born in California, she lived in Western Europe and the Soviet Union from the age of 22 until her death at age 50. She performed to acclaim throughout Europe after being exiled from the United States for her pro-Soviet sympathies.Duncan’s fondness for flowing scarves was a contributing factor to her death in an automobile accident in Nice, France, when she was a passenger in an Amilcar. Her silk scarf, draped around her neck, became entangled around the open-spoked wheels and rear axle, breaking her neck.[1]Duncan restored dance to a high place among the arts. Breaking with convention, she traced the art of dance back to its roots as a sacred art. She developed within this idea, free and natural movements inspired by the classical Greek arts, folk dances, social dances, nature and natural forces as well as an approach to the new American athleticism which included skipping, running, jumping, leaping and tossing. In 1987, she was inducted into the National Museum of Dance’s Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Hall of Fame.Contents [hide] 1 Early life2 Work3 Philosophy4 Personal life5 Later life6 Death7 Legacy8 In popular culture9 References10 External linksEarly life[edit source]Angela Isadora Duncan was born in San Francisco, California, as the youngest of four siblings. Her two brothers were Augustin Duncan and Raymond Duncan; her sister Elizabeth Duncan was also a dancer.[citation needed]Their parents were Joseph Charles Duncan (1819–1898), a banker, mining engineer and connoisseur of the arts, and Mary Isadora Gray (1849–1922). Soon after Isadora’s birth, her father lost the bank and he was publicly disgraced and the family became extremely poor.[citation needed]Her parents were divorced by 1889 (the papers were lost in the San Francisco earthquake), and her mother moved with her family to Oakland. She worked there as a pianist and music teacher. In her early years, Duncan did attend school but, finding it to be constrictin

“My biopic on the artist Rosamond was optioned by Oscar-winning producer Ronald Schwary and my courtroom drama placed second out of three thousand scripts in the 2007 IndieProducer Screenplay Contest.”

Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan was born in Oakland, California in 1877. Her mother was an accomplished pianist who introduced her to the great composers, whose music later inspired Isadora’s creation of a new dance form. Isadora’s genius was appreciated by her family when she was very young, but her revolutionary ideas on dance were not well accpeted in America. When Isadora was in her teens, the family moved to Europe, where her genius was recognized. Even so, raising money was always difficult, until Isadora met her “Lohengrin”, an American heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune. With his financial support, she founded schools of Duncan dance in France and Germany. Eventually, Isadora gained great fame in both Europe and America; in fact, in the entire world.

Severe tragedy struck at the peak of her fame. Her two children were drowned when their car rolled into the Seine. When she eventually returned to her Art with the encouragement of the great actress Eleanor Duse, her choreography reflected her suffering.

Painting of Isadora Duncan
by Fritz August von Kaulbach from
“Isadora Duncan, The Art of the Dance”
Courtesy Theatre Arts Books.
Isadora’s dream was to teach children who would then continue to teach others. This was more important to her than performances, although performing was important as a motivating force and also to help finance her school. One of her objectives was to obtain government support for the school. The first and only government to sponsor her work was the Soviet Union, and this support lasted approximately ten years.
Isadora Duncan died as dramatically as she had lived. She wore scarves which were long enough to trail behind her. On September 19, 1927 in France, her scarf became entangled in the rear wheel of a convertible car. When the car started, she was strangled.
Isadora died but her dream lives on. Six of her most gifted students eventually settled in the United States, and were adopted by Isadora Duncan and took her last name. Only three of these women continued to teach and perform for many years; Irma, Anna and Maria Theresa. Irma Duncan taught in New York City for eight years and her students are still dancing and teaching. One of Irma’s students was Sylvia Rubinstein Gold.