What were some of the tragic aspects of the life of famed American dancer Isadora Duncan?

Answer: Duncan reached great heights in her professional career, but some remarkable lows in her private life.

Born in 1877, into a prominent and wealthy Californian family, her fortunes changed when her banker, entrepreneur and patron of the arts father was bankrupted in a fraudulent stock speculation scheme.

Spending her childhood in poverty, Duncan was to live in Europe from the age of 22.

She was regarded as the mother of modern dance. Her movements were borrowed from Ancient Greece, and she danced in flowing costumes, bare feet, and loose hair—revolutionary at the time.

She was to gain fame in Europe although she suffered financial loss from dance schools she had established. One of her managers also defrauded her.

Embracing free love, and she had numerous love affairs. Tragically her two children drowned with their governess when the car they were in rolled into the Seine River in Paris 1914.

Duncan married the Russian poet Sergei Yesenin, eighteen years her junior, but he left here and hanged himself in 1925, having written his last poem in his own blood.

Duncan, who had a liking for long scarves, died bizarrely in 1927 when the scarf she was wearing got caught in the rear wheel of the sports car she was a passenger in, breaking her neck.

Source: General Historical Texts

More at: History

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