He Builds, She Dances, They Love, They Part

Although she took the dance world by storm at the turn of the century, Isadora Duncan occupies an uncomfortable place in the dance pantheon. Less influential than Martha Graham, or even Mary Wigman, she was once the ideal of the contemporary dancer, a wild, free spirit who lived as she performed, refusing tradition. These days she is remembered as a  relic of a naive early twentieth century modernity, full of romantic ideals about the ancients, flaccid mysticism and for wearing a scarf that was ignored health and safety requirements for car journeys.

Nevertheless, she remains an inspiration. Robert Shaw discovered that Duncan had had an ill-fated romance with Edward Gordon Craig, the revolutionary set designer, and has used their letters as the basis of Teddy and Topsy. Part love story, part study of theatrical mavericks, Shaw has homed in on a great meeting of minds and desires.

“Peter Brook says that  most contemporary theatre design owes its origin to Craig’s  ideas, although they have never truly acknowledged,” Shaw begins.  “Duncan's influence on dance (she's often called "the mother of modern dance") is equally important and more widely recognised.  I was fascinated by the fact that these two outsiders, who forced their respective establishments to change, gravitated towards each other emotionally and romantically.”

Part of the problem with Duncan is that she was so determined to be a trail-blazer, much of her official writing comes across as egotistical. Fortunately, Shaw discovered a more personal revelation. “In her autobiography, she writes in a rather grand and portentous style,” he admits. “But in her letters we get an authentic voice.  You get the clear feeling that she writes exactly as she thinks and speaks, making the letters a dream for any actor to perform.  She is funny, romantic, creative, poetic, whimsical.  She describes everything going on around her very clearly and entertainingly.  It's like being present in the same room with her.”   

Even the title of the play emphasises that this is not the Duncan of official record: however, she perhaps reflects herself more closely in these unguarded missives. “Her letters reflect exactly the freedom she looked for in her dancing,” believes Shaw. “And I was especially drawn to the fact that she was quite determined to succeed on her own terms. A lot of what Isadora stood for seem very contemporary but was most unusual in her day.  For example, she was an unmarried mother of two children and she made a career without a man behind her or guiding her.” 

Perhaps her lifestyle, more than her dance style and idiosyncratic interpretations of Classical Greek religion, makes Duncan our contemporary. Even the relationship with Craig faltered for very recognisable reasons. “I think their romance was fated to fail, as so many also are today, through pressure of work,” Shaw concludes.  “Duncan was always on the road.  Craig was looking for a location for his school.  Duncan was constantly touring northern Europe.  Craig was in Italy.  In the end, it was geography that did for them - and Craig's notorious promiscuity.”

As Shaw notes, his project is very different from the many organisations around the world who seek to preserve Duncan’s choreography – a thankless task, given the lack of documentation she cultivated. And rather than a hagiography of two greats, he strives to represent a powerful love affair between two individuals who made great changes to their art-forms and came together in a passionate and intimate, if doomed, embrace.