The New York herald., 1922-01-08
MiSSDunCan,
Dancer,Busy
In Moscow

Special Correspondence TO The NEW York
HERALD.
Copyright, 1922. by The New York HERALD.
Moscow, Dec. 3, 1921
A EISS ISADORA DUNCAN has taken
MI over the Soviet National School
of Dancing in the hope of recon
Cling her zone and only true art of dane
ing with the zone and only ideal Govern
ment." She has been given palace to
live in for herself and part of another
one for her school.
Under the high protection of Lunachar-
sky, Minister of Fine Arts, she gave free
popular performance at the ex-Imperial
Opera at Moscow recently, dancing to rev.
olutionary music 10 commemorate the an
niversary of the Bolshevik revolution She
now hopes to have her dream realized of
her own national school of dancing AL
ready $50 little Moscow children come for
her instruction. There is no doubt that she
puts her whole soul into her work with
them.
"There is no hope for bourgeois coun-
tries" Miss Duncan explained TO me from
in her palace. Becoming more specific, she
continued, America never appreciated my
art enough to give me a school," Miss
Duncan should well be able to estimate
the degree of bourgeois hopelessness out
side, having lived so many years in the
midst of middle class comforts herself and
missing them very acutely now.
An enthusiastic Tovarish, and new in
Soviet Russia, Miss Duncan still hopes to
achieve where others have failed--to weld
art and communism together. "Proletkult''
the Soviet abbreviation for proletarian
culture-was the name which Lunachar-
sky had given his department He had
hoped to glorify the revolution through
radical art. At first the output OF futurist
plaster casts and bright red and yellow
pictures was large. and every one agreed
that they were modern enough, indeed too
modern, in the opinion of most Russian
critics, to be called either art or proletarian.
But there were not enough proletarian
artists who could do things the people
understood. Consequently Proletkult was
dying natural death until Miss Duncan
came and attempted to put new life into it.
Isadora Points Russia
Toward Worship of Apollo
Camerade Duncan feels that her former
dances are in themselves revolutionary
revolt against the formal Russian ballet
worse than czarism in her opinon-and
therefore, is presenting them unchanged
before the Russian public, preceded and
concluded by calling upon her pupils and
the public present to chant the Interna-
szw., ,IA
OF most travellers one of the few remaining
bright spots in drab Russia to-day-should
be abolished, declared Miss Duncan, but
also most of the more essentially national
Russian peasant dances. She saw some
Russian children dancing a simple rondo
with handkerchief dropping and that sort
OF thing symbolizing country courtship
and found it nefarious in that she imag.
ined 1t somehow seemed to involve sub
servience to the Car. With a skyward
gesture she told the little Moujik children
through an interpreter that they should
make the same uplft and think of Apollo.
In no country could she have found such
willing pupils as in Russia. Some of them
splash five miles across the muddy Moscow
streets to her studio They gather in the
big, cold room. themselves blue with cold
and underfeeding, but intensely eager all
OF them to become great dancers.
Combining art and official communism
seems, however, an impossible task. Came
rade Duncan found it especially difficult
because of the absence of the necessary
material facilities A bankrupt Govern.
ment could not offer much in the way of
comforts beyond sympathy. While / was
there the dancing school was closed for a
week for want Of wood. After desperate
and imploring appeals some was sent
"one poor little stick" as Miss Duncan
moaned. holding il up in despair.
l attended the revolutionary anniversary
performance Miss Duncan gave early in
November, dancing Tchaikowsky and the
Internationale at the ex-Imperial Opera
All seats were free, distributed among good
Communists, among the trade unions and
to the Red army. The remainder of the
Red army was moblized to prevent the
eager crowds from forcing the doors al
this much heralded first appearance
Imperial BaIIet's Protests Against
The Duncan Way of Dancing
Miss Duncan's dancing was a fair dem
onstration of her traditional method. with
supreme ecstasy added. AT each pause the
Internationale was sung. This was always
l-rf