Editing Isadora Duncan (section)

== Philosophy and technique ==
[[File:Isadora Duncan 1.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|left|Duncan in a Greek-inspired pose and wearing her signature Greek tunic. She took inspiration from the classical Greek arts and combined them with an American athleticism to form a new philosophy of dance, in opposition to the rigidity of traditional ballet.]]

Breaking with convention, Duncan imagined she had traced dance to its roots as a sacred art.<ref>Stewart J, Sacred Woman, Sacred Dance, 2000. p. 122.</ref> She developed from this notion a style of 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.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=Dancing the Future, Performing the Past: Isadora Duncan and Wagnerism in the American Imagination|last=Simonson|first=Mary|date=2012|journal=Journal of the American Musicological Society|volume=65|issue=2|pages=511-555,624|url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/dancing-future-performing-past-isadora-duncan/docview/1095738713/se-2}}</ref>{{citation needed|date=January 2017}} Duncan wrote of American dancing: "let them come forth with great strides, leaps and bounds, with lifted forehead and far-spread arms, to dance."<ref>Duncan (1927), p. 343</ref> Her focus on natural movement emphasized steps, such as skipping, outside of codified ballet technique.

Duncan also cited the sea as an early inspiration for her movement,<ref>Duncan (1927), p. 10</ref> and she believed movement originated from the [[solar plexus]].<ref name="Duncan, 75"/> Duncan placed an emphasis on "evolutionary" dance motion, insisting that each movement was born from the one that preceded it, that each movement gave rise to the next, and so on in organic succession. It is this philosophy and new dance technique that garnered Duncan the title of the creator of modern dance.

Duncan's philosophy of dance moved away from rigid [[ballet technique]] and towards what she perceived as natural movement. She said that in order to restore dance to a high art form instead of merely entertainment, she strove to connect 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."<ref name="Duncan, 75">Duncan (1927), p. 75</ref> She believed dance was meant to encircle all that life had to offer—joy and sadness. Duncan took inspiration from ancient Greece and combined it with a passion for freedom of movement. This is exemplified in her revolutionary costume of a white Greek tunic and bare feet. Inspired by Greek forms, her tunics also allowed a freedom of movement that corseted ballet costumes and [[pointe shoe]]s did not.<ref>Kurth (2001), p. 57</ref> Costumes were not the only inspiration Duncan took from Greece: she was also inspired by ancient [[Greek art]], and utilized some of its forms in her movement (as shown on photos).<ref>Duncan (1927), p. 45</ref>