"It was a long procession I saw from a distance. Black and mournful it came. There were men laden and bent under their loads -- coffins -- one after another. The coachman slowed his horse to a walk, and bent and crossed himself. I looked on in the indistinct dawn, filled with horror. I asked him what that was. Although I knew no Russian, he managed to convey to me that these were the workmen shot down before the Winter Palace the day before -- January 5th, 1905 -- because, unarmed, they had come to ask the Tsar for help in their distress -- for bread for their wives and children." (118)
So writes Isadora Duncan of her first visit to Russia (St Petersburg), after conquering hearts in England, France, Austria, Hungary and Germany. Like these countries, Russia had its own particular response to Duncan and her attempts to revive non-balletic classical dance at the onset of European modernism. Bravos, of course, but also observations which Duncan shares in My Life (1928). Here is Konstantin Stanislavski:
"Duncan does not know how to speak of her art logically and systematically. Her ideas come to her by accident, as the result of the most unexpected everyday facts. For instance, when she was asked who taught her to dance, she answered:
'Terpsichore. I danced from the moment I learned to stand on my feet. I have danced all my life. Man, all humanity, the whole world, must dance. This was, and always will be. It is in vain that people interfere with this and do not want to understand a natural need given us by nature.'" (123)
