One day in 1899 the building in which the Duncans were teaching caught fire. Isadora gave recitals at the homes of society ladies, and she and Elizabeth taught dancing to children while her mother played the piano. From 1895 to the end of 1897 Isadora took part in Daly’s productions, sometimes as an incidental dancer, sometimes as a bit player, in New York. In 1895 Isadora and her mother traveled to Chicago where, after a brief dancing engagement, Isadora was hired by New York producer Augustin Daly for his touring company. Led by the older brother Augustin (who would become a well-known actor) they toured the California coast with their own version of plays and entertainment. The young Duncans were interested in all the arts. Opera companies from Europe performed there, as did eminent actors Edwin Booth, Sarah Bernhardt, Henry Irving, and Ellen Terry. The San Francisco area was already a center of music and theatre. (The family had moved to Oakland after the bank’s failure.) The sisters and their brothers also taught social dancing: waltzes, polkas, and schottisches. In 1890 at the age of 13, Isadora gave her first dance recital at the First Unitarian Church in Oakland. Delsarte’s theories and the Greek costumes would have an effect on Isadora as her own dance evolved. (It was then the Greek revival period in both European and American art). Richard Hovey who lectured, danced, or declaimed poetry with eloquent gestures, wearing Greek robes. Among his American followers were Genevieve Stebbins and Mrs. The French Delsarte believed that “the Natural” is the most beautiful, and that natural movement is that which is made in accord with both the structure of the body and the pull of gravity. She was also influenced by the ideas of Francois Delsarte (1811-1871). When not teaching, or in school, Isadora explored the beach and would later say that her earliest ideas of dance came from watching the rhythms of the waves. The two boys found odd jobs, while young Isadora and her sister Elizabeth taught dancing to neighborhood children. Her mother had to give piano lessons to support her four children. Shortly afterward her parents were divorced and her father remarried. In October of the same year, her father’s bank failed. Isadora Duncan was born on May 26, 1877, to a prominent San Francisco family.

Isadora duncan life