Dance & Choreography
Contemporary Dancer and Choreographer Lori Belilove Preserves Isadora Duncan’s Legacy
May 2026
Lori Belilove & The Isadora Duncan Dance Company Dancers with Children in a Circle at Untermyer Gardens
Photo Credit: Henry Cohen
Photo Credit: Henry Cohen
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By Dawn Lille
Who was Isadora Duncan?
To many of the young and not so young modern feminists Isadora Duncan (1879-1927) has been a model and historical mentor. Called “the mother of modern dance,” she preceded most in this artistic development, but her ideas and the interpretation of them have been influential. There are no films of Duncan dancing but there is a tale — probably hypothetical — in which she began her dance in a crouch on the ground and, when she ended with her arms raised overhead, the entire audience was standing with her. Her admirers included the sculptor Auguste Rodin and the Russian choreographer Mikhail Fokine. Born in San Francisco, Duncan had three siblings and was raised and supported by a mother who taught piano. (Her father had deserted them.) In this free-thinking household she was exposed to all the arts, including ballet. In an era when standards said art must be beautiful, her family went to Greece in search of the origins of beauty. She was interested in the emotional source of movement, which had to be free, clear and simple wave-like forms that involved endless motion exploring limitless space. She looked for movements in nature and the other arts. She felt that social change came from gifted people, that one learned about beauty by the living of it. For her, the body had to be free of constricting clothing and music was the initial inspiration for movement. So, her costumes were made of flowing silk chiffon, and the classics were her musical accompaniment. Her early works were lyrical, and the later ones filled with grief and the horrors of war. |
Isadora Duncan with Arms Raised Above her Head
Photo Credit: Arnold Genthe |
Isadora Duncan in Tanagra Figure
Photo Credit: Elvira Studio |
She believed in educating children and opened three schools, one in Berlin (1904), one in Paris (1914) and one in Moscow (1920). She adopted four of her students, calling them “Isadorables,” and it was they –Irma, Anna, Lisa and Maria Theresa – who continued sharing her legacy after her death. There were two others, Margo and Erica, but they did not live long enough to keep the legacy going.
America was not ready to accept Duncan’s ideas; although she did perform here, it was Europe that saw and appreciated her. Her personal life also received attention. She did not believe in marriage, due to her family experience, and felt that men should not be given control of dance or women. She had a love affair with Gordon Craig, a gifted scenic designer, who left her in France pregnant. Her later alliance with a prominent member of the Singer family resulted in the birth of her second child. He set her up in a spacious home with a dance studio on the outskirts of Paris, but when the two children died in a car that went off a bridge, she left. A later marriage to an emotionally disturbed Russian poet, whose care she paid for, ended with his death. She died when the end of one of her long, flowing scarves was caught under the wheel of the car in which she was riding. Duncan once said that “the poor world” needed beauty and harmony and that “the dancer of the future would not belong to the nation, but to all humanity.” |
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Dancer Lori Belilove Continues to Celebrate Duncan’s Legacy Lori Belilove is also a child of California. Growing up in Berkeley, she was a tomboy who loved athletics and was raised in a home that encouraged art, new ideas, gardening and animals. On a trip to Europe with her mother, they met Vassos Kanelos, a Greek dancer, choreographer, producer and teacher of Duncan technique. He had studied with Duncan and had researched Greek folk dance, creating choreodramas that were performed in Greece and America. He invited Lori to study with him and, at age seventeen, she returned to Athens to do so. There she spent two years studying dance and going to performances and museums. After returning home, she earned a degree at Mills College and learned the dance techniques of Martha Graham, Jose Limon and Anna Halprin, among others. She came to New York City and founded the Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation in 1980. As a dancer (she performed in a PBS documentary on Duncan), choreographer and teacher, she has devoted her entire career to Isadora Duncan in order to retain her legacy, create new works, and teach the next generation. Her aim is to develop cultural consciousness and self-expression. |
Lori Belilove
Photo Credit: Rose Eichenbaum |
Lori Belilove Mid-Step in a Performance in Russia.
Photo Credit: Vladimir Lupovsky |
Sanctuary contributor Dawn Lille asked Lori about Isadora Duncan’s philosophy, how she has interpreted Duncan’s style as a contemporary dancer, and the founding of the Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation.
Can you explain your involvement with Duncan and how you became dedicated?
I was exposed to dancers who had studied with her, and they exposed me to her thinking as a philosophy. They got me into the studio and before I knew it, I was dancing Duncan. Either I was introduced to people or I sought them out. I went to the closest sources I could find. She’s dead, but her legacy was what I was curious about. How do you explain her philosophy? Joie de vivre. She looked at life like an open book. She did not take to the custom of her era when women were pressured into a small life, owned by their husbands and unable to function on their own. She broke the norms and challenged the status quo. She conducted her life as a modern woman way ahead of her time and didn’t take no for an answer. That affected her whole life – clothing, relationships, dance, thinking. She was going to travel the world, dance, and give people and children an uplifting sensibility. |
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Many have said that Duncan’s art died with her. Yet you are teaching her technique and recreating her dances. Can you explain this and how you make it contemporary?
Absolutely. I went on a research project to find every existing Duncan dancer who had studied and performed directly with Isadora. That journey took me from California to New York, then throughout Europe and Russia. I am always looking for threads of history. I found that Duncan dancers from all over the world had the same repertory and technique. This confirmed for me that there is a technique (unlike what some dance historians purport) and a body of knowledge passed down body to body, lovingly through decades. The repertory (or the variations on them) include over 80 choreographies – from symphonies to one-minute Chopin waltzes! I came to understand that Duncan taught meticulously, as did Anna and Irma with whom I studied — they were very clear about what you do and how you do it. I make the work contemporary by the nature of when I was born. I’m a contemporary woman and I reflect my times! I have studied many modern dance techniques, and I cannot help but let the aesthetic of modern life affect me. I took the approach to explore the soul and heart of Duncan’s work. I studied with these women who were in their 60s and 70s. They did not have a lot of energy, but they did have clarity, vibrancy and aliveness. The technique itself is beautiful, and the dances are timeless jewels of American modern dance. Actually, I create my own dances and leave Isadora’s alone! What was your aim in founding the Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation?
To gather the Duncan dancers, especially my teachers, together. I honored them and asked them to be my lifelong artistic advisers. I wanted to embrace what I knew of the living legacy and to train and bring young people into the fold. |
Lori Belilove & The Isadora Duncan Dance Company in performance in China
(Lori in Orange Tunic, Front) Photo Credit: Wu Jun |
You emphasize teaching children and won a 2025 Dance Teacher Magazine Award for your efforts. Why is your passion here?
Lori Belilove Leading a Children's Duncan Dance Class ~ Old Westbury Gardens
Photo Credit: Rose Eichenbaum |
Because Duncan dancing has a vibrant child-like simplicity. I just tap into my inner childhood when teaching, whether the students are three to ninety-three, it’s all the same: to breathe and move from the solar plexus, expand your wings (arms), and travel with a fresh spirit, whether walking, skipping or leaping. I love the little ones because they bring me so much, but I also know that they get something special out of Duncan dancing. They understand that it is dance for them, although people of all ages feel this.
When the feminist movement evolved, there were often references to Duncan. How did and do you react to this? Isadora did not want to be labeled a feminist. She did not like labels, but we know that she was for full-blown women’s rights. I can align myself a bit with her. I have never been in a circumstance that caused the #MeToo movement to get so ugly, and I’ve never experienced rape or mistreatment, but I can sympathize completely because it is raw and ugly and needs to shift. Duncan dance gives the clarity of who you are, which I think helps ward off some of these troubles. Dancers don’t get mugged on the street very often because they breathe fully, chests up, walking proud and free, and they know how to carry their bags. I don’t see myself as a victim, and I don’t think Isadora saw herself that way. |
If we wear really sexy clothing, do we bring on problems as women? I have danced in near nudity in sheer tunics, but I never felt a lecherous eye because the audience understood that we were going back to the beauty of the human body. That is what is evoked when we dance Duncan – the beauty of living sculptures!
Duncan was admired by many who commented on her sensuality. Do you agree? Do you think this comes across to today’s audience?
Duncan was admired by many who commented on her sensuality. Do you agree? Do you think this comes across to today’s audience?
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There is a difference between sensuality and titillation. There is a whole section of Duncan repertory that is more sensual; for instance, ‘The Many Faces of Love,’ danced to the Brahms Waltzes. In one repertory class, we were doing an arm and leg movement, and the teacher said to make sure to show the inner thigh, the inner arm, the armpit, and the neck. All of that sensuality is part of the Duncan material, as a warm holistic gathering of your feminine beauty and self. I recall a very thoughtful member of the audience remark, ‘The word yearning keeps coming up for me, Lori, as I watched your program.’ Maybe that says it all.
How do you reconstruct a Duncan dance? I studied with dancers who had performed the works they taught me, so it passed down – not only the steps, but the rhythms, the lines, the attack. We also work with the narrative behind the dance. In ‘The Death of the Maiden,’ for instance, the inner narrative is the fear of the loss of youth, beauty and vitality. There can be abstraction in her dances, but every dance has some kind of theme or flow that a performer can hook into. As an artist this work incorporates subtle decision-making — an expression in the face or the tilt of the head, for instance. When you choreograph for your company, what do you consider? |
The Isadora Duncan Dance Company Members in "Valse Triste"
(L to R: Kirsten Keane, Emily D'Angelo, Hayley Rose Brasher) Photo Credit: Robin Michals |
I go outside the box of my training. I specifically spent time studying the technique and the choreographic ideas of Doris Humphrey. I was drawn to her work and there was a time when I wanted to take a break from Duncan. That style and other kinds of dance enriched me. I go to see a lot of performances and explore improvisation. In the middle of the night, I’ll think of something and go into the studio to work with the idea. This is usually very fruitful as I am not trying to crank out a dance on a deadline.
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Her personal life was remarkably sad. How do you react to those who feel she was naive and innocent in her ideals and life?
I believe she chose simplicity and was well aware of the complexitites of life. Her mother was Catholic, with four children, and her father left the family. Seeing her mother’s pain and struggle was an eye-opener for her. Her mother tries to be protective and chaperones Isadora throughout the family’s early touring days. Then she stays overnight with Gordon Craig, and the result of that love met with a lot of hoopla from home. She said she liberated herself from Victorian prudery and liked it. Her innocence was blown open after her affair with Craig. She was self-educated from a young age – reading widely, exploring museums, learning philosophy and numerous languages. She was an idealist, but not naïve! |
"She lived a bohemian life but had a very disciplined side that shows in the work. Once she said, and I paraphrase, ‘Work freely with your dancing and improvisations but, when it comes to performances, leave nothing to chance!’" ~ Lori Belilove |
How do you connect Isadora Duncan to present day life?
Regarding iPhones and computers, I am sure she would not sit all day at a computer. She would have been what my daughter liked to call me — a ‘natural health girl,’ breathing fresh air in nature, eating well and exercising. She did have a debauched side, especially after the children died. That was a sad time in her life. She lived a bohemian life but had a very disciplined side that shows in the work. Once she said, and I paraphrase, ‘Work freely with your dancing and improvisations but, when it comes to performances, leave nothing to chance!’
Did she have a sanctuary? Do you?
The daily rhythm of dancing is a sanctuary for me. It was Duncan’s as well.
Regarding iPhones and computers, I am sure she would not sit all day at a computer. She would have been what my daughter liked to call me — a ‘natural health girl,’ breathing fresh air in nature, eating well and exercising. She did have a debauched side, especially after the children died. That was a sad time in her life. She lived a bohemian life but had a very disciplined side that shows in the work. Once she said, and I paraphrase, ‘Work freely with your dancing and improvisations but, when it comes to performances, leave nothing to chance!’
Did she have a sanctuary? Do you?
The daily rhythm of dancing is a sanctuary for me. It was Duncan’s as well.
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Lori Belilove's direct lineage and prestigious performing career have earned her an international reputation as the premier interpreter and ambassador of the dance of Isadora Duncan. As a third generation Duncan dancer, Belilove is considered the living embodiment of Duncan’s grace, power, and mastery of weight.
She was coached for performance and technique by first generation Duncan Dancers Anna Duncan and Irma Duncan, two of the six adopted artistic daughters of Isadora, also known as the Isadorables. Through Lori’s performances and teaching, audiences worldwide have experienced the purity of line, a timeless quality, and authentic phrasing that has been passed down to Lori through the direct line of Isadora Duncan dancers. Hailed by critics internationally, Lori has toured throughout the United States, Europe, Russia, China, Mexico, Canada and Brazil. She has received multiple NEA Masterpiece grants for choreographic projects and a BAC residency from Mikhail Baryishnkov in 2018. She is the recipient of the Mills College Distinguished Achievement Award where she received her BFA in dance, religion, and classical studies. She additionally trained extensively in the modern technique of Doris Humphrey and is the leading dancer in the award-winning PBS documentary Isadora Duncan: Movement From the Soul. |
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Dawn Lille, Ph.D., trained in ballet, modern dance and Laban analysis, and has worked in dance and theater as a performer, choreographer, director, teacher and writer. She taught at Brooklyn, Barnard and City College/CUNY, where she wrote and headed a graduate program in dance, and at Juilliard. Dawn’s many publications include articles in journals and encyclopedias, chapters in eight collections, and two books. Her interest in the social ramification of the arts was seen in the 1996 exhibit “Classic Black: Black Dancers in Ballet Prior to DTH,” which she researched and curated.
