Fuchs Lívia: A tánc forradalmárai. Vendégszereplők 1898 és 1948 között. Bajor Gizi Színészmúzeum, Budapest 2004. március 19 - május 2. (Budapest, 2004)
Kísérlet a szintézisre
performed throughout in tights are empty and meaningless.” The true core of the scandal was, of course, that by performing the dance The Vision of Salome, she brought a “serious” issue onto the stage, that was regarded scandalously erotic. One author even asked solicitously: what will become of the world if “Miss Allan dances out dramas, and we might, sooner than we dare to expect, see the emergence of a dance apostle who interprets philological treatises or even explications on taxation with the rhythmic movement of her legs.” It was in 1907 in the Budapest music hall that Ruth St.Denis gave a performance and, unlike her predecessors, to unanimous public accolade. Bródy, for example, considered her superior to all other female dancers: “Duncan has lovely knees but is a prissy professor, Saharet is an eccentric French girl, while Miss Allan is just a malicious speculator as compared to her.” However, he questioned whether the female dancer was a creative artist or simply an instrument of a - naturally - male choreographer, since “No woman can dance like this relying only on herself, she cannot invent such magnificent, exotic, still true ambience. It is my suspicion that she is a wonderful instrument played by the ingenuity of one or more unseen men. Unwittingly, I am trying to find the creative force behind — afterwards. When she appears on stage, while she is there, one cannot help but remain breathless due to sheer amazement and ecstasy.” Isadora Duncan was the only dancer of this generation, whose 1902 performance was not a vaudevillian act, but took place in the Budapest Urania Science Theatre. Her Hungarian début attracted remarkable attention in artistic circles. The leading actress of the age, Mari Jászai, wrote, in a short essay on her, that “it was as if in her dancing I saw my statue-acquaintances come to life. I know that the Pompeian nymphs whose images survive inside me can only move as this dancepoetess does.” Nonetheless, the attempt at reconstructing ancient dances raised doubts in many, but when, in 1903, simultaneously with the bilingual Leipzig edition, Isadora Duncan’s essay titled The Dance of the Future appeared in a Hungarian periodical, it became obvious that her aim was not at all the controversial issue of reconstruction. Audiences, however, thronged theatres to see the performances of the “barefooted Miss” not because of high ideals, but to be shocked; to see the naked shins, calves and feet. Seeing Duncan’s success, the shrewd business manager sold tickets at raised prices, causing considerable indignation and a split in audiences. One faction was reassured by the fact that “although [Isadora] represented her figures unstockinged and unshod, she is beauty of form itself, not even remotely characterised by piquancy, who can be seen by young girls just as well as men, to whom she promises spiritual and intellectual pleasures only.” The other party — sometimes disgustedly, sometimes mockingly — protested at the outrage against common decency.
