The Isadorables were a group of six young girls, Anna Denzler, Maria-Theresa Kruger, Irma Erich-Grimme, Elizabeth Milker, Margot Jehl, and Erica Lohmann, who danced under the instruction of Isadora Duncan. Their nickname was given to them by the French poet Fernand Divoire in 1909. They were all later given the Duncan last name when Isadora adopted them.
The girls, mostly German, danced in modern style (they were known as "Barefoot" and "Aesthetic Dancers") between 1905 and 1920. They emerged from Duncan's established schools, then had careers with Duncan herself. Later, they separated from their mentor to dance as their own group before they disbanded.
First school
Originally, the group was made up of individual dancers taken in by Duncan, and they were taught first at the Isadora Duncan School of Dance located in Grunewald, Germany which was a place for young children wanting to learn to dance. Duncan believed that her teaching and education should start at the child level. "Let us first teach little children to breathe, to vibrate, to feel, and to become one with the general harmony and movement. Let us first produce a beautiful human being."
She took in young children, most of whom, reflecting Duncan's personal history, came from disadvantaged backgrounds, where mothers were the primary breadwinners, and the fathers were either ill or absent. Thus students were chosen based on financial need rather than their natural dance talent. The school provided rooms for the students, so the students could be with Duncan at all times. The School existed three years, but never housed more than 20 students. The school had a rigorous schedule, with dance being only one of the subjects taught, and then only twice a week. The other subjects were history, literature, mathematics, natural science, drawing, singing, languages, and music.
"Isadora was away on tour most of the time, dancing to support her dependents" so dance was taught by her sister, Elizabeth Duncan, who seemed to be the very opposite in nature to Isadora's free spirited and light personality; she was very organized and strict. So at sporadic returns of Isadora the children rejoiced. Later Isadora admitted that she did not know how to identify dance talent or was even concerned with dance talent in the first school because she thought dance talent could be taught.
Naming of the Isadorables
The story of the Isadorables begins with the six most talented girls chosen from this school. These were the ones closest to Duncan and who had the most opportunity to spend time with and perform with her. The girls' first performance was on July 20, 1905, and they performed over 70 times between 1905 and 1909 in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Russia, Finland, England, and France. These six were Anna Denzler, Maria-Theresa Krüger, Irma Erich-Grimme, Elizabeth (Lisa) Milker, Margot (Gretel) Jehl, and Erica (Erika) Lohmann. In 1909, a French poet, Fernand Divoire, adoringly dubbed the six girls "the Isadorables" after seeing them perform.
Relocation to New York City and reactions
In 1912 Isadora acquires the Hôtel Paillard in the Bellevue section of Paris. This became Dionysion, Isadora's new temple of dance; the name stemming from Dionysian, which hints toward Isadora's Greek undertones in her dances. At the start of World War I, the Isadorables were sent to New York with the rest of the new students from Bellevue. In November 1914, they took up a studio at 311 Fourth Avenue, on the corner of 23rd street, the new location of Dionysion. Their arrival was met by criticism from the press and public that already regarded "classic" dancing as a relic of the past.
The Isadorables made their American debut on December 7, 1914 at Carnegie Hall with the New York Symphony. Henrietta Rodman in a feature for the New York Tribune as much as stated that the most revolutionary of dancers [Isadora Duncan] had lost touch with the times. She was also struck by the Isadorables' unthinking devotion to their teacher's ideals. "The one weakness of their education was their lack of contact with the harsh and ugly realities of our present day life. It is Isadora's theory that children should move always in a world of "sweetness and light."
Mabel Dodge, who owned a salon at 23 Fifth Avenue, the point of rendezvous for the whole of New York's avant garde of the time, described the girls: "They were lovely, with bodies like cream and rose, and faces unreal with beauty whose eyes were like blind statues, as though they had never looked upon anything in any way sordid or ordinary".