Dancescape.

Isadora Duncan

BEFORE MARTHA and Mr. B, before Mary Wigman, before Denishawn, indeed, even before Fokine and Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, there was Isadora Duncan. Admired in her day by composers, painters, poets, even the stars of the Imperial Russian ballet, Isadora was dance's first true original. She stripped dance of every artifice: corset, ballet slippers, and technique, dancing defiantly to the great composers, notably Beethoven and Wagner. For two decades, with a staggering single-mindedness, she cut a swath across Europe, America, and Russia, sharing her visionary dances.

Of Duncan's group of dancers, Maria-Theresa Duncan was the only "Isadorable" to have a lengthy career. She performed for over seven decades, retiring at age 86 in 1981. One of the featured dancers in her Heliconiades company (1935-1942) was Kay Bardsley, who began dance studies with Maria-Theresa at age 9 in 1931. Well before her death in 1987, Maria-Theresa passed on her archives to Bardsley, a Denver, Colorado resident, who over four decades amassed "The Legacy of Isadora Duncan: The Kay Bardsley Collection," encompassing photos, costumes, drawings, posters, and programs. Here are six images from the collection, the nation's largest in private hands.