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Cultural Impact of Isadora Duncan in the USA and Russia: Past and Present Studies

This presentation showed the evolution of Duncan studies in the United States and Russia during the last century and revealed political factors which impeded the research of this outstanding personality and her work.

Date & Time

Friday
Jun. 21, 2013
10:00am – 11:00am ET

Location

4th Floor, Woodrow Wilson Center
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Overview

Studies of the American dancer Isadora Duncan’s work have a century-long history in Russia and the United States, and can be considered as a prism through which the main landmarks of the dance scholarship as well as political (and foreign-policy related) issues become apparent.

Because Duncan was a spouse of the great Russian poet Sergey Esenin in the 1920s, her real worth has been veiled from the Russian public. Another factor which had been an obstacle for the understanding of her significance was the Soviet ideology, which excluded Duncan along with many other avant-garde artists from the mass consciousness for many decades, despite the successful work of her Moscow school in 1921-1929 and her passionate propaganda of Soviet achievements abroad. American scholars approached objective evaluations of Duncan’s activities only at the end of the 1970s, owing to her collaboration with the Soviet Union and loss of her American citizenship in the 1920s.

Elena Yushkova, Senior Lecturer, Vologda Branch of Moscow Academy for Humanities, and former Fulbright Kennan Research Scholar, showed the evolution of Duncan studies in the United States and Russia during the last century and also revealed political factors which impeded the research of this outstanding personality and her work.

 

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Speaker

Elena Yushkova

Elena Yushkova

Former Fulbright Research Scholar;
Visiting Fulbright Scholar at the University of Kentucky

In 2020-2022, she was a Research Associate at the Five College Women’s Studies Research Center (MA), in 2007-2008 - a Scholar in Residence at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C., USA, investigating Isadora Duncan’s influence on Russian art and mentality. Elena is author of two Russian-language monographs (including the first monograph on Isadora Duncan published in Russia, and the monograph on the history of Russian plastique/interpretative/dance theater). Elena has published more than sixty academic articles in Russian and foreign academic journals, collective monographs, and conference proceedings. Her recent publications appeared in Journal of Russian American Studies, Dance Chronicle, Forum Modernes Theater, Toronto Slavic Quarterly, Literature of Two Americas, Voprosy Literatury, and others. Elena was an organizer of three academic conferences in a series Dialogues and Meetings devoted to intersections of Russian and American culture, and editor of three collections of conference proceedings. Member of Association for Women in Slavic Studies, Russian Association for American Studies, Russian Union of Writers, and others. Elena is currently working on her English-language book on Isadora Duncan and Russian/Soviet culture.

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Hosted By

Kennan Institute

The Kennan Institute is the premier US center for advanced research on Russia and Eurasia and the oldest and largest regional program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The Kennan Institute is committed to improving American understanding of Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the surrounding region though research and exchange.  Read more

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