Maybe it was Sylvia Plath's "Fever 103," that introduced me to tragic, talented dancer Isadora Duncan. Maybe I learned about her in school and just recognized another fellow primitivist. Maybe some part of me realized that her scarf-in-the-car-spokes demise (which led Gertrude Stein to proclaim that "affectations can be dangerous"), was a valuable lesson in how to draw a line between oneself and one's aesthetics. In any case, I always did wish I could've seen her dance (this tiny film clip, above, is one of the few pieces of footage in existence).
As usual, I am booked to the gills, but if I weren't, I'd really want to go see dancer Alice Bloch performing Duncan's work at COCA this weekend. The show, titled "Self and Spirit," pulls on Duncan's choreography as well as Jewish culture, Christian mystical poetry and Melanesian ritual (something tells me Isadora would approve). Bloch has pulled in some of St. Louis' finest dancers, including members of COCA's dance faculty, to share the stage with her, which makes the $15 admission seem like a pittance. Though St. Louis is not always overflowing with dance, what's here is always consistently good, I find, and this performance looks to be no exeption. —Stefene Russell
