Isadora for Children™ – Creative Movement & Dance

“Let us first teach little children to breathe, to vibrate, to feel, and to become one with the general harmony and movement of nature. Let us first produce a beautiful human being, a dancing child.”

 

Creative movement classes for children instill strength, creativity and confidence

These words were spoken in 1909 by Isadora Duncan, Champion for the freedom of the human body and reanimator of the art of the dance. Isadora’s dance today remains the root system for modern dance, creative movement for children and movement therapies. It is an education for life, through the dance– that was Isadora’s dream for children. Its’ timeless, universal quality is threefold: it is a classical dance with strong imprints from the ancient Greek world’s geometry of form and archetypal content. It is a merging of the arts in rhythms to great music, in structures allied to architecture, in compositions akin to painting and sculpture in line and form and in meanings linked to poetry. And it recaptures Western culture in all its imaginative potential through the myths, stories, and legends of humanity that are not recounted in narrative but embodied in felt experience.

Isadora Dance for Children of All Ages
Isadora for Children, Founded and Directed by Jeanne Bresciani

The Isadora for Children™ Performing Company has performed in theatrical venues as well as in community outreach and festival events. Please contact us if you are interested in learning more about the Isadora Duncan International Institute’s renowned performing company. Isadora’s Children© is a 17 minute DVD created by Jeanne Bresciani, founder of Isadora Programs in the New York University Graduate School of Education under the tenure of Dr. Patricia A. Rowe as Director of Programs in Dance and Dance Education. IDII’s Isadora Programs were selected as a model school by NYU as required internship sites for preparation in teaching Grades K-12. The DVD is available for sale at $25 plus $5 shipping and handling via IDII, Inc..

Isadora’s dance is the fusion of body, mind, and spirit in a harmony fueled by beauty and strength. It is dance from the inside out, starting from self and moving into the world–with greater security and freedom as the child progresses. At times with the gentleness of a breeze, at times with the passion of a storm, the young dancer forges a juncture between nature and culture as a “living work of art.” Isadora’s dream of a dance for all children still lives in the “Isadora for Children™” Programs across the globe. The Isadora Duncan International Institute has been bringing Isadora Duncan’s dance to children since 1977, inspiring confidence, strength and creativity in generations of children around the world. Regularly scheduled classes feature:

• Floor Exercises • Barre • Improvisation • Myth & Poetry • Festive Events

Through classical music and the inspiration of nature, the joyous and lyrical rhythms of childhood are enhanced through full aliveness in Isadora Duncan’s movement of imagination. Since 1991, a partnership between 92Y and the Isadora Duncan International Institute.

“With its fluidity, openness and emotional candor, the Duncan style of movements conveys a sense of spiritual well-being…. The way all move easily and with out self-consciousness suggest that the Duncan technique remains capable of providing young dancers with physical discipline and creative freedom.”  Jack Anderson, New York Times

“The bare foot and breathful dances of Isadora Duncan still teach us that dancing is more about the freedom of spirit then the formidability of technique and more about being moved than moving.” Constance Hill, Albany Times Union