Isadora Duncan’s ‘Divine Philosophy’ & Goddess Sophia ‘Body of Wisdom’ Autumn Workshop with Jeanne Bresciani Ph.D.

in Washington D.C. sponsored by Word Dance Theater, November 13-14, 2015
Dumbarton Church
3133 Dumbarton St. NW, Washington, DC

Testament to Isadora’s medial powers, in her youth she foresaw the mission not simply for an art form but for a ‘school of life’ that would usher in a new age on the wisdom of the body. Duncan’s vivid, alive and moving art put its early stamp on the mind-body connection when she named it – the ‘divine philosophy’.  Outsweeping contemporary notions of mind-body synthesis, then or now, Isadora called for a multi-dimensional paradigm for movement.  She mined the treasury of great ideas beyond mind-body to heart, spirit and soul.

In mythic precedent to Isadora in like frame stands goddess Sophia, as ‘divine wisdom’, an image sacred and profane, encompassing energies of Isis, Athena, and the Virgin Mary in strata of experience both immortal and mortal.  From Sophia, Isadora inherited the ability to incarnate in movement a feminine intelligence and a masculine intelligence, to summon up a ‘divine intelligence’. As a result, her method was active and contemplative, visible, forcible, invisible and subtle and remains today as much the immortal forms as the mortal steps.

With having known and loved personally five figures close to Isadora during their advanced years, and having been engaged in lifelong study and practice of this art form, has come the early recognition that its’ true prize is not fame, fortune, degrees, publications, replication or even transmission – but a personal and universal access to the wisdom body.   The strength, beauty and freedom that are the modus operandi of Duncan technique and choreography are operations on the way to the ‘temple of wisdom’, as the first generations hailing from Isadora knew them to be.

Together in workshop format, we will address the Isadora genius alongside the inspiration of divine Sophia, putting it into motion to lift the Duncan tradition where it belongs – as legacy of the wisdom body. May it serve individual and group needs to carry our deepest wisdom and true life’s purpose on and on…