Jeanne Bresciani, Ph.D., Artist Director
Jeanne Bresciani, M.A. (Williams College in collaboration with the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Kress Fellow), M.A. (New York University, Fulbright Scholar) , I.M.A. (Archetypal Psychology/Laban Studies), Ph.D. (New York University, Myth and Image in the Dance of Isadora Duncan), the main protégée of Maria Theresa Duncan, adopted daughter of Isadora Duncan, serves as Artistic Director for the Isadora Duncan International Institute, Inc. (IDII), founded by Maria-Theresa Duncan, ‘the last dancing Isadorable’ and Kay Bardsley in 1977. Jeanne is recognized nationally and internationally as a solo performer, choreographer, educator and scholar of unparalleled authority on Isadora Duncan’s life, works and performance repertoire. Her lineage encompasses years of intensive study and performance with Hortense Kooluris and Julia Levien of the Anna and Irma Duncan heritage, childhood dance training and young adulthood internship with Anita Zahn of the Elizabeth Duncan School and mentorship with Victor Seroff, Isadora’s biographer and last love under whose authority, she cataloged The Library of Isadora Duncan in the Victor Seroff Collection, M.A. Thesis, NYU. Based in the artistic, choreographic and theatrical realms of the muses and their legacy to museums, Bresciani draws forth Duncan’s unique contribution of forging choreographic masterpieces based on the great periods and masterworks of art from the classical to modern. Its results are choreosyntheses of music and dance, both ancient and eternal, in a modernly eclectic yet vividly refined way.
The Institute has brought Duncan’s universal approach to movement, art, and the humanities to diverse populations around the world in the form of experiential, choreographic and educational workshops and classes, as well as through performances and lectures delivered by IDII scholars and performers. Bresciani founded and directs the first professional programs in Isadora Studies: The Certificate Program I : The Training in Technique and Choreography originally under Maria-Theresa Duncan’s guidance with Dr. Patricia A. Rowe and Kay Bardsley at New York University as faculty; performance study tours abroad, entitled, Sacred Topographies: The Body and the Land; followed by The Certificate Program II: The Advanced Diploma in Performance and Choreography and The Certificate Program in Myth, Movement and Metaphor: specializing in choreographic research – all based today at three sites – Tempio di danza, the Hudson Valley home of the IDII in High Falls, NY, Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY, The 92Y Harkness Dance Center in NYC and locations of import abroad. At the 92Y, an historic home of Modern Dance, she directs the Isadora Programs in education, the Jeanne Bresciani & the Isadora Duncan International Institute Dancers and the 92Y Isadora Youth Ensemble. Jeanne founded the first Isadora Duncan Certificate Program in Beijing in 2015 under the auspices of The Apollo Institute, dedicated to the training and development of M.A. and Ph.D. candidates in Expressive Arts Therapies in China and launched The IDII European Certificate Program in Isadora Duncan Studies in 2016, which moves amidst European capitals annually. Jeanne is the subject of feature articles in Dance Magazine, Dancer Universe and Conscious Dancer Magazine.
Since 2005, Bresciani has focused initiative on the revitalization of historic traditions and festivals of Western culture with special attention to the Festival for the Reinstatement of the Delphic Games and since 2011, the
Carnevale di Venezia. The Delphic Games, by invitation of The Honorable Mayor Panagiotis Kaltsis and the Town of Delphi, Greece, have been revived by the IDII in modern context, along with the Delphic Ideal Young Laureate Program, through series of experiential workshops, lectures, roundtable discussions and performances on the convergence of the humanistic studies of the Greek ethos in art, mytho-poetry, scholarship and sport held in seminar settings within the landscape on Mount Parnassus and amid Delphi’s ancient sites. In 2016, she was awarded The “Tenth Muse” Golden Award, granted by the Universal Delphic Union and the Honorable Panos J. Kaltsis. Since 2011, the IDII has concentrated equally on the Carnevale di Venezia under auspices of the central architects of Carnevale events via Duncan’s “merging of the arts” through group journeys with specific focus on performance of sacred and profane artistic traditions within the historic serenity of the Republic throughout Venice’s numerous palaces, churches and institutes of learning.
She has performed as soloist within the United States at many renowned venues, including Lincoln Center, The Joyce Theater, Kaatsbaan International Dance Center, The Bardavon Opera House, The Woodstock Playhouse, The Baltimore Museum of Art, The National Museum for Women in the Arts, The National Museum of Dance, The Egg, The Landsburgh Theater, The Atlas Theater, before the United Nations General Assembly and at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival; in Canada at Massey Hall, Toronto Centre for the Arts and the Centre Culturel Franco-Manitobain; in Europe at the British Museum, the Teatro Carcano (Milano), at Vignaledanza (Torino), Opera Terni, Teatro Sociale (Bergamo), Centro Teatrale di Ricerca & Palazzo Pisani Moretta (Venice), Theatre Regard du Cynge (Paris), at a Rhineland Castles and Throne Rooms Tour with Wausau Dance Theater, including the Darmstadt Orangerie and Fulda Castle (Germany), Smolny Cathedral and the Pushkin Library (St. Petersburg), The National Dance Theater (Budapest), The Delphi Museum and numerous archaeological sites in Greece; in Asia at the TAMA New Parthenon, the Akasaka Theater and the Asahi Theater(Tokyo), MODAFE (Seoul); throughout Taiwan in The Soul of Nature Tour; and in Brazil at Artur Rubinstein Hall, the National Theater, Pallas Athena and Teatro SESC Pompeia.
Awards and Honors:
Honorary Patronage, Kosciuszko Foundation, 2018
Artistic Educational Residency at the Villa Artes Liberales of the University of Warsaw, 2018
The “Tenth Muse” Golden Award 2016 Granted by the Universal Delphic Union and the Honorable Panos J. Kaltsis
Kress Fellowship, Williams College in collaboration with The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Graduate Program in the History of Art
Maria-Theresa Duncan Award presented at Lincoln Center by Colleen Dewhurst
Fulbright Fellowship for research, reconstruction and performance in dance throughout Brazil
Skidmore College Alumni Association Distinguished Achievement Award
Key to the City of Wausau, Wisconsin
IDII Programs under the direction of Jeanne Bresciani have been funded by The National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council for the Arts, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Hearst Foundation, The Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, the Trust for Mutual Understanding, The American Embassy in Athens, the International House in Tokyo, The Korean Olympic Committee, The Japanese Olympic Committee, The Worldwide Pioneer Foundation, Hewlitt-Packard, Phillips-Electric, and numerous colleges, universities and private donors in the U.S. and abroad.
Jeanne Bresciani has been hailed by the international press as:
“The foremost interpreter of Duncan’s dance in North America”
“The Divine in Motion”
“The keeper of the Duncan Flame”
“The standard bearer of the Duncan tradition”
“A force to be reckoned with”
“Dynamo of the Dance”
“The essence of the reincarnation of Isadora Duncan”
“The true heiress of Isadora Duncan’s intuitions and revolutionary ideas”
“In Isadora Duncan’s “Marche Slav” from ca. 1917 – subtlety wasn’t the point. Power was! Jeanne Bresciani was a figure larger than life. Weight seemed a burden, tension threatened to tear this body apart, resistance became a revolution and liberation from bondage the ultimate transfiguration. Bresciani, moving like those tubular Picasso women must if set free in time, brought “The Art of the Solo” to a rousing close.”