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dull their ambitions and dreams.

Near complete destitution, but utterly happy, the Duncans set foot on European soil in England in 1899 and resumed their in-home performances for the European elite.

It was in 1903, inspired by Nietzsche in Germany, that Isadora first began to formulate the idea of her dancing as a philosophy one which she would live by, share with the world, and teach to young children for the rest of her life.

Even in the more progressively-minded Europe, Isadora was a walking bit of controversy. Her loose, flowing clothes, and loose-flowing life, shocked and intrigued the upper classes of Europe, and while some praised and admired her courage, others disdained her wanton ways and non-conformity.

Still, Isadora made friends and walked in circles with some of the most influential minds of the early 20th century. It was with two such men that she had her beloved children Deirdre and Patrick.

In 1906, with theatre designer, Gordan Craig, Isadora had her first child a little moppet of a girl she named Deirdre. Though they never married (Craig was already married, as a matter of fact), the two remained lifelong, dear friends. Isadora's second child was a son, Patrick, by Paris Singer, an heir to the consummate Singer sewing machine fortune by his father, Issac Singer. Isadora loved and doted on her children and her bright spirit was forever dimmed by their tragic drowning deaths on April 19, 1913; they perished when the car they were riding in with their nanny rolled into the Seine River. A third child was born and died shortly after a couple of years later.

A fallen angel, a dimly lit star, a dying ember, Isadora struggled on but her life nor her spirit were ever as hardy. She turned to drink to numb the pain of her terrible loss and, though she still danced, it was the heavy dance of despair and pain rather than the light, airy, carefree movements of beforeyet it was none the less beautiful and poignant.

Isadora focused her attention on her little students, opening a number of schools during and after the war. She said that, "I do not teach children, I give them joy." Isadora felt she was giving her young students tools for life not simply the art of dance.

In 1922, Isadora married the brilliantly mad Russian poet, Sergei Yesenin, who was eighteen years her junior. The tumultuous relationship ended bitterly in 1925, and Sergei was found shot to death later that same year; speculation still abounds as to whether the virulent revolutionary was murdered

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