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The interpreted Future : Discourse about the Future on Western modern dance -Focussing on Isadora Duncan's Der Tanz der Zukunft (The Dance of the Future, 1903)-

OKJU SON 1

1독일 베를린 자유대학

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ABSTRACT

This thesis strives to analyze the relationship between the dance aesthetics of Isadora Duncan, who is still considered a representative for Western modern dance, and the scientific discourses of Modern Times. With regard to this thesis, it is especially required to analyze an deciding influence of 'discourse about the future', which was emerged from the industrial as well as the scientifically modernized western world, on Duncan's dance. For this analysis I mainly concentrate on Isadora Duncan's book, Der Tanz der Zukunft, which was translated and published in Germany in 1903. Until now Duncan's dance has been in most cases considered in conjunction with the social and cultural distinctiveness of Modern Era. The women's liberation movement and the appearance of free dance style is one example of this context. However Duncan's initiative for a new kind of movement based on a discourse about 'human nature' was actually very closely related to the modern zeitgeist, which emphasized the dialectical synthesis between Körper (Body) and Geist (Mind). Duncan strove to embody contemporary scientific discourses referring to 'naturality of the human being'. This was anticipated by the evolutionary theories of Darwin and Haeckel as well as the humanistic and aesthetic theories about Greek culture by Wagner and Nietzsche. However it is quite important to note that these modern discourses mostly postulated an explicit separation between the ancient Greeks, respected as ideal model for the human being, and the uncivilized barbarian. Such a distinctive modern perspective on human body and culture is also to be found in arguments of the Western modern dancers like Isadora Duncan, whose mission was to embody 'the civilized nature', so to speak, to be conscious of their own naturalness.

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