Liverpool Sound and Vision * * * *
Ballet divides opinion, but the dance never should. The ability to break, to smash the conventional is a right that few of us find the true appetite for, we may talk of revolution across every sphere and subject, but in the end we hold on, almost by our fingernails, kicking and screaming, to the orthodox and the dogma of the traditional.
To capture a human revelation is akin to the search for St. Elmo’s Fire, when you witness it, you never forget, it stays with you, it resonates and burns, and to see it in another human being long after they have passed away is to know that the hunt was never in vain, you were just born at the wrong time to see it explode across the night sky.
The term free spirit surely applies to the dramatic life of Isadora Duncan, not only for her interpretation of dance, but for the way she lived her life, on her own terms, beset by tragedy, beautiful and care-worn, it could be argued she was the dance itself, unhindered by the tempest and politics of her own country, she embraced all, and when it faded, she easily let it go.
The writer and graphic artist’s Julie Birmant and Clement Oubrere have once again collaborated in their own pursuit of bringing the noble to the forefront of the reader’s conscious, and in Isadora, the brief flame that blinded the eyes of all who came in to contact with Isadora Duncan is laid scintillatingly at the feet of all who want to see the dance as more than a staged reproduction of human expression, who see it as an unfolding work of art, the sculpture in the making.
Whilst the graphic novel makes no mention of Isadora Duncan’s more tactile relationships, it does however offer an insight into the world of the men around her, the muse she provides, especially for Auguste Rodin in one segment of her life, and more notably her last husband, the Russian poet Sergei Yesenin.
It is Isadora’s life that is discussed, but the framing of the story is also the dedication to the dance and to the love she craved, the adoration of the crowd as she performed on stage, but the dichotomy of marrying a man to whom the thief of poetic introspection was ticking away at his soul. The dance of time is the greatest thief of all, and it was a life that was filled with tragedy, one that makes Ms. Duncan’s life so immensely endearing.
Throughout the graphic novel, the writing and the art flow as if capturing the idea of suitor and Muse together in a whirling display of emotion and fear of falling into the belief of normality of which other’s espouse. The colour and the texture are fascinating, they blur and unify the reader’s heart, almost to the point of bringing forth the ecstatic sense of exhaustion that a lifetime in pursuit of art can bring.
A wonderfully envisaged graphic novel, one that understands that opinion is always best left to those who actually perform the dance, who sees the rage of the stars as they fall into the sea, always out of reach.
Julie Birmant and Clement Oubrere’s Isadora is released on September 19th via SelfMadeHero.
Ian D. Hall