In March the Royal Ballet will present a new production of Kenneth MacMillan’s portrait of free-spirited dancer Isadora Duncan with a revised score by Richard Rodney Bennett. Originally written in two acts for the Royal Ballet’s 50th anniversary in 1981, Isadora has been produced as one act by Deborah MacMillan for this production. Kenneth MacMillan was interested in lone voices, individuals who took on the world, and Isadora Duncan was one such. An innovator and free spirit, a hippy before her time, the early-20th-century dancer wanted the whole world to dance in the interests of harmony, peace and love. Yet she was also a complex and ultimately tragic figure. MacMillan’s 1981 ballet split the title role between a dancer and an actress. In this totally revised one-act version the leading role belongs wholly to a dancer. She is accompanied by the recorded voice of an actress, original music by Richard Rodney Bennett and archive film from Duncan’s heyday.
