Chopin — Polonaise in C minor, Op. 40, No. 2

The dark brooding nature of the music underlies the rise and fall of the undulating torso as a group of dancers moves in close proximity. They seem to be wanderers, searchers, refugees moving cautiously amid unspecified danger. In Julia Levien's 1992 reconstruction (for the Duncan Dance Continuum directed by Judith Landon) a soloist enters first. She appears to be the "leader" of the group and rallies them on throughout. A central section of hopefulness returns to the main thematic material and ends, in Levien's version, with an emphatic sense of triumph.

Related items in the Archives

The Collection of Christy Cornell-Pape > Programs > Irma Duncan — Isadora Duncan Dancers — Mar 13, 1932

←Back to the repertory list