Brahms — Waltz in B flat major, Op. 39, No. 8 (Seagull)
- Suite: The Many Faces of Love
- Music:
Brahms — Waltz in B flat major, Op. 39, No. 8
- Original choreography by: Isadora Duncan
- Other titles: Floating
Reconstructed by Hortense Kooluris and Julia Levien.
Notes
Nadia Chilkovsky Nahumck
Reference: Nahumck, Nadia Chilkovsky. Isadora Duncan: The Dances. Washington DC: The National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1994.
Waltz No. 8 conjures images of Percy Bysshe Shelley's To a Sky-lark, Ralph Waldo Emerson's The Rhodora or Constantin Brancusi's Bird in Space. It has the feel of a sea breeze and the sweep of gentle air currents. Students have subtitled this dance Seagull and Floating. Extemporaneous in appearance, the dance is deceptively simple. It consists of continuing circular paths which move clockwise and counterclockwise, shifting forward or backward in centrifugal and centripetal curves. Changes in direction are so subtle that they are unobserved until they have occurred. In measure 17 there is a mere suggestion of a wide-winged bird pausing for an instant to peer down as though from a great height. A slow intake of breath in the last four measures extends the illusion of a bird hovering in air. The dance ends only because the music ends.
Videos
| Title | Date | Dancers | Full Dance? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dances by Isadora Boston: Seagull | 2014 | Irene Lutts | Yes | |
| Dionysian Duncan Dancers Julia Morgan | 1993-09 | Ann Cogley | Yes | |
| DFI Cunningham | 1980 | Adrienne Ramm | Yes | |
| Sylvia performs Seagull | Sylvia Gold | Yes | ||
| Isadora Duncan Repertory Dance Company performs Seagull | Yes | |||
| Isadora Duncan Repertory Dance Company performs Brahms waltzes 1, 4, 8 | Yes |
Related items in the Archives
The San Francisco Museum of Performance and Design > Programs > Isadora Duncan — Nov 25, 1917
The Collection of Mignon Garland > Programs > S.F. Duncan Dancers, Dance Recital — 1984
The Collection of Barbara Kane > Programs > Starry Night — Barbara Kane — Dec 20, 1991