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Isadora: My Life

Beethoven and Schubert were children of the people all their lives. They were poor men, and their great work was inspired by and belongs to humanity. The people need great drama, music, dancing.

We went over to the East Side and gave a performance for nothing. Some people said to me: 'If you play a symphony of Schubert on the East Side, the people will not care for it.'

Well, we gave a free performance (the theatre without a box-office-so refreshing), and the people sat there transfixed, with tears rolling down their cheeks; that is how they cared for it. Funds of life and poetry and art are waiting to spring from the people of the East Side.

Build for them a great amphitheatre, the only democratic form of theatre, where everyone has an equal view, no boxes or balconies; and look at that gallery up there – do you think it is right to put human beings on the ceilings, like flies, and then ask them to appreciate art and music?

Build a simple, beautiful theatre; you do not need to gild it; no need of all those ornaments and fal-lals. Fine art comes from the human spirit and needs no externals. In our school we have no costumes, no ornaments - just the beauty that flows from the inspired human soul, and the body that is its symbol, and if my Art has taught you anything here, I hope it has taught you that. 

Beauty is to be looked for and found in children; in the light of their eyes and in the beauty of their little hands outstretched in their lovely movements. Hand in hand, across the stage, you have seen them, more beautiful than any string of pearls belonging to any of the women who generally sit in the boxes here. There are my pearls and my diamonds: I want no others. Give beauty and-freedom and strength to the children. Give art to the people who need it.   Great music should no longer be kept for the delight of a few cultured people, it should be given free to the masses; it is as necessary for them as air and bread, for it is the spiritual wine of humanity