NEW YORK, Sept. 9 (UPI) -- Julia Levien, a U.S. dance teacher who studied with one of Isadora Duncan's daughters and went on to become an authority on the dancer, has died at 94.
Most dancers who use the Duncan technique in New York now studied with Levien, The New York Times reported.
Catherine Gallant, one of her former students, announced Levien's death.
Levien met Duncan as a child and heard stories about the dancer's visit to her family in The Bronx. She was trained by Anna Duncan and then performed with her own company and with the company of Irma Duncan, another of the dancer's six adopted children.
In addition to passing on Duncan technique, Levien founded the Duncan Dance Guild in the 1950s and the Duncan Centenary Company in 1977.
Reconstructing Duncan's work, Levien discovered that the dancer choreographed every move instead of improvising, with the steps based on Duncan's theory that dance movements should be natural and show the limits imposed by gravity.
She died Sunday at home on New York City's Roosevelt Island.
