“Yushkova separates fact from fiction in the biographical accounts, playing down the tales of drinking, depression, orgies pretending to be Bacchic revelries and "pornographic tendencies", and exposing the ageism and misogyny that shaped later accounts of Duncan's performances. She unearths little-known assessments of her Russian performances and their programmes. [...] Yushkova's account of the "school for a thousand children" that Duncan set up in Moscow in 1921 includes menus, nap times, descriptions of the fittings in all the rooms and the diffuse light emanating from the "chandelier covered with a pink scarf”.
— Simon Morrison, The Times Literary Supplement, September 2026
