Copyright © 2019 by Wendy Waszut-Barrett
In 1914, Thomas G. Moses wrote, “Did a big cyclorama drop for Ruth St. Denis; a dark blue sky, black trees and a high wall, very effective drop.”
On May 25, 1914, “The Evening Journal” announced, “Miss St. Denis after ending the summer season, will go to San Francisco, where she is having a special theater built for her at the Panama-Pacific Exposition” (page 2). Moses’ scenery was for this new theater. 1914 was a big year for St. Denis, as she also married Edwin Myers “Ted” Shawn. Shawn was a young dancer from Kansas City, Missouri who toured with St. Denis’ production.
St. Denis and Shawn later founded their own studio that became known as the “cradle of modern dance,” where students like Martha Graham, Charles Weidman and Doris Humphrey received their training before beginning studios of their own (Tulare Advance-Register, Tulare, CA, 22 July 1968, page 3).
Ruth St. Denis (1879-1968) was a pioneer in American modern dance and noted as “the first dancer to introduce the charm and mystery of Hindu dancing to Europe and American public” (“San Francisco Examiner,” 29 Nov. 1914, page 25). During the spring of 1914, St. Denis performed in “East of Suez,” a show that featured an exhibition of “Hindoo dances.”
The “San Francisco Examiner” reported, “Other forms of Oriental dancing had already become popular, but the subtlest of all, the Hindu art, was first interpreted for us by this American girl from Newark, N.J. Lately she has been giving Egyptian and Japanese dances” (29 Nov. 1914, page 25).
St. Denis began her performance career in 1893, dancing for vaudeville. She was part of an act called “The Cherry Sisters.” Ruth’s performance caught the attention of George W. Lederer who signed her up for his new production, “The Passing Show.” From musical comedy, St. Denis’s passed to the management of David Belasco. She toured for a period of five years under Belasco’s management, and during this time she performed in “Du Barry” and “Zaza.”
The “Arizona Daily Star” reported, “It was while under the tutelage of Belasco that she gained her first knowledge of light effects and stage management –a knowledge which has been invaluable to her in the creation of her Oriental dances first at trial performance in a New York Vaudeville theater where they created such a sensation tat she was immediately engaged for a Fifth avenue theater and subsequently for a long engagement at the Hudson and Fullton theaters, New York. From there she went to London, Berlin and Paris, achieving a far greater success than any other dance artist has ever entertained. The creation of Hindoo dances by Miss St. Denis is the result of patient study, infinite thought and a deep delving into the mysterious philosophy of the Far East. Strange to say, she has never visited India, and yet she posses more information regarding that land of occultism than most Occidentals who have resided there during a lifetime” (23 Nov. 1914, page 8).
Karoun Tootikan for the “Los Angeles Times” wrote a lovely article about St. Denis when she passed away in 1968 (28, July 1968, page 511). I am including it today, because St. Denis’ legacy is quite prolific in the history of American dance:
“Over the years, the great and near-great have made pilgrimages to the Ruth St. Denis Dance Studio in Hollywood to observe, to learn and renew friendship with the indomitable Miss Ruth. The studio, with its faded front poser of the dancer (in a pose from her interpretations of the poems of Tagore) is now a memorial, for Miss Ruth is gone.
It was befitting, in a way, that the dancer, whose career spanned five generations, should choose July 21, a Sabbath, for the goodbye, since it was she who introduced the revolutionary work, ‘Rhada,’ in 1906, which brought to America the completely new idea of religious Hindu dancing in its purest and most esthetic forms.
She was helpful in her goal of popularizing interpretive dancing as a suitable career for young people by three contemporary dancers: Isadora Duncan, Loie Fuller and Maude Allen, who all developed different forms of the dance. While St. Denis delved into Oriental religions for her main inspiration, Duncan became responsible for eliminating the old confines of classic movement, and danced barefoot in a light tunic. Fuller dressed in billowing silk skirts and lighted by various colored lights, she created spectacular forms with subtle variations and silhouettes, while Allen drew from all three for her sensational dance forms.
Whereas Duncan’s talent was best expressed by dancing with symphonies, Fuller’s in creating spectacular serpentine movements, St. Denis’ famous solos were, for the most part, confined to extreme discipline of movement and economy of gesture. Draped form head to toe in voluminous silk and jersey, Miss Ruth presented each nuance of movement in rippling waterfall effects inspiring great tranquility.
It was both Duncan and St. Denis’ great purpose to found a school where the essence of the dance could be taught to perpetuate their dreams. The Duncan Schools, both in Paris and Moscow, did not outlive the death of the dancer, who was strangled when her long red scarf became entangled in the back wheel of an automobile in 1928. By the Denishawn School of Dance (formed in 1914 in Los Angeles, with her husband, Ted Shawn) became a beacon of learning for some of America’s most illustrious proponents of modern, interpretative dancing.
Out of this conservatory came Martha Graham who toured extensively with the Denishawn Dancers and who later developed the individualized choreography in such creations as “Appalachian Spring” and “Night Journey.” Doris Humphrey, who joined Denishawn in 1916 and danced with the company for 12 years, also made her mark wit the electric ‘Lament for Ignacio Sanchez’ and ‘Ruins and Visions.’
Miss Ruth never officially retired and continued to give concerts as late as 1966. Separated from Ted Shawn since 1931, the famous couple nevertheless appeared together occasionally on the stage, most notably in recent years at the observance of the Golden Anniversary in 1964 at Shawn’s School, Jacobs Pillow, at Lee Mass.
Of Miss Ruth’s wide repertoire of original dances, four are perhaps indicative of her genius: ‘Incense,’ in which the rippling arm and hand movements first drew the attention of Ted Shawn who purportedly fell in love with her as she performed on stage in Denver; ‘Dance of the Cobras,’ wherein the hand movements become the snake charmer’s pet in an Indian market place; ‘White Jade,’ which was inspired by a visit to the Temple of Heaven in Peking and shows the Goddess of Mercy bestowing compassion upon the world: and ‘The Minstrel of Kashmiri,’ a Nautch Dance for which Charles Wakefield Cadman composed a special score.
A legend in her own time, Ruth St. Denis, at 91, whom dancer Charles Weidman once called ‘the most beautiful woman in the world,’ the mother of modern interpretive dance, will live on in the students whom she inspired to carry on her work.”
To be continued…
