ruth st. denis

1879-1968
American dancer, teacher, and choreographer, who, with the American dancer Isadora Duncan, is credited with founding modern dance in America.

Ruth Dennis was born in 1879 on a New Jersey farm. The daughter of a strong-willed and highly educated women (Ruth Emma Dennis was a physician by training), St. Denis was encouraged to study dance from an early age. Her early training included Delsarte technique, ballet lessons with the Italian ballerina Maria Bonfante, social dance forms and "skirt dancing" (a type of dance which reveals the body through manipulation of the skirt fabric).

St. Denis began her professional career in New York City in 1892, where she worked as a skirt dancer in a dime museum and in vaudeville houses. Dime museums featured "leg dancers" (female dancers whose legs were visible under their short skirts - this was considered highly risqué!) in brief dance routines. St. Denis was probably required to perform her routine as many as eleven times a day.

In 1898, the young vaudeville dancer was noticed by David Belasco, a well-known and highly successful Broadway producer and director. He hired her to perform with his large company as a featured dancer, and was also responsible for giving her the stage name "St. Denis". Under Belasco's influence, Ruthie Dennis became Ruth St. Denis, toured with his production of Zaza around the United States and in Europe, and was exposed to the work of several important European artists, including the Japanese dancer Sado Yacco and the great English actress, Sarah Bernhardt. St. Denis' artistic imagination was ignited by these artists. She became very interested in the dance/drama of Eastern cultures, including those of Japan, India and Egypt. She was also influenced by Bernhardt's melodramatic acting style, in which the tragic fate of her characters took centre stage.

After 1900, St. Denis began formulating her own theory of dance/drama based on the dance and drama techniques of her early training, her readings into philosophy, scientology and the history of ancient cultures, and the work of artists like Yacco and Bernhardt. In 1904, during one of her tours with Belasco, she saw a poster of the goddess Isis in an ad for Egyptian Deities cigarettes. The image of the goddess sparked her imagination and she began reading about Egypt, and then India.

In 1905, St. Denis left Belasco's company to begin a career as a solo artist. She had designed an elaborate and exotic costume and a series of steps telling the story of a mortal maid who was loved by the god Krishna. Entitled Radha, this solo dance (with three extras) was first performed in Proctor's Vaudeville House in New York City. Radha was an attempt to translate St. Denis' understanding of Indian culture and mythology to the American dance stage.

As a solo artist, St. Denis was discovered by a society woman, Mrs. Orlando Rouland. With the aid of her wealthy patron, she began performing Radha at private matinees in respectable Broadway theatres. Like Loie Fuller and Isadora Duncan before her, St. Denis felt that Europe might have more to offer her. She left with her mother for London in 1906, and traveled the continent performing her "translations" until 1909, when she returned to give a series of well-received concerts in New York City and on tour in the United States. During the next five years she continued to tour, building her reputation as an exotic dancer with an artistic bent, a "classic dancer" in the same catagory as Isadora Duncan. These two artists were, however, inherently different in their approach to the solo dance.

After 1911, the vogue for solo dancers on the professional stage died down. To support herself, St. Denis often gave private lessons to society women, including Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. In 1912, St. Denis' major patron, Henry Harris, died on the Titanic. In serious financial trouble, St. Denis went back to the studio and came up with a new exotic dance, this time on a Japanese theme. O-Mika was more culturally authentic than her other "translations" but it was not a success. Around 1913, St. Denis began adding other performers to her touring productions. In 1914 she hired Ted Shawn, a stage dancer with strong Delsartean leanings, and his partner, Hilda Beyer, to perform ballroom numbers. St. Denis continued to perform her solo "translations" while Shawn brought a range of popular dance forms, from ragtime to tangos, into the act. Soon after, St. Denis and Shawn became dance partners and lovers, and St. Denis' career as a solo artist was over.

In 1915 in Los Angeles, St. Denis and Shawn founded the first of their Denishawn schools of dance. The schools, designed to develop a distinctly American dance form, featured variations of many dancing styles. The stress on individuality and experimentation with new forms of dance inspired a number of students to form their own modern dance companies; among them was the American dancer Martha Graham. The Denishawn Dance Company was organized at the same time. The controversial Denishawn school was different from other dance schools from the very beginning. St. Denis looked on dance as a life experience and considered popular Western dance to be superficial and more concerned with skill than spirit. So she drew on her earlier inspiration from other cultures, continuing to find in Eastern movement the spirituality and inspiration that she felt was missing in the West. She based her choreography on the dance styles of India, Egypt, and Asia - first to the amazement, and then to the appreciation of audiences.

The troupe toured until 1931, receiving both national and international recognition and paving the way for other modern dance innovators. But the fundamental focus of Denishawn was also the cause of its unraveling. All three of Denishawn's principal dancers - Graham, Humphrey, Weidman - tired of the company's emphasis on exoticism and mysticism and broke away to pursue their own visions. Another factor contributed to the dissolution of the school - St. Denis and her husband separated.

After Denishawn, St. Denis semi-retired until 1940, when she teamed with La Meri (one of the most versatile and dedicated of the American born Ethnological dancers) and found new interest in Hindu and Oriental dance. St. Denis moved to southern California during World War II and continued her career until 1960. Along with her dancing and choreography, she was also a poet, an essayist, and a public speaker. She wrote an autobiography, An Unfinished Life (1939).