Ruth St Denis ~ An Inspiration to All Dancers

Ruth St Denis ~ Inspiration to All Dancers

“It is not a question of who dances but of who or what does not dance.” – Ruth St Denis

I’ve been interested and intrigued by Ruth St Denis since I was a teenager. While she was not a belly dancer, her ethnic inspired choreographies gave rise to an interest in ethnic dance in the United States. 

She was teacher to dance immortals Ted Shawn, Martha Graham, Lillian Powell and Evan Burrows Fontaine.

Ruth St. Denis married Ted Shawn and together they created “Denishawn” known as the cradle of American modern dance. Ruth and Ted also created the legendary dance festival known as “Jacob’s Pillow”.

In the late 1990s I paid a visit to Valentina Oumansky’s Dance Foundation on Cahuenga Boulevard next to the Hollywood Hills.  This was the same and last studio where Ruth St. Denis taught up until her death in 1968. I remember Ms Oumansky telling me that Ruth St Denis like to be referred to as Miss Ruth.

If you are just discovering Ruth St Denis, please learn more about her.  She was a true original. 

“The real message of the Dance opens up the vistas of life to all who have the urge to express beauty with no other instrument than their own bodies, with no apparatus and no dependence on anything other than space.” – Ruth St Denis

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