Research Catalog

Dance we must : the art and costumes of Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, 1906-1940

Title: Dance we must : the art and costumes of Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, 1906-1940 / edited by Kevin M. Murphy and Caroline Hamilton ; with additional contributions by Erica Dankmeyer, Panalee Maskati, Norton Owen, Thandi Steele, Munjulika R. Tarah.
Publication: Williamstown, Massachusetts : Williams College Museum of Art, [2023]

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Use in library	GV1786.D43 D36 2023g	Off-site

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Description

127 pages : illustrations (chiefly color); 28 cm

Summary

"Ruth St. Denis (1879-1968) and Ted Shawn (1891-1972) pioneered modern dance in the United States with their company Denishawn, founded in 1914. A generation of modern dancers and choreographers, including Martha Graham, trained and first performed with the company. Artists who were inspired by or worked with St. Denis and Shawn include Auguste Rodin, John Singer Sargent, Katherine Dreier, Marcel Duchamp, and Joseph Cornell, among others. While there is a large body of literature on the relationship between the visual arts and dance in early twentieth-century Europe, there is no equivalent scholarship on Denishawn, America's answer to the Ballets Russes. Original research in this book makes an important contribution to the literature on modern dance, as well as American Modernism in the arts broadly. This heavily illustrated catalogue includes artwork, sets, ephemera, and especially costumes, many of which haven't been seen since they were worn in the 1930s. A significant portion of the visual materials and costumes, and of St. Denis's and Shawn's choreography, borrow from East and South Asian and Native American cultures; this publication interrogates the legacy of cultural appropriation and colonialism in dance. The materials also demonstrate St. Denis's and Shawn's stylistic and personal connections to American and European modernists, broadening an understanding of dance in the United States within the context of early Modernism"--

Subject

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references.

Contents

Director's foreword and acknowledgements / Pamela Franks -- Introduction: The story of the Jacob's Pillow Archives / Norton Owen -- "Fundamental lines of truth and beauty" : the story of the Jacob's Pillow Archives / Caroline Hamilton -- The artistic collaborations and cultural appropriations of Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn / Kevin M. Murphy -- Contentious histories in emergent archives / Munjulika R. Tarah, Erica Dankmeyer, Thandi Steele, and Panalee Maskati -- Selections from the Jacob's Pillow Archives / Caroline Hamilton.

ISBN

9781646570270
1646570278

LCCN

2022017883
99993608528

OCLC

on1332790084
1332790084
SCSB-14410362

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries