Showing posts with label Ted Shawn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ted Shawn. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

And a last nifty new Louise Brooks related find #4

During this pandemic era, I continue to stay home and conduct what research I can over the internet. And recently, I came across a few items which I had never seen before. I thought I would share them with readers of this blog. Here is the fourth installment in a short series of new finds.

I have long felt that Louise Brooks carried the shame of her 1924 dismissal from the Denishawn Dance Company for the better part of her life. I think Brooks viewed herself as a dancer, an artist if you will, and her dismissal from the company by Ruth St. Denis -- an artist she early admired, was a cause of personal shame. Brooks rebounded of course, and found work with the George White Scandals and Ziegfeld Follies before moving on to a successful career in the movies. But still, I think, she never really let go of that early humiliation.

I say this because Brooks, to some degree, continued to follow the careers of Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. They were long in her thoughts, I believe, and Brooks likely desired some sort of closure, or at least understanding. In a 1964 letter to Jan Wahl, Brooks mentioned that she once attended one of Shawn's classes in 1926, while she was making pictures for Paramount on Long Island. Who knew?

Brooks never again danced with Ruth St. Denis or Ted Shawn, but she did go see them dance in 1949, twenty-five years after she was dismissed from Denishawn. On November 10, 1949, Brooks saw Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn perform "Creative Dances on Ethnic Themes" at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. 

Brooks letters, especially those to Wahl, are sprinkled with references to Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, and Brooks' time with Denishawn. In the same 1964 letter referenced above, Brooks said she had even received an invitation to Jacob's Pillow, where the 50th Golden Wedding anniversary of Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn would be celebrated. I don't think she went.

In their later years, Brooks carried on a correspondence with Ted Shawn. Brooks also wrote about her time with Denishawn in her private journals, and in her book, Lulu in Hollywood. Brooks' time with Denishawn was important to her, and as late as 1979, Brooks wrote a letter to dance historian Jane Sherman (herself a one-time Denishawn dancer) saying she believes she was omitted from accounts of Denishawn.

I mention all this because just recently I came across an extraordinary March 1929 Los Angeles clipping which by chance juxtaposes Louise Brooks and Ruth St. Denis. Brooks was starring in The Canary Murder Case, which had just opened. And Ruth St, Denis was dabcing at a venue in Los Angeles. At the time this clipping was published, Brooks was in New York City, so she likely never saw this obscure bit. But I wonder if Ruth St. Denis did, and what she might have thought. The famed dancer did have a clipping service (which gathered publicity from magazines and newspapers, I once had the chance to look through her scrapbooks), and Ruthie may have checked out what press she had received from time to time. If she had seen it, I wonder what went through her mind about her once wayward student?

Monday, September 16, 2019

Forthcoming book - Ted Shawn His Life, Writings, and Dances

Of all the individuals associated with Louise Brooks and her careers as a dancer and actress, few are as seminal as Ted Shawn. As one of the co-founders of Denishawn Dance Company, Shawn played a significant role in ushering Brooks into the prestigious modern dance troupe. Her joining Denishawn would eventually lead her to the New York stage and then to film, where she would make her mark. As a seminal individual in Brooks' early life, Shawn is portrayed in the recent PBS film, The Chaperone.

I am thrilled to learn of a big new 536 page book on the legendary dancer, Ted Shawn: His Life, Writings, and Dances by Paul A. Scolieri. The book, from Oxford University Press, is set for a December release.



Here is the publisher's description: "Ted Shawn (1891-1972) is the self-proclaimed "Father of American Dance" who helped to transform dance from a national pastime into theatrical art. In the process, he made dancing an acceptable profession for men and taught several generations of dancers, some of whom went on to become legendary choreographers and performers in their own right, most notably his protégés Martha Graham, Louise Brooks, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman. Shawn tried for many years and with great frustration to tell the story of his life's work in terms of its social and artistic value, but struggled, owing to the fact that he was homosexual, a fact known only within his inner circle of friends. Unwilling to disturb the meticulously narrated account of his paternal exceptionalism, he remained closeted, but scrupulously archived his journals, correspondence, programs, photographs, and motion pictures of his dances, anticipating that the full significance of his life, writing, and dances would reveal itself in time.

Ted Shawn: His Life, Writings, and Dances is the first critical biography of the dance legend, offering an in-depth look into Shawn's pioneering role in the formation of the first American modern dance company and school, the first all-male dance company, and Jacob's Pillow, the internationally renowned dance festival and school located in the Berkshires. The book explores Shawn's writings and dances in relation to emerging discourses of modernism, eugenics and social evolution, revealing an untold story about the ways that Shawn's homosexuality informed his choreographic vision. The book also elucidates the influences of contemporary writers who were leading a radical movement to depathologize homosexuality, such as the British eugenicist Havelock Ellis and sexologist Alfred Kinsey, and conversely, how their revolutionary ideas about sexuality were shaped by Shawn's modernism."

As a Denishawn dancer

I am not a dancer, but I am a BIG fan of Ted Shawn and Ruth St. Denis and Denishawn. I have  read all of the earlier books on both dancers, as well as the couple on Denishawn, and even own autographed books by both Shawn and St. Denis. (I even have a rare copy of St. Denis' poetry booklet, as well as an album of her speaking.) My point of entry was Brooks, of course. Over the last twenty years, I have amassed a huge amount of material on Brooks' two seasons with Denishawn, and sometime in the future plan on writing a book detailing the two tours. How much is a huge amount? Would you believe I have clippings, advertisements, articles, and reviews for every one of the hundreds of stops they made throughout the United States and Canada. There is a narrative in there somewhere!

Louise Brooks and Ted Shawn

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Louise Brooks included in early Ted Shawn book

Another of my recent eBay wins is Shawn Der Tanzer, by Katherine S. Drier. This pictorial book, which surveys the artistry of one of the founders of the Denishawn Dance Company, was published in Berlin, Germany in 1933 by Drei Masken Verlag. I really didn't know much of anything about this book, aside from having seen it listed in various bibliographies. Nevertheless, I thought I would take a chance on it and bid. Fortunately, I won the auction for a modest amount.

Though she is not mentioned by name, I was pleased to find four images in the book of the Denishawn company which include Louise Brooks. (There may be two others.) This publication does not mark the actress' first pictorial representation in a book, as that distinction belongs to Picture Show Annual 1928, a book about the movies published in London, England. It does mark her earliest pictorial representation as a dancer. (Brooks time as a member of the Denishawn Dance Company was seldom mentioned in books or scholarly publications until the 1980s.)

The book includes photographs by Ralph Hawkins, along with Rudolf, Robertson, Binder, Does, Hirano, Mortensen, Townsend, Hiller, Muray, Sunami, Snyder, White Studios, Selby Studios, Bigelow und Arthur Kales

Notably, the author, Katherine S. Drier, was an American artist and important art collector and co-founder of the Société Anonyme, as well as a friend and associate of Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray. The latter was a fan of Louise Brooks.

What's also notable and intersting about this particular copy of the book is that it was distributed in the United States. On its front endpapers, the book bears a trade label for the B. Westerman Co of New York City. I don't know if they were a book distributor or book shop or both. Nevertheless, one wonders if Louise Brooks herself or denizens of New York or fans of Denishawn or modern dance noticed the images of Brooks in this early book. (Though admittedly you have to know its her to pick her out. The images are not very well reproduced. Hence, my four or maybe six notation.) 

Here is one of the pages from Shawn Der Tanzer which includes a picture of Denishawn from the time Louise Brooks was a member. The teen aged dancer and future actress can be seen on the second level of the structure on the left. She is sitting in the image on the top, and standing along side Ted Shawn in the image on the bottom.

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