Louise Brooks & Anna Pavlova

As is known, Louise Brooks was a member of the Denishawn Dance Company (then the leading modern dance troupe in America). She joined the company at age 15, and danced with them as a junior member for two seasons while they toured the United States and Canada. Notably, Brooks' time with Denishawn brought her into close contact with a handful of the key figures in modern American dance, namely company founders Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, and dancers Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weideman.

Brooks had other encounters with other noted dancers. While touring with Denishawn, for instance, the company took the opportunity to see a performance by Isadora Duncan, an occasion Brooks later wrote about (commenting on Duncan's wardrobe malfunction at the time).

What hasn't been known till know is that Brooks saw a performance by Anna Pavlova, another great dancer. Pavlova (sometimes spelled Pavolwa) was a Russian prima ballerina of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was a principal artist of the Imperial Russian Ballet as well as the Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev. Pavlova is most recognized for the creation of the role "The Dying Swan" and, with her own company, became the first ballerina to tour ballet around the world. One of Pavlova's tours brought her to Kansas.

Abd that's when Brooks saw her dance. Prior to joining Denishawn, in January of 1922, Brooks and groups of Wichita dance students ventured to nearby Hutchinson, Kansas to see the famous touring prima ballerina. Here is a small article from the Wichita news paper noting the occassion, followed by an advertisement for the event.

Denishawn: Ruth St. Denis documentary & interview

Denishawn founder Ruth St. Denis speaks in five part video documentary, embedded below. Originally compiled for a presentation at the National Museum of Dance in 2006.

Part one

Part two

Part three

Part four

Part five

Denishawn dance, what did it look like?

For two seasons, a teenage Louise Brooks was a junior member of the Denishawn Dance Company - then the leading modern dance troupe in America. During the 1922-1923 and 1923-1924 seasons, Brooks regularly performed alongside Ruth St. Denis, Ted Shawn, Martha Graham, Charles Weideman and others.

There is no film of Louise Brooks during her two seasons with Denishawn. And, as far as I know, there was little or no footage of the Denishawn Dance Company shot during the 1920s. All of which leads one to wonder what Denishawn dances looked like. Here is a video which give us something of an idea. Bonus points to those who spot Louise brooks in the still images in the second video.

On this day in 1928: Two Louise Brooks films show in Oil City, Pennsylvania

Break out the time machine. . . . on this day in 1928, not just one but TWO films featuring Louise Brooks were showing in Oil City, Pennsylvania. The local newspaper, the Oil City Derrick, advertised both A Girl in Every Port (1928) and Rolled Stockings (1927), each of which were enjoying short runs in the small town in Venango County which came to prominence after the first oil wells were drilled nearby in the 1850s. This page dates from July of 1928. Rolled Stockings had been out more than a year, A Girl in Every Port less than half a year.

November 14th + Google doodle = Louise Brooks

Why not suggest Louise Brooks become a Google doodle on her birthday, November 14th. 

Send a suggestion to proposals@google.com

Louise Brooks, Wichita Kansas girl scout

In the early 1920s, Louise Brooks was a member of the Girl Scouts. In fact, according to this 1921 article in the Wichita Eagle newspaper, she was a member of one of the first girl scout troops in Wichita, Kansas. Brooks is pictured in the article below, top row, fourth from the left.

Louise Brooks shoots marbles

Louise Brooks, far left, shoots marble with other junior Paramount stars, 1927

Report from Glastonbury: Louise Brooks and the Dodge Brothers

On Saturday, June 28, the Dodge Brothers became the first band to accompany a silent film at the Glastonbury Festival. The film they accompanied was Beggars of Life (1928), starring Louise Brooks.

The Dodge Brothers are Mike Hammond (lead guitar, lead vocals, banjo), Mark Kermode (bass, harmonica, vocals), Aly Hirji (rhythm guitar, mandolin, vocals), and Alex Hammond (washboard, snare drum, percussion). Joining the band at Glastonbury and elsewhere when they accompany silent films is composer and silent film accompanist Neil Brand, a regular at London's National Film Theatre.

Band member Mark Kermode has written about the experience for the Guardian newspaper. He reported, "the audience are terrifically responsive." You can read his entire write-up at "Diary of a Dodge Brother skiffling at Glastonbury." Kermode also posted a video blog which can be viewed below.

New book - Douglas Fairbanks and the American Century

All interested in silent film will want to know . . . . Douglas Fairbanks and the American Century is just out from the University of Mississippi Press. It looks great. The 384 page book, by John C. Tibbetts and James M. Welsh, includes a foreword by Kevin Brownlow and greeting by Vera Fairbanks. The book is a critical study of Fairbank' acting career and "his brand" as the ultimate American.

From the publisher: "Douglas Fairbanks and the American Century brings to life the most popular movie star of his day, the personification of the Golden Age of Hollywood. At his peak, in the teens and twenties, the swashbuckling adventurer embodied the new American Century of speed, opportunity, and aggressive optimism. The essays and interviews in this volume bring fresh perspectives to his life and work, including analyses of films never before examined.

Also published here for the first time in English is a first-hand production account of the making of Fairbanks's last silent film, The Iron Mask.

Fairbanks (1883-1939) was the most vivid and strenuous exponent of the American Century, whose dominant mode after 1900 was the mass marketing of a burgeoning democratic optimism, at home and abroad. During those first decades of the twentieth century, his satiric comedy-adventures shadow-boxed with the illusions of class and custom. His characters managed to combine the American Easterner's experience and pretension and the Westerner's promise and expansion. As the masculine personification of the Old World aristocrat and the New World self-made man--tied to tradition yet emancipated from history--he constructed a uniquely American aristocrat striding into a new age and sensibility.

This is the most complete account yet written of the film career of Douglas Fairbanks, one of the first great stars of the silent American cinema and one of the original United Artists (comprising Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charles Chaplin, and D. W. Griffith). John C. Tibbetts and James M. Welsh's text is especially rich in its coverage of the early years of the star's career from 1915 to 1920 and covers in detail several films previously considered lost.