Ruth St. Denis Facts

Ruth St. Denis (1878?-1968), American dancer and choreographer, was one of the founders of modern dance. Her work was characterized by its religious and Far Eastern content.

Professional dance at this time presented two equally uninspiring alternatives: the world of vaudeville and the moribund classical ballet of opera. Miss St. Denis was delivered from this dilemma when she discovered an advertising poster for Egyptian Deities cigarettes showing the goddess Isis sitting on a throne. Immediately she saw the possibility of developing a dance on an Egyptian theme. While doing research on the culture and dance of Egypt, she discovered the dances of India.

With the help of some Indian friends, Miss St. Denis danced the radha, a freestyle Indian dance. She was the first in the Western world to introduce to a legitimate audience Oriental and Eastern dancing. The dances were accompanied by European music performed on Western musical instruments. American audiences were hostile to her experiments, labeling her the "Jersey Hindoo" and comparing her with the belly dancers at the local burlesque houses.

Miss St. Denis toured in Europe from 1906 to 1909, and her dances proved a great success. Like the dancer Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis was also preoccupied with mysticism and was not concerned with steps but with the expressive movement of the body. But her style was more exotic and more lavishly theatrical—combining lights, scenery, costumes, music, and story in one unified experience—and her dances were much more religious.

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