As a teenager growing up in Cherryvale, Kansas, Louise Brooks was clearly passionate about dance. She studied dance and choreography, and attended many dance performances including several Denishawn performances. At a 1921 Denishawn performance at the in Wichita, Kansas, Brooks and her mother went backstage hoping to meet dancers from the company. There, Brooks met Ted Shawn who was apparently impressed with the young dancer and invited her to dance with Denishawn the following summer.

Louise Brooks then moved to New York at age 15 to dance with Denishawn. Brooks describes the intensity of her classes at Denishawn in "Lulu in Hollywood," writing that,  

During a sweltering July and August, I went to weekday classes from ten to twelve in the morning and from one to three in the afternoon.

By the end of the summer, Louise Brooks joined Denishawn's touring dance company.

(Source: https://www.pandorasbox.com/louise_brooks_dancer_showgirl/denishawn)


(Louise Brooks with Ted Shawn in "Feather of the Dawn" via the Louise Brooks Society)