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TAPS1330 Archiving the Ephemeral: Celebrating Ten Years of the Bryson Collection

p20 - The Individuality System

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Educators
Denishawn is not just a historical organization frozen in time, but a dynamic institution that lives on to this day through the legacy of the educators who taught there. Some of those individuals are known today for the impact they had on dance in America and in the world. Many others connected to Denishawn have been nearly forgotten but also profoundly influenced the dance of today.

The Ruth St. Denis School of Dancing and its related arts (third year — 1917) catalog lists some of those educators.

Find out more about Ruth St. Denis

Find out more about Ted Shawn

More about the rest of the faculty and staff

Louis Horst
Louis Horst, Denishawn musical director, was one of the most pivotal figures in the development of the new art form of concert dance, was teacher at most of the early dance institutions, and was mentor to many who would go on to shape the dance field as we know it today.
In the early years of the new art form of concert dance, many of the pioneers and founders spent nearly a third of a century engaged in movement exploration inspired by new ideas about the body, notions of the place of human beings in the universe, and the role of the individual. They explored the dances of other cultures; the importance of the breath in movement; the use of natural forces of the universe like gravity, inertia, and momentum; and the relevance of individual experiences and emotions.
By the 1930s, dancers began to place increased importance on how those new ideas could be adapted for the stage and how they could reach a broader audience. Three people were key in this development.
Louis Horst (1884-1964) - musical director at Denishawn - taught movement exploration through his modern forms curriculum which encouraged choreographers to find inspiration from the other arts and, through the teaching of pre-classic musical forms, introduced choreographers to such musical devices as ABA; canons; and rondos, as ways to organize dances. His Modern Dance Forms in Relation to the Other Modern Arts (1961) with Carroll Russell and Pre-Classic Forms (1937) are still used in choreography classes today.
Along with Horst, two other artists influenced the choreography of the new art form.
Rudolf Von Laban (1879-1958), developed a notation system and form of movement analysis that opened up ways to look at all possible human movement.
Doris Humphrey (1895-1858) - a member of the Denishawn Company - developed a dance composition curriculum that provided a guide for ways to design the body and ways to design the stage space. Just before her death she published, The Art of Making Dances, one of the most important books on choreography, that is still referred to today. She later became Jose Limon’s choreographic mentor as he created some of the seminal works of the 20th century.
Louis Horst influenced a generation of choreographers and dancers and was Martha Graham’s musical director, mentor, and partner. He was also a scholar and critic who founded and edited the journal Dance Observer from 1933-1964 to document the development of American modern dance.
Find out more about Louis Horst

An important aspect of the Denishawn School was its focus on the individual students.
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The Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts, founded in 1915 by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn in Los Angeles, California, helped many perfect their dancing talents and became the first dance academy in the United States to produce a professional dance company.[1] Some of the school's more notable pupils include Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Lillian Powell, Charles Weidman, Jack Cole, and silent film star Louise Brooks. The school was especially renowned for its influence on ballet and experimental modern dance. In time, Denishawn teachings reached another school location as well - Studio 61 at the Carnegie Hall Studios.

this is from wikipedia
Cuban culture encompasses a wide range of dance forms.[1] The island's indigenous people performed rituals known as areíto, which included dancing, although little information is known about such ceremonies. After the colonization of Cuba by the Spanish Kingdom, European dance forms were introduced such as the French contredanse, which gave rise to the Cuban contradanza. Contradanza itself spawned a series of ballroom dances between the 19th and 20th centuries, including the danzón, mambo and cha-cha-cha. Rural dances of European origin, such as the zapateo and styles associated with punto guajiro also became established by the 19th century, and in the 20th century son became very popular. In addition, numerous dance traditions were brought by black slaves from West Africa and the Congo basin, giving rise to religious dances such as Santería, yuka and abakuá, as well as secular forms such as rumba. Many of these dance elements from European dance and religious dances were fused together to form the basis of la técnica cubana. Cuban music also contributed to the emergence of Latin dance styles in the United States, namely rhumba (ballroom rumba) and salsa.[2]
Ruth St. Denis and Religious influences throughout Denishawn
These images are taken from Denishawn: the Ruth St. Denis School of Dancing and its related arts : third year : 1917 and help to support the information previously discussed in the Religious and Spiritual influences page. Page 7 discusses Ruth St. Denis and her overall works with Denishawn which helped bring spiritual influences into the dance scene at Denishawn. Page 20 from the book shows more about the individuality system which brought in a religious aspects and backgrounds to Denishawn, through practices such as meditation.