In the beginning of February of 1916, a Los Angeles-based dance company was held over for an additional week of performances at the Palace Theatre, a top vaudeville house in New York. As reported in the New York Dramatic Mirror on February 12, 1916,

“Ruth St. Denis is the dancing sensation of the year at the Palace… It is estimated that not less than five thousand people were turned away last week… The Keith people have bought off her other engagements, and hereafter she will appear in Keith’s vaudeville exclusively with her husband, Ted Shawn, and a troupe of exquisite girls from their school… Miss St. Denis has been fighting the battle of a pioneer for a good many years now and dancing before all cliques, coteries and hand-picked audiences… Now she has come into her own, and the applause of the average citizen, the regular theatergoer, the middle-class man and woman, is sweet to her ears.”

The rival New York Clipper was far less complimentary to the act, deeming her success “made principally on her reputation” (February 5, 1916). A week later, however, the Clipper grudgingly improved its opinion, although the change was attributed to “the better selection of dances” rather than better dancing.

The first week’s program featured dances choreographed by St. Denis, including The Spirit of the Sea, Danse Javanese, and The Peacock.

 

By the second week, the troupe had changed its lineup to include O-Mika Arranges Her Flowers and Starts for a Picnic, The Cobras, Hawaii, and Ancient Egypt: A Ballet of the Tamboura.

 

The Palace was not St. Denis’s first foray into vaudeville, nor was it the first time she and Ted Shawn had appeared on stage together. But the 1915-1916 tour, which included the Palace Theatre run, was the first to feature dancers from the Ruth St. Denis School of Dancing and its Related Arts, which was founded in the summer of 1915 and which became known, in a mingling of the two founders’ names, as Denishawn.

Notable alumni from the school include dance giants like Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, and Jack Cole.

The Jerome Robbins Dance Division contains numerous primary source materials related to Ruth St. Denis, Ted Shawn, and Denishawn, including a newly discovered collection, which will be soon be made available. For biographies and discussions of the Denishawn influence on American modern dance, check out one of the books or DVDs below.

Books

Divine Dancer: A Biography of Ruth St. Denis, by Suzanne Shelton

Wisdom Comes Dancing: Selected Writings of Ruth St. Denis on Dance, Spirituality, and the Body, by Ruth St. Denis

Miss Ruth; The "More Living Life" of Ruth St. Denis, by Walter Terry

An Unfinished Life: An Autobiography, by Ruth St. Denis

The Drama of Denishawn Dance, by Jane Sherman

Dance Was Her Religion: The Sacred Choreography of Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis and Martha Graham, by Janet Lynn Rosema

Denishawn, the Enduring Influence, by Jane Sherman

Ted Shawn, Father of American Dance: A Biography, by Walter Terry

Shawn, The Dancer, by Katherine Sophie Dreier

One Thousand and One Night Stands, by Ted Shawn

DVDs

Denishawn: the Birth of Modern Dance, produced by Clark Santee and Delia Gravel Santee, written by Clark Santee.

Denishawn Dances On!,  director, Ron Honsa; producer, Chris Sloben