Ruth St. Denis

Ruth St. Denis (January 20, 1878- July 21,1968) was an early modern dance pioneer.

St. Denis in Europe

Like Loie Fuller and Isadora Duncan before her, St. Denis felt that Europe might have more to offer her. She left with her mother for London in 1906, and traveled the continent performing her "translations" until 1909, when she returned to give a series of well-received concerts in New York City and on tour in the United States. During the next five years she continued to tour, building her reputation as an exotic dancer with an artistic bent, a "classic dancer" in the same catagory as Isadora Duncan. These two artists were, however, inherently different in their approach to the solo dance. According to St. Denis' biographer Suzanne Shelton, Duncan sought "the Self in the Universe," and St. Denis sought "the Universe in the Self." For St. Denis, the exotic worlds she intended to interpret could be seen from the vantage point of her body.

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