O world, / Behold and live again. / We have found the secret, / We have found the way, / It is to dance! —Ruth St. Denis
Ruth St. Denis’s (1879-1968) first experience with dance was at the age of three during a barn dance with her father playing a fiddle. St. Denis wrote that she “began to jounce up and down, and Father, seizing a tambourine from the trap drummer, thrust it into my hands. I started beating out time with some uncertain footwork.”
What a joyful and light-hearted experience for a young child. It was clearly an expression that left an imprint on her spirit. My first encounter with dance was much later at the age of ten. After being deposited at the top of a winding staircase, with other students in pink tights, black leotards, unbearably stiff black leather ballet slippers, and a tulle ballet skirt; lying on the floor peering under the studio door observing moving feet, I was mesmerized. Listening to the live piano music and rhythmic tapping on the floor by the Russian dance instructor, when the sounds and movement stopped we quickly jumped up, fluffed our tulle skirts and stood in a line to enter the studio reverently. After that day, few things really mattered to me, except classical ballet class.
A child of ritual and discipline I reveled in the sacred, not to the degree of Ruth St. Denis who attempted to epitomize Jesus with towels and ropes to hold on her costume. I was enamored by an ornately framed photo of Jesus with an exposed heart surrounded by thorns—to which he was pointing.
In our house, this piece of art was flanked on either side with portraits of Sts. Martin de Porres and Rose of Lima. The room was a place of study, piano practice and quiet. The center photo raised slightly higher on the wall always caught my attention as I entered the room with gentle eyes resting on me, like a warm embrace. Like St. Denis, I was under a similar influence of searching for meaning in everything. Without words to express that insight, I realize now that I was only beginning to grasp that my vehicle of expressions was movement. “[D]ance began in the unconscious, not in the body…as a Life experience, as the ultimate means of expression…”—although it would take decades for me to allow the fullest expression of that thought to move through my dancing.
As a dancer, Ruth St. Denis saw her role to be that of a prophet, and was not afraid to boldly proclaim it. This dancer/writer is more reluctant on that issue, however I do assert that my ear is “ inclined to God,” regardless of my many flaws. St. Denis’ reflection of understanding herself as a prophetess was profoundly rooted in her identity with the divine and trust in something greater than herself.
The prophet is a watchman, a servant, a messenger of God, an assayer and tester of the people’s ways. The prophet’s eye is directed to the contemporary scene; the society and its conduct are the main theme. Yet his ear is inclined to God.
There were only a few who truly understood and appreciated St. Denis’ capacity to draw a connection between the body and spirit through dance. And she was not without critics. However, Samuel Lewis, the founder of the Dances of Universal Peace had this to say: “Ruth St. Denis has the faculty of drawing music and dances out of the cosmos, out of the heart-of-God.”
An avid reader, some have wondered if St. Denis ever came across a medieval treatise that speaks about the transformation of body and soul which she so effortlessly expressed through her art. To get a glimpse of this correlation what follows is an excerpt from Solis Splendor:
The Spirit dissolves the body, and in the dissolution extracts the soul of the body, and changes this body into soul, and the soul is changed into Spirit, and the Spirit is again added to the body, for thus it has stability. Here then, the body becomes spiritual by the strength of the Spirit.
Though St. Denis loathed classical ballet, we have common ground in our appreciation of the writings of Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) Anglo-Catholic writer who seemed to understand the relationship between the holy, the body, and art.
The artist is no more or less than a contemplative who has learned to express himself, and who tells his love in colour, speech, or sound: the mystic, upon one side of his nature, is an artist of a special and exalted kind, who tries to express something of the revelation he has received, mediates between Reality and the race.
Besides St. Denis’ fascination with goddesses, her understanding of the divine feminine was also influenced by her travels to Egypt, China, Syria, and India. This became ever more apparent in development of hundreds of works honoring the Virgin Mary. Her intention was to understand Mary within herself, within her body and she wrote fluently about her experiences:
My Whole body has filled with light. I pour forth my spirit into Joy! I sing! I dance! I am arrayed in white, for my suffering and fears have departed from me.
There are so many aspects of Ruth St. Denis’ spiritual dancing that resonate with me. For now, perhaps with one final thought this is enough to honor her contribution to dance, connection to spirit, and understanding of the human body as a vehicle for raising consciousness.
Right here where you and I stand, we shall behold a true and radiant world. In that world, we shall dance only our divine essence.
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Diana- Ruth is the visionary dancer who ignited the call of my life- I’m always so grateful when someone lifts up her words and sensibility! Thank you!!