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Why did Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn establish the Denishawn school in 1915?

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Western dance Egyptian dancing, detail from a tomb painting from Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qurnah, Egypt, c. 1400 bce; in the British Museum, London.

Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn established the Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts in 1915 to create a centralized, organized institution for dance experimentation and instruction in the United States.12

The founders were driven by the belief that all dance techniques were valid and instructive. Consequently, they established the school to promote a diverse curriculum that included nonballetic movement, Oriental, Spanish, and primitive dance, alongside ballet fundamentals and their own innovative techniques.1

Beyond technical training, the school served as a platform for St. Denis’s vision that dance should be a spiritual pursuit rather than merely entertaining or technically skillful. By incorporating philosophical themes and exploring new choreographic concepts—such as music visualization—the school fostered a new emphasis on the communication of ideas. This environment made Denishawn a foundational institution for American modern dance, training influential figures such as Martha Graham and Doris Humphrey.21