Ted shawn dance score cards

Finding Aid | Digital Images and Documents

Ted Shawn was born Edwin Myers Shawn on October 21, 1891 in Kansas City, Missouri. After a battle with Diphtheria at the age of 19, he took up dance as a form of Physical Therapy. In 1914 he met Ruth St. Denis, married her, and together they started the Denishawn Dance Company and School. Many of today’s modern dancers can trace their roots to this company. Shawn and St. Denis separated and dissolved the Denishawn Company in 1930. That very same year, Shawn purchased a farm in the Berkshires called Jacob’s Pillow. Eventually this farm becomes the site for Schools of Dance and for the Jacob’s Pillow Dance festival (incorporated in 1942). From 1932 to 1933 Ted Shawn taught at Springfield College, then known as the International YMCA College. Through experiments conducted in his teaching, Ted Shawn formed the Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers dance company. This was the first all-male dance company in the Un

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Ted Shawn Papers

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 Collection — Box: 01-03

Identifier: MS-520

Collection Scope and Contents

The Ted Shawn Papers collection contains materials and information on the life of Ted Shawn, Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers, Jacob’s Pillow and the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festivals, various Dance Schools created by Ted Shawn and Jacob’s Pillow, including the University of the Dance, and the connection between Ted Shawn and Springfield College. Materials include newspaper and magazine articles; photographs of Ted Shawn and of dancers at Jacob’s Pillow; brochures and programs from various shows, festivals, and schools; promotional materials such as flyers and special bulletins; labanotation and sheet music from various dances created and choreographed by Ted Shawn; a VHS tape of “The Men Who Danced: Ted Shawn & His Men Dancers;” letters and writings by Ted Shawn; and Correspondence between Springfield College, Ted Shawn, and Jacob’s Pillow.

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Ted Shawn papper

1913-1982 [bulk 1940-1972]

Ted Shawn was born Edwin Myers Shawn in Kansas City, Missouri on October 21, 1891. Shawn was the second of two boys in the family. In 1903, his older brother died and then eight months later his mother died. Shawn was devastated. He and his father lived in boarding houses until his father remarried. In 1906 he moved to Denver, Colorado, to be with his father and stepmother.

Shawn entered the University of Denver in 1911, to study to become a minister. In his third year he became ill with diphtheria, which left him paralyzed from the waist down. He began dancing as a means of physical therapy. He enjoyed dancing so much that he left school.

Shawn's first dance teacher in Denver was Hazel Wallack, with whom he studied ballet and ballroom exhibition dancing. In 1912 Shawn moved to Los Angeles, where he established a school and small performing company. The following year he and his dancing partner, Norma Gould, embarked with their