Description

Ted Shawn was the founder and director of the Jacob’s Pillow, a dance center, school and performance space located in Becket, Massachusetts. The organization is known for the oldest internationally acclaimed Summer dance festival in the United States. Ted Shawn also taught at Springfield College during the 1932-33 school year, and a number of Springfield College students went on tour with Shawn in the first all male modern dance troupe. Ted Shawn (October 21, 1891 - January 9, 1972), originally Edwin Myers Shawn, was one of the first notable male pioneers of American modern dance. Along with creating Denishawn with former wife Ruth St. Denis, he also created the well-known, all-male company Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers. He was also the founder and creator of the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in Massachusetts, and was knighted by the King of Denmark for his efforts on behalf of the Royal Danish Ballet.An article titled "Scourge of the Dance world today is Tap Dancing" written by Ted Shawn and published by the Boston Herald in May 13, 1936. This article is the 16th in a series of 27 articles about dancing written by Ted Shawn and published between April 7 and June 9, 1936 by the Boston Herald. This article focuses on the views of Shawn on tap dancing, describing it as a “an invention of the devil”. Shawn then goes to describe how tap-dancing has African American roots, to then state that it was not a “pure” African American dance. He...

Record Contributed By

Springfield College Archives and Special Collections

Record Harvested From

Digital Commonwealth