Tuesday, July 12 and Wednesday, July 13 – “An Unfinished Life” by Ruth St. Denis
On Tuesday, I started off my day by reading in Deering (read: Hogwarts) for a couple hours, before Mari took some headshots for me. I then read for a bit more at home before going to take a modern class, and then read even more before heading to bed. Today, I read for a couple hours in bed, took a ballet class, and then read at Coffee Lab before finishing up my reading at home. This book was a doozy.
Some of this was the same as “Wisdom Comes Dancing,” but this was definitely more of an autobiography–St. Denis took us through her entire life and career step by step, and she was incredibly redundant in the process (which is why this is such a hefty book).
Oh, I should also add–my Ted Shawn book has not yet arrived, but it’s supposed to by the end of the month. I’ve moved him around in my schedule to accommodate that; I gave myself an extra day on this book instead. And I moved Yvonne up all by herself for no reason. (Sorry, Yvonne).
Anyway, Ruth. I’m still not a huge fan. She repeatedly says throughout the book that the three components of her soul are love, religion, and art (sound like anyone? Duncan, but + religion?) and that she was never able to reconcile the three throughout her life.
This is a big deal, guys. She mentions it at least once a chapter.
The other biggest thing this book showed me is that she is a mess of contradictions (which, to be fair, we all are–myself included–but hers are wild). My biggest issue with her has always been the cultural appropriation; this book showed me that she didn’t appropriate as much as I thought she did! But then she has a few moments where I’m just like ????
Here’s what I mean:
– She was drawn to an image of Buddha, but felt guilty for it because she was Protestant and hated that she derived pleasure from this image. But then went on to use images from other cultures anyway. I don’t even think you can call that appropriation, but it’s contradictory and confusing, so that’s a strike.
– She was first opened up to the “Orient” because she saw a cigarette advertisement with a westernized Isis; she recognizes that it’s westernized and modified and yet still believes that this figure of Isis “open[s] up to her . . . the whole story that was Egypt” (52). Strike one for appropriation/general choosing to be ignorant.
– When she gets excited about Indian culture, she reads all of the books she can in the library about them and asks people she knows from India many questions in order to understand the culture. Point, education!
– BUT she only asks these people to spend time with her because they’re from India, and the only interactions they have are for her education. Strike, appropriation.
– She also says that she realizes that her dance “Radha” is culturally inaccurate, because Radha is never worshiped on her own, but she says that “at no time, then or in the future, ha[s she] been sufficiently the scholar or sufficiently interested to imitate or try to reproduce any Oriental ritual or actual dance–the mood to [her] is all, and inevitably manifests its own pattern” (57). That is to say, she knows she’s wrong, but doesn’t care about cultural accuracy because the only part of the culture that’s useful to her is the “mood.” Strike, appropriation.
– Her ensemble for the India-inspired dances are a group of boys she calls “the Hindus” (which is also what she calls every brown person she meets). And we only ever hear two of their names; one because he lets her stay at his hotel in London for free later on, and one because he stays on in her company until the end. Let it be known that she painstakingly gives us the full names–middle, too–of every white or western artist she encounters. Dehumanization of brown ensemble members and using them only as accessories? Strike, appropriation.
– She uses brown face. And calls herself Radha. And makes up a fake backstory about coming from India. MILLIONS of strikes.
I’ll stop there, because I think I’ve made my point. She does try to educate herself, to her credit, but she does not use that education nearly enough, and her errors in using other cultures are numerous.
Funnily enough, when St. Denis (finally) goes to India and other countries in Asia, they seem to love her dances (or at least that’s what she tells us, so I’m choosing to believe it–unreliable narrators and all that). Which reminds me of this article.
Finally, the one bizarre thing that St. Denis does throughout this book is shift tenses and points of view. When describing her dances, for example, she always talks in the third person. And often she’ll go into a description of a specific moment in her life, and will switch to the present tense instead of past. These changes are something I’d like to track more in-depth at a later date.
I still have two more days of good ol’ Ruthie, but fortunately they’re books about her that have been written by other authors. Hopefully we’ll avoid some of the flowery language and get to a more critical understanding of her life and contribution to American modern dance.