125 Years of Chicago’s Ruth Page International Dance Legacy
By Nick Nicholas with Wes Hessel
Center Stage at Ruth Page was a two day festival celebrating the life, art, and legacy of its founder. Two nights of exhilarating dance to pay tribute to Chicago’s dance icon and choreographer, born 125 years ago. About ten professional companies with a diverse body of works accepted the birthday invitation by the artistic family of the Ruth Page Center for the Arts. They showed up and shared their talented works in the center’s very own 218 seat theatre – a black box where nearly half the floor space is allocated to its stage, big enough to explore any artistic question and movement without physical confines.
Two nights of celebrating movement transformed this space into a whimsical treasure chest with eclectic pieces, some of which were premieres, ranging from classical ballet to modern, tribal to Latin. They were offerings of body, heart, and soul to the founder’s memory, giving it another 100 years from its get-go, witnessing the art of dance evolve in real time. Many works were performed by the students of the Ruth Page School of Dance, and its Professional Dance Training Program, students who have been training for years in the educational program, and are technically and artistically ready to join professional world class troupes.
Ruth Page made history by creating choreography which employed both classical and modern dance to arrive at a finished product that was a perfect marriage of the two. The school of dance continues to explore and advance its founder’s artistic vocabulary with respect, as it reimagines, reinvents, and reinterprets dance in fresh new creative works, which an audience can relate to, appreciate, and admire organically. No other art is as immediate, impulsive, and playful in arousing our senses and imagination. Dancers redefine and defy muscle movement, which becomes an intimate affair with the space they occupy, move, explore, and touch as they dance in harmony, in turmoil, in conflict, in despair, in hope, in redemption, in absolution to name a few.
These were my thoughts when I watched the premiere of “Ephemeral”, a new work choreographed by Braeden Barnes, performed by the dancers from the Professional Dance Training Program. I was mesmerised by movement that flowed as if the body was in liquid form. Dancers, costumed in black tights with abstract gold accents highlighting the shape of the body moved as if streaks of daylight were breaking through the infinite night sky. This group of dancers conquered the earth beneath their feet, and the space around them changing its rules of gravity in this dance – ephemeral indeed.
With gushing talent and electrifying inspiration they offered themselves to us with generosity and new found affection. There were moments in this work where I thought that movement had surpassed its physical nature, and created a celestial body around the dancers. You wouldn’t have a great piece of dance if you didn’t have great choreography, great music, costumes, and lighting, which they did. And you wouldn’t have a gut wrenching dark night of the soul experience had this work not been set to Klaus Nomi’s unique music of the “Cold Song”. Ruth Page collaborated with the avant garde art elite of her times, influencing and being inspired to advance their art form respectively with innovation and uniqueness. It is beautifully peculiar and otherworldly that a modern choreographer at Ruth Page chose an revolutionary music score to tell a story of our collective sensory experience, one that became an extra layer of my being in real time – an ephemeral eternity.
The Ruth Page School of Dance and its programs with tireless practice, teaching, and training, takes the person who wants to dance, was born to dance, can’t live without dance, and gives them, with class instruction, internships, and programs, the tools, education, knowledge, inspiration, and confidence; the ability to transform the tangible into intangible on stage. Sara Schumann, Executive Director, and Victor Alexander, Director of the School of Dance, a dancer and choreographer himself, along with a handful of dedicated professionals, are ushering in the next 125 years of Ruth Page, making sure that this multifaceted arts center lives up to its mission as they define it – “An incubator of artistic energy. The center of Chicago’s dance history. The Ruth Page Center for the Arts carries forward the mission and vision of its founder, legendary dance icon Ruth Page, to be a platform for developing great artists and connecting them with audiences and community. With a focus on dance as a critical art form, its programming ensures that children and dance artists have a place to train, work, and perform at the highest level of excellence.”
A big shout out to all who worked on the very demanding and complex technical aspects of these two nights. Back-to-back performances by such different dance groups were seamless and smooth in transition without missing a single step. Ms. Page herself had to have been present guiding, guarding, and protecting her arts family, who are safeguarding her legacy in dance. It is so much richer to be inseparable, interconnected, and relying on one another for everything we need and is of essence. And it is easy to do, for we all speak and understand this language of dance. We evolve through movement, and all movement is dance. We and the universe are in an ongoing state of dance steps, patterns, spacing, musicality; anytime we move, or choose to stay put – we are always dancing, even when asleep. Ruth Page and all the artists that she inspired made it, and are making it abundantly clear with every dance we are invited to join. All we have to do is show up…Here’s a link to the Chicago Film Archives on Ruth Page, time well spent in the presence of greatness: collections.chicagofilmarchives.org/Detail/collections/118. For more information on the Ruth Page Arts Center and their programs, please check out www.ruthpage.org.
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