Ted Shawn (1891-1972). American-born dancer, choreographer, teacher and director

Ted Shawn was born in Kansas City, in the USA, in 1891. He started dancing in 1910, in order to recover from an illness which had left him partially paralysed. Shawn danced first with a ballroom dance troupe before moving to New York in 1914, where he met and married Ruth St Denis, becoming her partner in dance as well as in life. Together they set up the Denishawn School in California in 1915 to promote the free, exotic style developed by St Denis. Denishawn wound down in 1930, due to financial problems and also to Shawn and St Denis drifting apart personally.

From 1933 until 1940 Shawn ran a company of male dancers called Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers, whose first performance took place at his farm at Jacob’s Pillow, Massachusetts. This led to the creation of the Jacob’s Pillow dance school and festival from 1941, with both St Denis and Shawn involved. Shawn himself taught there until just before he died, at the age of 80, in Orlando, Florida. Shawn is credited with greatly enhancing the stature of male dancers, and their acceptance as virile athletes as well as artists.