Over the past four years, Chicago Film Archives has learned a lot about Ruth Page and Sybil Shearer, two forceful and terribly gifted dancers. Each chose Chicago as their base of operations. Both were not only dancers but choreographers too, and both left behind vast film collections that are now in CFA’s care.
This film program begins CFA’s periodic exploration of these two artists’ work that was widely documented on film. Both were innovators and dramatic figures who took dance in very different directions.
Page introduced Americana into the classical ballet while stretching her genre of performance into opera ballet, popular review, and modern dance. Outspoken and exuberant, she travelled the world at a very young age, introducing Chicago as an international center for dance.
Shearer was a thorough modernist and a renegade. She eschewed the “cutting edge” of the New York dance scene (even though she was part of it) and chose to develop her vision amidst the prairies of the Midwest… forgoing commercial regard. Her work is steeped in references to the human condition, social injustices and the natural world.
Though widely known, Page’s work has yet to be excavated for the public consumption. Less known, Shearer is a jewel to be rediscovered. Each of them deserves our further attention.
This program looks at their early years, mixing home movies with performance footage. Jeff Parker (Tortoise, Isotope 217º) scores the silent films from the Ruth Page Collection.
Films will be presented digitally:
DANSE MACABRE (1922, featuring Ruth Page & Adolph Bolm with music by Jeff Parker, original format: 16mm)
Ruth Page Home Movies shot in Bali, Indonesia (circa 1928 featuring Ruth Page and her travels with music by Jeff Parker, original format: 16mm)
VARIATIONS ON EUCLID (circa 1938, featuring Ruth Page Dance Co. with music by Jeff Parker, original format: 16mm)
FRANKIE & JOHNNY (1938, featuring Ruth Page & Co. with music by Jeff Parker, original format: 16mm)
BOLERO (1930, featuring Ruth Page, Adolph Bolm & Co. with music by Jeff Parker, original format: 35mm)
Sybil Shearer Home Movies shot in Northbrook, Illinois (1940s, featuring Sybil Shearer and her dog, original format: 8mm)
EARLY SCENES OF NORTHBROOK (excerpts) (1950s, featuring Sybil Shearer and filmed by Helen Morrison with music by Arthur Honegger, original format: 16mm)
SALUTE TO WALTER TERRY (1950s, featuring Sybil Shearer and filmed by Helen Morrison, original format: 16mm)
EARLY SCENES OF NORTHBROOK (excerpts) (1950s, featuring Sybil Shearer and filmed by Helen Morrison with music by Arthur Honegger, original format: 16mm)
O LOST (1942, featuring Sybil Shearer and filmed by Helen Morrison with music by Frédéric Chopin, original format: 16mm)
SALUTE TO AGNES DEMILLE (1950s, featuring Sybil Shearer and filmed by Helen Morrison, original format: 16mm)
IN A VACUUM (1941, featuring Sybil Shearer and filmed by Helen Morrison with music by Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, original format: 16mm)
EARLY SCENES OF NORTHBROOK (excerpts) (1950s, featuring Sybil Shearer and filmed by Helen Morrison with music by Arthur Honegger, original format: 16mm)
MYSTERIUM TREMENDUM (excerpt) (1956, featuring Sybil Shearer and filmed by Helen Morrison with music by Benjamin Britten, original format: 16mm)
Special Guests for post-screening discussion:
Zachary Whittenburg, Manager of Communications, Hubbard Street Dance will facilitate the discussion
Dolores Lipinski Long, Associate Director – Ruth Page School of Dance and Co-Director – Ruth Page Civic Ballet
Patricia Klekovic, Ballet Training Program Instructor – Ruth Page Center for the Arts and former prima ballerina – Ruth Page International Ballet and Chicago Lyric Opera
Toby Nicholson, Member of the Board of Trustees, Morrison-Shearer Foundation Former dancer with the Sybil Shearer Dance Company and Director-Choreographer of theater
Carol Doty, Chair of the Board of Trustees, Morrison-Shearer Foundation and Independent Writer and Historian
These collections are made accessible to the public by the generosity of:
The Morrison-Shearer Foundation
The Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation
The National Endowment of the Arts
This program was kindly hosted by the Cinema and Dance Departments of Columbia College Chicago.