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.