First Steps: the early works of Ruth Page and Sybil Shearer
In 2014, Chicago Film Archives presented FIRST STEPS, a program showcasing the works of 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: the Ruth Page Collection and the Morrison-Shearer Collection.
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.
The FIRST STEPS program looked at their early years, mixing home movies with performance footage. Jeff Parker (Tortoise, Isotope 217º) provided scores for the silent films from the Ruth Page Collection.
We’re pleased to provide permanent online home for this program here.
THE PROGRAM:
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)
