Modern Dancing is Complicated Form of Hugging, Says Ruth St. Denis Orient Rich in Material for Interpretative Dances

"The ant of the dance is the most fundamental of all the arts," Ruth St. Denis one of America's premier interpretive dancers, stated in an interview with a Crimson reporter. "Interpretive dancing has just started in this country; 80 years ago not a dozen people would go to see the same type of performance with which we are now able to fill houses all over the country. Of course it will always be less popular than modern jazz for it can never become a common type of dancing. Popular dancing such as the modern fox trot must be essentially simple so that it can be learned easily.

Interpretive dancing, requires vigorous training while the dancer is a child between the ages of five and 15, and latter constant work in between performances. This necesity for training dancers while they are young raises a great many complications, for a child's parents are unwilling to allow it to go without an education. In order to avoid this trouble we hope to start a school at which regular school work can be combined with training in dancing."

Miss St. Denis continued talking about the schools she had already started throughout the country and the work they were doing in them. She and her husband, Ted Shawn, arrange all their own dances and she stated that her 18 minths in the Orient this winter had given them a wealth of material to work on. Returning to dancing and especially modern dancing, she said, "I feel that popular dancing as one sees it today is nothing mere than a complicated form of hugging. It will, however, probably change very soon and return to some more rhythmic form of movement." When asked if she liked Havelock Ellis's "Dance of Life" she shrugged her shoulders and said, "Of course, it is a very great book and is practically our Bible."