Ted Shawn

In January 1969, just months before the Stonewall Riots, Ted Shawn (1891-1972) wanted to tell a story about how his life, writings, and dances contributed to the rapidly evolving gay liberation movement around him. Shawn died before he was able to put forth a candid account about how he, the "Father of American Dance," was homosexual, but he scrupulously archived his correspondence, diaries, photographs, and motion pictures of his dances, anticipating that the fullsignificance of his choreography would reveal itself in time. Ted Shawn: His Life, Writings, and Dances tells that story.

Paul A. Scolieri is Chair & Professor of Dance at Barnard College, Columbia University, and the award-winning author of Dancing the New World: Aztecs, Spaniards, and the Choreography of Conquest.

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations in Notes
List of Images
Chronology
Introduction: Firsts and Foremost
1. The Making of Personality
Fraternities, 1891-1912
Old World Dancing Masters in a Modern World, 1912-1914
2. An Interesting Experiment in Eugenics
Strange Marriage, 1914-1915
Birth of a Dancing Nation, 1915-1917
Drills and Demonstrations, 1917-1918
Afternoon of a Shawn, 1918-1922
Unconscious Eugenics, 1922
3. Tales of a Terpsichorean Traveler
A Dancing Geography Lesson, October 1922-April 1923
Castles in Spain, April-May 1923
"Sheiking" in the Desert, May-June 1923
A Dance King and His Empire, July 1923-August 1925
America's Unofficial Ambassadors, August 1925-November 1926
4. America's Greatest Male Dancer
A Greater Denishawn, December 1926-October 1929
American Prometheus, 1929-1931
The Price of Pioneering, July 1930-March 1933
5. Seven Magic Years
Adventures with Dances, 1933-1936
Modernism on Main Street, 1936-1939
Farewell, Sacred Legion, 1939-1940
6. Jacob's Pillar
War and the Artist, 1940-1945
Dancing for Kinsey, 1945-1948
Pillow of Stone, 1947-1971
Death of Adonis, 1972