St Denis Quotes & Sayings

Be yourself. The world worships and original. ~Ingrid Bergman — Daire St. Denis

Often, one discovery leads to interest in another. After the Dauphin's heart had undergone DNA testing and was placed in the crypt at St. Denis, I think people wanted some closure to the story about the fate of the royal couple's only child who survived the gruesome Temple Prison. I know I did. — Susan Nagel

I have performed for thousands when they found me exotic, the vogue, daring, but I have danced, at any given time, for about ten people ... They were the ones that left the theater forever different from the way they were when they came in. All of my long, long life, I have danced for those ten. — Ruth St. Denis

We should realize in a vivid and revolutionary sense that we are not in our bodies but our bodies are in us. — Ruth St. Denis

The early giants of modern dance - Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis - barely left traces of their art. — Robert Gottlieb

I have been taking stock of my 50 years since I left Wichita in 1922 at the age of 15 to become a dancer with Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. How I have existed fills me with horror. For I have failed in everything
spelling, arithmetic, riding, tennis, golf; dancing, singing, acting; wife, mistress, whore, friend. Even cooking.
And I do not excuse myself with the usual escape of 'not trying.' I tried with all my heart. — Louise Brooks

We can hear the silent voice of the spiritual universe within our own hearts. — Ruth St. Denis

As we rise higher in the understanding of ourselves, the national and racial dissonances will be forgotten in the universal rhythms of Truth and Love. — Ruth St. Denis

It was then that my religious consciousness emerged to flower years afterward into definite forms of religious dancing in which there is no sense of division between spirit and flesh, religion and art. — Ruth St. Denis

Right here where you and I stand, we shall behold a true and radiant world. In that world, we shall dance only our divine essence. — Ruth St. Denis

Dancing of late years has been degraded to the narrow limits and low professionalism of mere mechanical proficiency, associated with the most frivolous ... phases of the stage. But this day is fading ... We are turning our gaze inward, learning to seek there the divine sources of the dance, to the end that it may flower into new and more glorious forms of beauty and wealth — Ruth St. Denis

How in the end can one possibly hold anyone responsible for our own underdeveloped visions, or undeveloped strength of character? — Ruth St. Denis

The amazing thing, when she came to do the long-postponed Egypta in 1910, after she had won international fame, was that she did indeed do a work which was not only a day in the life of Egypt but the life of the nation itself, starting with dawn, with prayer, with the river Nile (she was the river itself), with the labors of the working people of Egypt, with temple ceremonies, with entertainment of the pharaoh, and with the final judgment when, before the god Osiris, the heart of Egypt is weighed against the feather of truth. — Walter Terry

I'm indebted to the teachers who shaped me - from the Sisters of St. Joseph at St. Croix Catholic elementary to the monks of St. John's in Minnesota to my professors at Georgetown. — Denis McDonough

We can scale the heights of mountains and see the world rayed out before us, but we fail to recognize that which is before us. — Ruth St. Denis

I have lived so long because in those moments when I am dancing, I am beyond time and space. — Ruth St. Denis

I see the dance being used as a means of express what is too deep, too fine for words. — Ruth St. Denis

We have the capacity to receive messages from the stars and the songs of the night winds. — Ruth St. Denis

Reform or no reform, he never ceased to promote the interests of St. Denis and the Royal House of France with the same naive, and in his case not entirely unjustified, conviction of their identity with those of the nation and with the Will of God as a modern oil or steel magnate may promote legislation favorable to his company and to his bank as something beneficial to the welfare of this country and to the progress of mankind. — Erwin Panofsky

Every artist is both male and female, and ... sometimes, the two great elements are in conjunction with him, so that all by himself he suddenly gets the melody and the burst of feeling of a great symphony without any external stimuli. — Ruth St. Denis

When you are fifty, you're neither young nor old; you're just uninteresting. When you are sixty, and still dancing, you become something of a curiosity. And boy! if you hit seventy, and can still get a foot off the ground, you're phenomenal! — Ruth St. Denis

The Gods have meant
That I should dance
And in some mystic hour
I shall move to unheard rhythms
Of the cosmic orchestra of heaven
And you will know the language
Of my wordless poems
And will come to me
For that is why I dance. — Ruth St. Denis

I want to dance always, to be good and not evil, and when it is all over not to have the feeling that I might have done better. — Ruth St. Denis

It is not a question of who dances but of who or what does not dance. — Ruth St. Denis

The real message of the Dance opens up the vistas of life to all who have the urge to express beauty with no other instrument than their own bodies, with no apparatus and no dependence on anything other than space. — Ruth St. Denis

You and I are but specks of that rhythmic urge which is Brahma, which is Allah, which is God. — Ruth St. Denis

With Ted she was about to discover the God of Physical Love. — Walter Terry

I believe that my whole creative life stemmed from this magic hour under the stars on that hilltop. — Ruth St. Denis

But in reality we are accompanied by the whole dancing universe. — Ruth St. Denis

It is this mission of the dancer to contribute to the betterment of all mankind. — Ruth St. Denis

Our bodies are at once the receiving and transmitting stations for life itself. It is the highest wisdom to recognize this fact and train our bodies to render them sensitive and responsive to nature. art and religion. — Ruth St. Denis

Ted did part of St. Denis's poetry tours with her. — Walter Terry

Remembering that man is indeed the microcosm, the universe in miniature, the Divine Dance of the future should be able to convey with its slightest gestures some significance of the universe. — Ruth St. Denis

Pardon me," I answered, as I placed a bundle of straw upon the fire and slightly stirred it. Then I turned quickly but already we had passed out of sight of La Muette. Astonished I cast a glance towards the river. I perceived the confluence of the Oise. And naming the principal bends of the river by the places nearest them, I cried, "Passy, St. Germain, St. Denis, Sevres!" — Francois Laurent D'Arlandes

Fusing the doctrines of Plotinus and Proclus with the creeds and beliefs of Christianity, Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite combined the Neo-Platonic conviction of the fundamental oneness and luminous aliveness of the world with the Christian dogmas of the triune God, original sin and redemption. The universe is created, animated and unified by the perpetual self-realization of what Plotinus had called "the One," what the Bible had called "the Lord," and what he calls "the superessential Light. — Erwin Panofsky

I see dance being used as communication between body and soul, to express what is too deep to find for words. — Ruth St. Denis