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20 seconds to my

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eye.

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I have a mirror to get my face

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fixed up, I can't I get up and go?

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You absolutely can't let him just undo your microphone.

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You have something.

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I'm sorry, just stop.

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I have about 10 seconds.

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I'll be right back.

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Thank you.

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I'll just go see if my makeup's all right.

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So you're in New York.

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You started in New York with your mother.

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You've just finished the South American tour.

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And you came back and you finished at Tudor Hall.

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Did you spend some time?

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No, no, I finished Tudor Hall before I went.

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Before you went.

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Yeah, I graduated from Tudor Hall.

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1916 I was...

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1916, you were 13 years old.

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No, I was 16.

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Let's say you were born in...

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I think so, yes, I was 16.

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You were born in 1903.

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No, I was born in 1900 or 1899, I'm not sure which.

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That's good because in one of the books, and in Who's Who, I think it's wrong.

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Probably.

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Isn't that interesting?

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Okay.

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So at 16, you finished, you went on the South American tour.

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You came back and you went to New York.

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I stayed, I went, yes, on the tour.

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I stayed right in New York.

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Oh, you stayed right in New York?

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I didn't go back to Indianapolis ever.

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You never went back to Indianapolis?

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Mm-mm.

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And your mother?

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My mother went back to Indianapolis.

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And so you were in New York alone.

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Mm-hmm.

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Where did you live?

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I was at a school, Miss Williams and Miss McClellan's French School for Girls.

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I see.

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So you were going back to school and it was a finishing school, really.

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What did you do all day there?

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Well, I took a dancing lesson every day.

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I was chaperoned.

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I went down and took a private dancing lesson every day from Adolf Baum.

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Mm-hmm.

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And then, oh, we were supposed to speak French, but we never did.

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And we were taken to everything.

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We went to the Metropolitan Art Museum, studied Italian art.

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And we were taken to the theater a lot.

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There were 19 girls there.

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We just had a good time.

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I don't think we learned anything.

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Well, there were classes, certainly, in English and history.

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No?

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I can't remember any classes at all.

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Maybe there were.

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There probably were, of course.

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I remember the principal of the school was right there.

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It was in Italian art.

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And so she used to take us to the Met all the time.

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And we'd study Italian art there.

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The Met was right near where the school was.

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And to the ballet.

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Did they take you to the ballet a lot, too?

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Mm-hmm.

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Well, once in a while.

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What were the other girls like?

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Where were they from?

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I don't know.

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I don't remember any of them.

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They weren't anything very interesting.

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They were just girls like me who came from all over the country

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and were getting finished in New York.

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You must have had, though, a background different from the other girls.

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I mean, after all, you'd spent a year traveling all through South America with Pat.

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Well, yes, that made me kind of different because I had to hop to school.

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They were just ordinary girls.

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I don't know what they did.

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I have no idea.

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And did you like the feeling of being different?

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I never thought anything about it.

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You were an unusual teenager.

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Yes, I guess so.

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But I didn't think so at the time.

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You were just being you.

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Mm-hmm.

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Okay.

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So there you were in New York and you were studying with Adolf Baum.

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And then what happened?

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What happened?

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Well, I joined Adolf Baum's Ballet on Team.

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135
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And I went places, traveled with him.

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It was a small company.

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It was a very interesting company, I think.

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I remember they had the first third of the program was done by either South Sado,

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Harpist or Barer or Flutist, both excellent musicians.

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And then we did the second part of the program.

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We went to London together.

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I went to dance at the Coliseum with the Baum.

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Now you were by that time, weren't you the principal dancer at the Prima Ballerina?

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Yes, I certainly was.

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And you were then 17 or 18 years old, 19 years old?

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I think about 19.

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Now how was it that you selected him to be the place where you would study dance in New York?

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Because Anna Pavlova sent me to him.

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He and Anna Pavlova were great, great friends.

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And she sent me as a present to him.

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As a present?

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That's right.

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Was she a very sort of dictatorial kind of person, Ruth?

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Did she say you must go and study?

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Do you feel as though she took a special interest in you, that you were sort of a prototype really?

156
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A little?

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I guess so.

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Anyway, so you went and you started.

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And what were your first impressions of him as a teacher and then finally as a...

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Well, I used to babysit for his child.

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He had a little child named Olaf Baum.

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And that was the best time I had with him because while I was babysitting, Prokofiev was there and he practiced the piano.

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And I got to hear the great Prokofiev every time I would babysit.

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I got to hear Prokofiev, so I love babysitting.

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Your mother must have...did you write your mother about that?

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Oh, sure. I wrote mother about everything.

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She must have been just thrilled to know that you...

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I was thrilled. He was a very exciting person, a great composer.

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And he was a great pianist, too.

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I didn't know that he was a great pianist.

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At least I thought so the time he was always practicing the piano.

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And he lived there or he was a guest?

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No, he didn't live there. He just...they had a piano and they let him practice on it.

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That's wonderful. And you babysat.

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Mm-hmm.

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And then you started out and became instantly the prima ballerina of the company.

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I mean, how did that happen over a period of time?

178
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I don't know. It just evolved.

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I was the best dancer he had, and so I just got all the leading roles.

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And then he began to design roles for you to some degree, didn't he?

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To pick...to do certain kinds of ballets that would be ones where...

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that would show you what the best advantage...

183
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No, I just did whatever he told me to do.

184
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He didn't do them especially for me.

185
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There were ballets that he wanted to do.

186
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The first one we did was the birthday of Infanta.

187
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Mm-hmm.

188
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And that was...we came out here to Chicago to do it.

189
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That was the first time I came to Chicago, and I think that was 1919,

190
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if I'm not mistaken. I don't remember when it was,

191
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but that was a great, big, important ballet.

192
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And I had the part of the Infanta that was...

193
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it was her birthday...I didn't have to dance highly at all.

194
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It was just pantomime.

195
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I've seen...we have here a picture of you with that costume.

196
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It's an enormous...

197
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The Laska's...yes, they were all...

198
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Yes, like the Laska's painting.

199
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It was just a gigantic costume.

200
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And that was the first big role I ever had.

201
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And I remember...I think it was a tribute.

202
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It said Ruth Pager was perfect as Infanta.

203
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So of course I thought, oh, well, this is too easy.

204
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That's perfect right away.

205
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I was going down. I've been going down ever since.

206
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Hardly. That's nice, though.

207
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Perfect, they said.

208
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So that was the first role you danced that.

209
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And then what happened?

210
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Oh, I remember...

211
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Yes, this is what broke up my relationship with Baum.

212
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I was invited to go to dance for Hirohito in Japan.

213
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And they should have asked Baum, but they didn't.

214
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They just asked me.

215
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And I shouldn't have gone, but I wanted to go so much that I did go.

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So I didn't see Baum anymore after that.

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Talk a little bit more about the dances before we move on to that,

218
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of the kind of dance that you did at the Ballet on Team, the kinds of...

219
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Well, I did a butterfly dance.

220
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And I did a Chopin waltz with a scarf and bare feet, if I remember.

221
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And I did a Peter Pan dance.

222
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I was always doing Peter Pan dances.

223
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And I did one called Precier's Ré-Q.

224
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And he did one for me.

225
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It was called...

226
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What was that dance called?

227
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It was a Chinese sort of...

228
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I was...

229
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The Rivals, I think it was called, The Rivals.

230
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And it was between me and two men, two Chinese.

231
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I don't remember much about the dance.

232
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When I did one called The Bumble Bee,

233
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where I was supposed to be a peasant walking in the fields,

234
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I was chased by Bumble Bee.

235
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And it was a very hard dance.

236
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It was very hard to get started right with the music.

237
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The music was very tricky.

238
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And I missed it one...

239
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The first night I did it, I missed and I got the whole thing wrong.

240
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I didn't do one step right.

241
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And I went home and cried and cried and cried.

242
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And the next day the papers came out and said,

243
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we found a great new dramatic dance.

244
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I was dramatic all right.

245
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I was really scared to death.

246
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I made up all the steps as I went along.

247
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But that I've never forgotten a dance since then.

248
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Now the kind of dancing that you were doing

249
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was very different from the kind of dancing that you were doing

250
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when you were dancing in the quarter ballet with Pablova.

251
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It was much more classic and this was the beginning of a more...

252
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Well she didn't do only classic things.

253
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No. I know.

254
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But wasn't this more in a direction of looser, freer?

255
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Not really.

256
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Did you do any white ballet kinds of things at all?

257
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In the Ballet on Team?

258
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I don't think we did.

259
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I don't remember doing any.

260
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Did you like it better?

261
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Better, the less formal ballets?

262
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I liked everything.

263
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It was very easy to please.

264
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I liked all dancing, whatever it was.

265
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I never did any dancing that I didn't like.

266
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That's wonderful.

267
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It was true.

268
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Whatever it was, it was just what?

269
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The joy of doing it, Ruth?

270
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I liked doing different kinds of things.

271
00:11:38.360 --> 00:11:40.380
I did whatever my teacher told me to do.

272
00:11:41.200 --> 00:11:44.600
He suggested that I started making up some of my own dances.

273
00:11:44.780 --> 00:11:46.040
That was Baum who started that.

274
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I made up the Peter Pan dance.

275
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What were the others?

276
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I made up quite a few.

277
00:11:51.620 --> 00:11:52.800
I can't remember all of them.

278
00:11:54.240 --> 00:11:59.280
When you first started with Baum to make up dances,

279
00:11:59.380 --> 00:12:02.360
it was really the beginning of your career as a choreographer,

280
00:12:02.360 --> 00:12:02.920
Yes.

281
00:12:04.300 --> 00:12:06.540
Were there principles that you applied to it?

282
00:12:06.560 --> 00:12:08.240
Did you sit down and figure it out?

283
00:12:08.320 --> 00:12:10.240
No, I never sat down and figured anything out.

284
00:12:10.240 --> 00:12:11.320
I just did it.

285
00:12:11.420 --> 00:12:13.120
Just according to intuition.

286
00:12:13.880 --> 00:12:16.660
I'd take a piece of music that I liked,

287
00:12:17.340 --> 00:12:19.340
and have an idea for the music,

288
00:12:19.340 --> 00:12:21.100
and then I would choreograph it.

289
00:12:21.280 --> 00:12:23.240
In front of a mirror in a rehearsal hall?

290
00:12:25.300 --> 00:12:25.780
Anyplace.

291
00:12:26.180 --> 00:12:26.940
Where I happen to be.

292
00:12:27.820 --> 00:12:30.060
Even without a mirror sometimes you would just sort of?

293
00:12:30.060 --> 00:12:31.540
Sure, you don't need a mirror.

294
00:12:32.580 --> 00:12:34.280
It's more fun if you have a mirror,

295
00:12:34.300 --> 00:12:35.680
but you don't have to have a mirror.

296
00:12:39.300 --> 00:12:40.480
That's different, isn't it?

297
00:12:40.480 --> 00:12:42.680
A little bit from the way that people choreograph now.

298
00:12:42.700 --> 00:12:46.060
They seem to need dancers moving in front of them in mirrors.

299
00:12:47.140 --> 00:12:49.540
Yes, if you're going to choreograph a ballet,

300
00:12:49.700 --> 00:12:51.020
you have to have other dancers.

301
00:12:51.480 --> 00:12:52.880
You have to tell them what to do.

302
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They don't have to have a mirror,

303
00:12:54.060 --> 00:12:55.540
but it's nice if you have a mirror.

304
00:12:55.980 --> 00:12:57.840
Dancers always like to see themselves.

305
00:12:59.140 --> 00:13:04.300
Were you then, as you choreographed, for yourself, essentially,

306
00:13:05.660 --> 00:13:08.500
do you always have an image of yourself

307
00:13:08.500 --> 00:13:12.360
in terms of how it will look to somebody in the audience

308
00:13:12.360 --> 00:13:14.300
seeing you dancing on the stage?

309
00:13:14.440 --> 00:13:17.840
You have to feel whether your dance is what we call right.

310
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Whether it's right.

311
00:13:21.780 --> 00:13:23.660
Some dances are forced,

312
00:13:24.560 --> 00:13:26.740
and they don't seem to be right with the music.

313
00:13:26.740 --> 00:13:28.780
They don't seem to be right with the idea.

314
00:13:29.140 --> 00:13:33.100
You have to make sure that you're doing something right.

315
00:13:34.040 --> 00:13:36.740
Is it a feeling, Ruth, of it being right?

316
00:13:37.960 --> 00:13:40.340
Or somebody tell you Louis Horace was a marvelous critic.

317
00:13:41.200 --> 00:13:42.800
I worked with Louis Horace a lot,

318
00:13:42.840 --> 00:13:46.940
and he could always tell you if the dance was good or not good,

319
00:13:46.960 --> 00:13:49.740
and if he said it wasn't good, you just forgot it.

320
00:13:50.960 --> 00:13:52.460
He was a wonderful critic.

321
00:13:52.460 --> 00:13:54.720
What was the most difficult thing

322
00:13:54.720 --> 00:13:58.940
when you began choreographing your own dances,

323
00:13:58.980 --> 00:13:59.720
dances for yourself?

324
00:13:59.760 --> 00:14:02.000
What was the most difficult thing about it for you?

325
00:14:02.500 --> 00:14:05.820
I think the most difficult thing is to get a good idea

326
00:14:07.360 --> 00:14:12.640
and then try to think of something original for it,

327
00:14:14.840 --> 00:14:18.800
or try to get the music to fit the idea.

328
00:14:18.800 --> 00:14:22.320
I think that's the most difficult thing.

329
00:14:22.780 --> 00:14:23.960
And then, of course, it's much harder

330
00:14:23.960 --> 00:14:25.840
if you're working with a group of dancers,

331
00:14:26.560 --> 00:14:28.620
and you have to really be on your toes.

332
00:14:30.180 --> 00:14:32.740
It's much harder to choreograph for a group

333
00:14:32.740 --> 00:14:33.920
than it is for yourself.

334
00:14:34.600 --> 00:14:34.600


335
00:14:35.900 --> 00:14:39.640
Do you think that there's any subject

336
00:14:40.740 --> 00:14:42.940
for which the dance is inappropriate?

337
00:14:44.220 --> 00:14:46.320
Lots of subjects, don't you?

338
00:14:47.680 --> 00:14:48.880
Well, I don't know.

339
00:14:49.020 --> 00:14:50.760
It seems these days, I mean, we're jumping ahead.

340
00:14:50.880 --> 00:14:54.340
It seems these days as though almost anything is...

341
00:14:54.340 --> 00:14:57.320
Well, I wouldn't like to make up a dance about baking a cake.

342
00:14:57.680 --> 00:14:59.560
Maybe somebody could, but I couldn't.

343
00:14:59.780 --> 00:15:00.100
I don't know.

344
00:15:00.120 --> 00:15:01.780
Didn't you have a little bit of that in a ballet

345
00:15:01.780 --> 00:15:03.300
you did called American Patterns?

346
00:15:03.340 --> 00:15:04.600
I guess she doesn't bake a cake,

347
00:15:04.640 --> 00:15:07.640
but she does a lot of cooking and moving around with a broom,

348
00:15:07.800 --> 00:15:10.240
using it, but it wasn't about baking a cake, of course.

349
00:15:10.320 --> 00:15:12.440
It was about something else.

350
00:15:13.340 --> 00:15:14.160
I don't know.

351
00:15:14.440 --> 00:15:16.440
Yeah, I suppose you could dance everything

352
00:15:16.440 --> 00:15:18.340
if you look at it that way.

353
00:15:18.700 --> 00:15:22.440
What kind of subjects when you talk about ideas for...

354
00:15:22.440 --> 00:15:23.840
Well, that was a very good idea,

355
00:15:23.880 --> 00:15:25.480
the girl being chased by a bumblebee.

356
00:15:25.500 --> 00:15:26.500
That wasn't my idea.

357
00:15:26.540 --> 00:15:28.680
That was Bum's.

358
00:15:30.600 --> 00:15:34.260
Or you can take ideas,

359
00:15:35.160 --> 00:15:40.500
a gavotte or a minuet or an overtasse or a Hungarian rhapsody.

360
00:15:40.500 --> 00:15:45.360
There are all kinds of native dances or national dances

361
00:15:45.360 --> 00:15:49.080
that you can work on and do them a little bit differently

362
00:15:49.080 --> 00:15:51.220
from the way they did or add new steps.

363
00:15:51.820 --> 00:15:55.200
You don't have to be literal at all.

364
00:15:56.600 --> 00:15:59.880
Once you started doing your own choreography,

365
00:16:00.460 --> 00:16:03.240
did you feel as though you'd come home,

366
00:16:03.300 --> 00:16:04.580
that this was the right thing to do,

367
00:16:04.740 --> 00:16:07.860
and what you wanted to do was both be a choreographer and a dancer?

368
00:16:07.860 --> 00:16:11.440
I always wanted to be a choreographer more than I wanted to be a dancer.

369
00:16:11.760 --> 00:16:13.280
More than you wanted to be a dancer?

370
00:16:14.300 --> 00:16:17.960
I always wanted to make up my own dances, always from the beginning.

371
00:16:19.340 --> 00:16:22.080
I would do other people's, but I preferred my own.

372
00:16:24.100 --> 00:16:26.400
Is that because you used to make them up as a little girl?

373
00:16:26.540 --> 00:16:27.400
I suppose so.

374
00:16:28.820 --> 00:16:32.800
Is it also because you have a sense of brightness,

375
00:16:32.960 --> 00:16:34.400
of purpose about the way it ought to be?

376
00:16:34.400 --> 00:16:35.780
I just like to make up dances.

377
00:16:35.880 --> 00:16:37.160
I've always liked to make up dances.

378
00:16:37.160 --> 00:16:41.180
I've always had ideas for dances, and I always like to make them up.

379
00:16:41.780 --> 00:16:43.460
When you looked at other people's choreography,

380
00:16:43.560 --> 00:16:44.900
did you sometimes say to yourself,

381
00:16:45.180 --> 00:16:47.420
I could do that better, or I would do it differently?

382
00:16:48.440 --> 00:16:51.080
I would criticize other people's choreography.

383
00:16:53.640 --> 00:16:58.400
You just wanted to do what you wanted to do.

384
00:16:59.220 --> 00:16:59.820
Yes.

385
00:17:01.400 --> 00:17:02.600
Try it.

386
00:17:04.160 --> 00:17:10.820
In those early days, it sounds as though you just set your mind to dancing,

387
00:17:11.560 --> 00:17:14.540
got into doing it, and just did it.

388
00:17:14.560 --> 00:17:15.580
Try it.

389
00:17:16.540 --> 00:17:19.300
Was there ever a moment, Ruth, when you said to yourself,

390
00:17:20.660 --> 00:17:23.400
my goodness, this is a lot to do?

391
00:17:23.600 --> 00:17:27.820
I mean, there must have been some moments of self-doubt, some moments of...

392
00:17:28.920 --> 00:17:29.800
Or no.

393
00:17:31.040 --> 00:17:32.440
I suppose so. I don't remember.

394
00:17:35.480 --> 00:17:38.100
I think I could have done a lot of other things besides choreography.

395
00:17:38.200 --> 00:17:40.300
I think I was stupid to stick to choreography.

396
00:17:40.700 --> 00:17:42.640
Really? Like what, for example?

397
00:17:42.660 --> 00:17:46.440
I could have been an actress, or I could have been a...

398
00:17:46.440 --> 00:17:48.420
lots of different things, a writer.

399
00:17:50.080 --> 00:17:53.100
I think you could have been a writer and an actress, that's for sure.

400
00:17:53.140 --> 00:17:55.280
Yes, but I was stubborn.

401
00:17:55.280 --> 00:17:58.280
I wanted to be a choreographer. I didn't want to be anything else.

402
00:18:00.200 --> 00:18:03.320
I had lots of other offers, but I just wanted to be a choreographer.

403
00:18:03.920 --> 00:18:04.640
I don't know why.

404
00:18:06.400 --> 00:18:08.720
I mean, there was something I think that I read about one time.

405
00:18:08.760 --> 00:18:14.120
They wanted you to be in a movie, and that you turned that down.

406
00:18:14.480 --> 00:18:19.860
I was in one called Dance Macabre, with that old bomb.

407
00:18:20.100 --> 00:18:22.500
It's very good. I wish I had a copy of it.

408
00:18:22.500 --> 00:18:24.500
It's very good. Just short.

409
00:18:26.100 --> 00:18:27.500
Sansan, I believe, wrote the music.

410
00:18:29.100 --> 00:18:30.760
And Don't Bum the choreography.

411
00:18:31.500 --> 00:18:32.840
But it was a very good movie.

412
00:18:33.540 --> 00:18:35.180
I didn't want to be in the movies at all.

413
00:18:35.700 --> 00:18:36.800
And you didn't want to be a writer?

414
00:18:38.540 --> 00:18:43.480
Well, I've always written, but sort of just because I felt like it.

415
00:18:44.620 --> 00:18:46.520
Do you still keep a journal, a diary?

416
00:18:47.500 --> 00:18:47.840
Every day?

417
00:18:48.940 --> 00:18:51.640
Usually. It isn't very interesting, though.

418
00:18:51.640 --> 00:18:55.580
I just do it because I can't remember things when I did things.

419
00:18:56.640 --> 00:19:00.020
And this is just a factual diary that just says,

420
00:19:00.040 --> 00:19:02.420
such and such I did then.

421
00:19:02.840 --> 00:19:04.320
Because I can't remember anything.

422
00:19:06.300 --> 00:19:07.420
One of your biographies.