Ted Shawn (born Edwin Myers Shawn; October 21, 1891 – January 9, 1972) was an American dancer and choreographer. Considered a pioneer of American modern dance, he created the Denishawn School together with his wife Ruth St. Denis. After their separation he created the all-male company Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers.

Ted Shawn (born October 21, 1891, Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.—died January 9, 1972, Orlando, Florida) was an innovative American modern dancer and cofounder of the Denishawn school and company. A former divinity student, Shawn was introduced to dance as therapy after an illness.

In March 1933, Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers gave their first, historic, all-male performance in Boston. By May 1940 when Shawn disbanded the group, the Company had danced for over a million people in all of the United States, in Canada, Cuba and England, having challenged and irrevocably changed the course of American dance.

Ted Shawn left his divinity studies at the University of Denver to become a dancer in the early 1900s. Shawn and his wife, Ruth St. Denis, were intensely interested in exotic and oriental cultures; both sought out existing dance forms from all over the world as …

Jul 23, 2017 · Ted Shawn was an American dancer who challenged Western social stereotypes about male dancers. He was entirely devoted to the art of dance as a form that could be integrated into everyday life. With his wife Ruth St. Denis, also a pioneer of modern dance, Shawn established the Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts in Los Angeles in 1915.

There is perhaps no person more closely associated with the topic of men in dance than Ted Shawn (1891-1972), one of the founders of a theatrical dance tradition in the United States. Shawn’s lifelong mission was to establish dance as a respectable profession for men, or in his words, “a legitimate medium for the creative male artist.”

Ted Shawn (1891 – 1972) was a key figure, and the only major male figure, in the founding period of modern dance. With his wife, Ruth St. Denis, he was half of the pioneer modern dance production company and school "Denishawn," whose notable pupils include Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman and silent film star Louise Brooks.

Edwin Myers Shawn, conocido artísticamente como Ted Shawn, (Kansas City, Misuri; 21 de octubre de 1891-Orlando, 9 de enero de 1972) fue un bailarín, coreógrafo y maestro estadounidense, pionero de la danza moderna masculina. Creó la Escuela Denishawn junto con su esposa Ruth Saint Denis.

In Ted Shawn: His Life, Writings, and Dances (Oxford University Press, $39.95), Paul A. Scolieri ’95, chair and professor of dance at Barnard, offers the first scholarly account of Shawn’s pioneering role in American modern dance and reveals the untold story of Shawn’s homosexuality, his choreographic vision and his impact on society.

The contradictory career of Jacob’s Pillow founder, Ted Shawn, offers a lens to consider trends in dance history as well as our contemporary moment.