Ruth Page (ballerina)

Ruth Page
Ruth Page, photographed by Charlotte Fairchild, from an advertisement for Cantilever Shoes, 1922
Born	March 22, 1899 Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.
Died	April 7, 1991(1991-04-07) (aged 92) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Occupation	Ballerina, choreographer

Ruth Page (March 22, 1899  – April 7, 1991) was an American ballerina and choreographer, who created innovative works on American themes.

Page was married to attorney Thomas Hart Fisher from 1925–69, and to artist Andre Delfau from 1983 until her death in 1991. She is buried in Graceland Cemetery in Chicago. Page's brother, Irvine H. Page, was a noted physician and scientist.

Born in Indianapolis in 1899, Ruth Page made her professional debut on Broadway in 1917, then with Anna Pavlova’s Company on its tour of South America in 1918, and at Chicago’s Auditorium Theater in John Alden Carpenter’s The Birthday of the Infanta in 1919. She danced ceaselessly for the next 40 years, with Adolph Bolm’s Ballet Intime, on Broadway in Irving Berlin’s Music Box Revue, with the Chicago Allied Arts, Diaghileff’s Ballets Russes, the Metropolitan, Ravinia, and Chicago Operas, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, Les Ballets Americains, choreographed for all but one of those companies, choreographed the 1947 Broadway show Music in My Heart, and served as director/choreographer for the various manifestations of her own Chicago-based companies well into the 1970s. Among hundreds of dance works to her credit are landmark Americana ballets, dances with words and music, and her innovative opera-into-ballets.

In 1965, she choreographed a large-scale production of The Nutcracker, which was presented annually through 1997 by the Chicago Tribune Charities in the Arie Crown Theatre and featured some of the world’s great dancers as guest artists. She danced with great partners Bentley Stone, Walter Camryn, and Harald Kreutzberg, and worked with the greatest composers and designers of the 20th century, including Aaron Copland, Darius Milhaud, Jerome Moross, Isamu Noguchi, Antoni Clave, George Wakevitch, Nicholas Remisoff, and Andre Delfau. Her ballets have been revived and performed by ballet companies throughout the United States including Chicago, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, New York, and the Dance Theater of Harlem, as well as in Europe. Ruth filmed her ballets throughout her career and several, including Frankie & Johnny, The Merry Widow, and Billy Sunday were made into award-winning television films. She is the subject of two award-winning documentaries: Ruth Page: An American Original (Otter Productions) and Ruth Page: Once Upon a Dancer (Thea Flaum Productions). The Ruth Page legacy lives on in several major archives including the Dance Division at Lincoln Center, the Ann Barzel Dance Collection at the Newberry Library and the Chicago Film Archives.