When Ted Shawn selected his original Men Dancers from the athletes he taught at Springfield College in 1933, his stated purpose was to forge a new performance style for men, and to prove that dancing could be an honorable profession for the American male. The extremely rare film fragment seen here represents the earliest moving image of the Men Dancers, recorded within months of the group’s debut, and this work was the opening dance of the debut program. During the seven years of the company’s existence, they would ultimately appear hundreds of times in cities around the U.S. and Canada, as well as conducting foreign tours to London and Havana. Although much of the company’s repertory (such as this Bach music visualization and the iconic Kinetic Molpai) was danced to live piano accompaniment, Shawn created Finale from The New World especially for performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra.
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