ABSTRACT
When I was about 16 years old I saw Ruth St. Denis dance Incense at a summer dance festival in New York City (Figure 12.1). It must have been 1963, and the tall, stately grandmother of modern dance was then 85 years of age.1 In a diaphanous white dress the dancer did not move from the spot at which she stood as her arms undulated hypnotically. Her form, which seemed to have an incandescent disappearing center, quivered before my eyes like smoke cut through by light. Advanced age had not disabled St. Denis, although the range of movement at her disposal was clearly reduced. Nothing about the movement of her arms, however, appeared reduced: they set the rest of her body in motion through a hypnotic effect, almost as a non-body.
