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“如果你50岁时跳舞，没有什么大不了的;而60岁时跳舞，会让人家觉得很好奇;到了70岁居然还能跳舞，好家伙，你就成了传奇!”——露丝•圣丹尼斯 When I need a gift or a pair of shoes these days, I browse[1] online or drive to the mall. Seldom do I see a familiar face behind a cash register[2]. Indeed, it’s often hard to find anyone to help at all. Not so in times past, when a shopping expedition meant dressing up in a suit and gloves for a bus ride downtown to one or another of the venerable department stores.[3] One such venture occurred many years ago, when I took Miss Ruth St. Denis on a shopping excursion to the Jordan Marsh department store.[4] A contemporary of Isadora Duncan, she was considered a founding matriarch of American modern dance.[5] “Miss Ruth,” as she was universally called, first danced barefoot in New York in 1905 when she appeared veiled in the costume of a temple dancer from India.[6] Like Ms. Duncan, Miss Ruth considered performing a higher calling, motivated by spiritual inspiration. She spent three years in Europe before World War I, but unlike Duncan, returned to the United States to make her reputation. With her husband, Ted Shawn, she created Denishawn, the first American dance troupe[7], and toured cities large and small across America during the 1920s. Martha Graham[8] was one of the prize pupils at the school they established in California. | 
