Ruth Page’s “La Guiablesse” (1933): Collaboration, Boundary-Crossing, and Social Imagining in 1930s Chicago
My summer research, which informs my thesis, initially began as a study of Chicago-based dancer and choreographer Ruth Page’s work between the 1920s and 1940s. Over time, I focused on two presentations of Page’s 1933 ballet “La Guiablesse.” Through archival research, historical analysis, and a literature review, I argue that “La Guiablesse” functioned as a unique site of cross-artistic, cross-cultural, and interracial collaboration and boundary crossing, as well as an opportunity to imagine social possibilities, for those participating in the ballet onstage and off.