Sure, Ted Shawn Founded Jacob’s Pillow, But He’s A Problematic Icon

“In his 1926 treatise The American Ballet, for instance, Shawn denigrated women (who greatly outnumbered men in the field), African Americans (he saw popular dances rooted in African American traditions, like the Charleston, as a threat to dance as an art-with-a-capital-A), and any immigrant without claim to an ‘Anglo-Saxon’ heritage (he was interested in creating a purely ‘American’ art form), in the service of his own mission.”