Ruth Currier

Person

Biography

Ruth Currier, a former director of the José Limón Dance Company and a primary disciple of Doris Humphrey, died on October 4, 2011 at the age of 85. Born in Ohio as Ruth Miller, she was raised in Durham, North Carolina and attended Black Mountain College before moving to New York. She joined Limón's company in 1949, and soon began appearing in leading roles and participating in the creation of new works. Her first new dance was Humphrey's Invention, a trio which was performed and filmed at the Pillow with Limón and Betty Jones. This film was made in the first of three successive seasons when she performed here with Limón, from 1951 through 1953. Currier served as Humphrey's creative assistant while beginning to make her own dances, eventually choreographing more than fifty works. She spent several years as artist-in-residence at Ohio State, followed by five crucial years at the helm of the Limón company after Limón's death in 1972. Her leadership helped make the case that the Limón Company could continue and thrive, when conventional wisdom held that a modern dance troupe could not survive its founder. She devoted her last twenty years of professional activity to teaching at the Ruth Currier Studio and at the Limón Institute.

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