Description
The Ruth Clark Lert Archive is a multimedia collection which documents dance history in
the twentieth century, primarily in the United States. Formats in the collection include:
audio recordings, video recordings, clippings, printed items, stamps, photographs,
posters, catalogues, broadsides, teaching materials, and theses and dissertations. Ruth
Clark Lert, a dance historian, critic and teacher, collected the materials over fifty
years, and the collection reflects both her broad interest in dance and her special
interests in dance therapy, movement for the handicapped, German dancers Harald
Kreutzberg and Mary Wigman, world dance, and dance in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Background
Ruth Clark Lert was born Ruth Sklarz in Berlin, Germany in 1915. Lert received a
teacher's diploma in dance from the Steffi Nossen School of Dance in 1933, only three
years before leaving Berlin for the United States. She resided in both New York City and
Westchester, New York from 1936 to 1943. She continued to study dance under noted dancers
and choreographers, including Merce Cunningham, Saida Gerrard, Lester Horton, Carlton
Johnson, Juana de Laban, Bella Lewitzky, Eugene Loring, Murray Louis, Agnes de Mille, Ted
Shawn, Ruth St. Denis and Virginia Tanner.
Extent
Number of containers: 65 document boxes, 3 shoe boxes, 8 record cartons, 10 flat boxes and 12 oversized folders
Linear feet: 57
Restrictions
Property rights reside with the University of California. Literary rights are retained by
the creators of the records and their heirs. For permissions to publish or to reproduce,
please contact the Head of Special Collections and University Archives.
Availability
Collection is open for research.