Founded in 1989, the Doris Humphrey Society, in Oak Park, Illinois preserves materials related to modern dancer Doris Humphrey. Stephanie Clemens, a member of the society, also founded her own dance company in Oak Park – MOMENTA. Through the society and MOMENTA, Clemens has carried on Humphrey’s dance technique. The society and MOMENTA have done productions of Humphrey’s work and also received grants to preserve Humphrey’s technique. In the mid-1990s the society received grant support to have Ernestine Stodelle, who danced with Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman, coach current dancers on Humphrey’s technique. The end result of this project included the distribution of videos edited of Stodelle’s instruction by Princeton Book Company (Humphrey’s son, Charles Woodford, is the company’s president).

Modern dancer and choreographer.

Doris Humphrey was born on October 17, 1895 in Oak Park, Illinois to Horace B. Humphrey, a journalist and one-time hotel manager, and Ellen Julia Humphrey (née Wells), a concert pianist. While she danced from an early age with many ballet masters, Humphrey’s greatest teacher was Mary Wood Hinman, who taught dance at the Francis Parker School. Humphrey graduated from the Francis Parker School in Chicago in 1915, and afterward opened a dance school in Oak Park, in order to support herself and family. Her mother served as the school’s manager and accompanist. The school offered classic, gymnastic, and ballroom dancing for children and young adults.

Hinman continued to serve as a mentor to Humphrey, and encouraged her to go to Los Angeles, California to participate in a summer course offered by the renowned dancers, Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, who directed the Denishawn Dancers and the Denishawn Dance School. Humphrey’s talents were recognized and she was given solos roles in productions and also taught dance classes, which aided in her financial independence. Ruth St. Denis encouraged Humphrey to choreograph her own works. Some of Humphrey’s early choreographies were “Valse Caprice” (also known as the “Scarf Dance”), “Soaring,” and “Scherzo Waltz.”

From 1925-1926, Humphrey toured throughout South Asia with the Denishawn Dancers. Humphrey’s mother accompanied her on this tour and collected postcards, photographs, and travel guides throughout the trip. After several seasons of dancing, her and fellow Denishawn Dancer, Charles Weidman, broke away in 1928 and settled in New York City. Together they founded the Humphrey-Weidman Company.

The Humphrey-Weidman Company trained many modern dancers such as Letitia Ide, Eleanor King, Jose Limón, Sybil Shearer, and Ernestine Stodelle. Humphrey worked with the principle of fall and recovery from gravity, and with it developed a large repertory of choreography including, “Life of the Bee,” “The Shakers,” “Two Ecstatic Themes,” and “Water Study.” The Humphrey-Weidman Company toured throughout the 1930s and became known for their innovations in dance.

In 1945, suffering from arthritis, Humphrey turned her attention to serving as the artistic director for the Jose Limón Dance Company. In this role, she continued to choreograph works. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1949 and joined the faculty of the dance department at Juilliard in 1951 and in 1954, the school formed the Juilliard Dance Theatre under direction. In 1958, she authored, “The Art of Making Dance,” where she described her choreographic principles.

Humphrey married Charles Francis Woodford in 1932 and gave birth to their son, Charles Humphrey Woodford in 1933. She died on December 29, 1958 at the age of 63.