Ruth Page Center for the Arts Announces Newberry Library as 2014 Recipient of the Distinguished Service Award

Venetia Stifler, Executive and Artistic Director of the Ruth Page Center for the Arts, has announced the Newberry Library as the 2014 recipient of the Ruth Page Center for the Arts Distinguished Service Award. Presented for the first time in 2013, the Distinguished Service Award is given to an individual or organization that demonstrates extraordinary service and leadership in advancing the mission of the Ruth Page Center for the Arts. Newberry President David Spadafora will be presented with this award at the annual Ruth Page Center for the Arts Gala held Saturday, May 10 at the Chicago Yacht Club, 400 E. Monroe St.

"We are so grateful to the Newberry for their commitment to preserving and protecting the legacy of Ruth Page," Stifler. "Through their efforts, many of Ruth Page's personal and professional memorabilia is now properly archived and catalogued within the Newberry, ensuring that Miss Page's legacy of artistry and vision remains accessible to future generations."

Committed to preserving in Chicago a record of the city's vital contemporary scene, the Newberry collects and houses a wide range of personal materials from choreographers, dancers, company founders and managers, critics, and photographers, and the records of dance companies, studios, and promotional organizations. The Newberry last year was honored to become home to the magnificent Ruth Page Collection, generously donated to the library by the arts center. The Collection includes more than 100 boxes and cartons containing programs, publicity materials, correspondence and musical scores. It also includes six boxes of items relating to the annual production of "The Nutcracker," performed at the Arie Crown Theater from 1965 to 1997 and six cubic feet of video archives.

Ruth Page was a pioneer in the field of dance, creating fully produced works, choreographing operas and bringing dance to new locations and to new audiences. Ms. Page was also an educator and a benefactor, dedicated to promoting dance in all its forms to a wide audience. Emanating from the Illinois heartland, the visionary work of Ruth Page influenced the growth of theater design, opera ballet, and dance. She achieved worldwide recognition as a true pioneer of dance in America. Ruth Page choreographed, danced, toured, and produced in all parts of the world, and was employed by, collaborated with, and employed some of the greatest artists of the twentieth century: Irving Berlin, Aaron Copland, Sergei Diaghilev, Katherine Dunham, Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, and Anna Pavlova.

"We are very pleased and proud to be honored by one of the nation's most prestigious centers for dance-as well as a Newberry neighbor," said Spadafora. "We are, moreover, extremely grateful for the center's generous donation of materials, which advances our mission by fostering scholarship in the field of the arts, particularly dance."

Privately funded but free and open to the public, the Newberry Library, located at 60 W. Walton St., is one of only a handful of independent research libraries in the world that allows the public full access to its collections. Founded in 1887 and installed in its current facility in 1893, the Newberry is home to more than 1.5 million books, 5 million manuscript pages (15,000 cubic feet) and 500,000 historic maps. Spanning six centuries, the collections focus on Western Europe and the Americas, and include Chicago's only copy of Shakespeare's first folio, illuminated medieval manuscripts, letters written by Napoleon III and Thomas Jefferson, and the personal papers of Midwest authors. More than 100,000 people visit the Newberry every year to conduct research and attend seminars, lectures, exhibits, concerts and other special events.

The two institutions lie within a block from one another in Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood.

Established in Chicago by Ruth Page in 1970, the Ruth Page Center for the Arts is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization committed to the education, promotion, and presentation of dance in Chicago. Its mission is to ensure that children and dance artists have a place to study, work and perform at the highest level of excellence. The Center also promotes Ms. Page's vision of dance as an innovative and accessible art form that fosters artistic excellence and creates a dance destination in Illinois. For more than 40 years, The Center has committed its resources to serving the Chicago dance community by being an incubator, providing a home, office space, rehearsal space, performance opportunities, professional dance training, and marketing support for the up-and-coming companies and artists of Chicago's vibrant dance scene.

For more information about The Ruth Page Center for the Arts visit www.ruthpage.org.