Albertina Rasch

Albertina Rasch (January 19, 1891 – October 2, 1967) was an Austrian-American dancer, choreographer, and company director whose Broadway career spanned from 1910 to 1932. Born in Vienna, then part of Austria-Hungary, to a family of Polish Jewish descent, she trained at the Vienna State Opera House's imperial dancing school and advanced to the position of ballerina through that institution. She began performing before the age of fourteen, and though she later subtracted five years from her stated age, records place her birth firmly in 1891.

During the American dance craze of the 1910s, Rasch emigrated from Vienna to the United States, where she performed at the New York Hippodrome and the Winter Garden. She also appeared with the Metropolitan, Los Angeles, and Chicago opera companies before becoming première danseuse for the Century Opera Company. Between 1916 and 1917, she toured with Sarah Bernhardt, after which she returned to New York as a concert performer accompanied by a supporting ballet troupe. In 1919, she signed a contract with the Keith-Albee circuit for vaudeville tours running through 1922, during which she frequently performed alongside jazz bands.

That supporting troupe evolved into the Albertina Rasch Dancers, a company of balletically trained performers who appeared in revues, musicals, and recitals throughout the 1920s and 1930s. In 1923, Rasch opened her first dance studio in Manhattan, where Bill Robinson also taught tap, and later established a second studio in Los Angeles. Her school shifted over time from offering a range of styles, including a Pavlova-influenced free-form ballet, toward producing her signature "Albertina Rasch Girls," precision-trained dancers she believed could make ballet acceptable to American audiences. In 1925, the Albertina Rasch Dancers performed her staging of Rhapsody in Blue, one of her earliest works combining ballet movement with American jazz dance.

Rasch's Broadway credits include The International Cup, the Ballet of Niagara, and the Earthquake, The Revue of Revues, Rio Rita (1927), Show Girl (1929), the Ziegfeld Follies of 1931, and Ballyhoo of 1932. She also worked on George White's Scandals, Three's a Crowd (1930), The Three Musketeers, The Bohemian Girl, and The Great Waltz (1934). Her choreography for the 1931 revue The Band Wagon included a routine for Tilly Losch performed to the Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz song "Dancing in the Dark," in which Losch wore gloves painted with blacklight paint and performed on a darkened stage in front of a mirror so that only her hands were visible. For the 1935 production Jubilee, Rasch choreographed Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine" as an ethnic dance, contributing to the song's establishment as a popular standard. Additional Broadway credits include Lady in the Dark (1941) and Marinka (1945). She also appeared at the Moulin Rouge and performed with Josephine Baker, and starred in several Ziegfeld productions.

At Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Rasch specialized in balletic spectacles and operettas and was recognized as the only established female dance director working in Hollywood at the time. She supervised and directed nearly all camera work on her dances. Her film credits include Rogue Song (1930), The Merry Widow (1934) with Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier, Broadway Melody of 1936 with Jack Benny and Eleanor Powell, The Firefly (1937), Rosalie (1937) with Eleanor Powell and Nelson Eddy, Sweethearts (1938), The Great Waltz (1938), The Girl of the Golden West (1938) with MacDonald and Eddy, Marie Antoinette (1938) with Norma Shearer, and Broadway Melody of 1940 with Fred Astaire. Footage she filmed for the unfinished MGM musical The March of Time (1930) was later incorporated into Broadway to Hollywood (1933), and her "Chinese Ballet" from Lord Byron of Broadway (1930) was reused in the short film Roast Beef and Movies (1934).

In 1927, Rasch married composer Dimitri Tiomkin; they remained married until her death. She died on October 2, 1967, in Woodland Hills, California, following a prolonged illness, at the age of 76.