La Sylphe

Edith Lambelle Langerfeld, born July 3, 1883, in New York City, performed professionally under the name La Sylphe. Her father, Arthur H. Langerfeld (1855–1931), was German, originally from Elberfeld in Nordrhein-Westfalen, a city now part of Wuppertal, and held patents for machinery used in coal mining. Her mother, Margaret Ann Douglas Langerfeld (c. 1854–1943), came from Loughgall in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Langerfeld had one older sibling, her brother Wallace Douglas Langerfeld, born August 27, 1877.

Her mother took her abroad at the age of six, where she began dancing. Because United States law prohibited her from performing on stage as a child, she spent approximately eight years traveling internationally, completing two circumnavigations of the globe. Her travels took her through London, Milan, Paris, and Brussels, and she became fluent in five languages. During her second world tour she held the position of primary dancer at the Alhambra Theatre in London, one of the most remunerative posts available to a dancer at the time. She subsequently appeared for two seasons at the Folies Bergère in Paris.

Langerfeld made her American debut at the age of fourteen, first appearing on the Pacific Coast before arriving in New York City in 1899. In New York she introduced her interpretation of The Vision of Salome. Her engagement at Koster & Bial's Music Hall in October 1899 placed her in a vaudeville program that included a skit called Around New York In Eighty Minutes, in which she danced in a scene set at a French ball. Contemporary reviews noted her exceptional muscular control and flexibility. Her costuming on various occasions included tights, a picket-fence skirt, a gossamer bodice, and a mid-waist covering of several yards of pearls. Though her New York appearances drew considerable attention, she acknowledged that her European performances had been considerably less restrained.

Her American popularity grew further after the Metropolitan Opera banned Richard Strauss's Salome in 1907, at which point she rebranded her signature piece as The Remorse of Salome. She had developed an understanding of the body dance traditions of the Far East, which had first been observed widely at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 under the name "houchee kouchee." In 1908 she signed with Martin Beck, general manager of the Orpheum Circuit, for a tour that opened in Oakland, California in March of that year. In July 1908 she performed at Keith & Proctor's Harlem Opera House on 125th Street under the supervision of a New York City police lieutenant and plainclothes officers. Her program at that engagement opened with a classical toe dance pirouette, continued with a Parisian gigolette performed without tights, and concluded with the Dance Salome, preceded by moving pictures of her performances projected on a white screen. On July 20 she substituted a Spanish castanet dance in costume for the opening toe dance, drawing an enthusiastic audience response. The following week, at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, she extended the Salome dance and added a desert stage set featuring a monolith with burning incense; the head of John the Baptist was not included in this version. Also in late July 1908, producer Joseph M. Gaites contracted her for a thirty-five-week tour with the Follies of 1907. Returning to Keith & Proctor's in early August, she added a new piece called The Devil to her program.

La Sylphe appeared on Broadway between 1919 and 1920 in the George White's Scandals series of revues. The 1919 edition was a two-act revue comprising eighteen scenes, with George White and dancer Ann Pennington among the cast. The 1920 edition, also a two-act revue with eighteen scenes, was staged at the Globe Theatre, later known as the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. In the first half of that production she performed a contortionist routine. The 1920 Scandals featured music by George Gershwin with lyrics by Arthur Jackson, and its cast included Pennington, White, Lou Holtz, and Lester Allen. She also appeared in the Greenwich Village Follies and was subsequently credited in George White's Scandals of 1922.

In April 1928 she appeared as a guest artist at Carnegie Hall in a program organized by the Dance Art Society, a cooperative producing organization. The featured ballet, The Mills of the Gods, involved thirty of the society's members. Langerfeld performed in two pieces on that program: a diminutive harlequinade and a Beardsleyesque work titled The Faun and the Peacock. By 1930 she held the position of ballerina with the American Ballet Guild, at which time Ariel Millais served as ballet master.

Edith Lambelle Langerfeld died on December 20, 1968, in Greenwich, Connecticut, at the age of eighty-five.