Norma Gould

Norma Gould (1888 – July 30, 1980) was an American dancer, choreographer, and dance educator born in Los Angeles, California, to Murray A. Gould. She graduated from Los Angeles Polytechnical High School in 1908, spending summers during those years studying dance in New York City.

Gould's early professional career brought her into partnership with dancer Ted Shawn, with whom she worked in Los Angeles from 1911 to 1914. The two collaborated on a short film for Edison, The Dance of the Ages, in 1913, and traveled together to New York in 1914. That partnership dissolved shortly after their arrival; Shawn went on to join Ruth St. Denis, while Gould returned to Los Angeles. In 1915 she toured the American South with the Don Philippini Symphony Band. During and following World War I, she organized large-scale dance events in Los Angeles for outdoor celebrations and club entertainments, among them the 1918 opening of the Ventura Bathhouse and Auditorium. Among the dancers who trained or performed with Gould during this period were showgirl Dorothy Knapp, dancer Dorothy Lyndall, model Bertha Wardell, actress Ruth Wilton, and, later in his youth, dancer Gower Champion, as well as actress Anita Reynolds.

Her Broadway career spanned 1920 to 1925 and encompassed five productions. She appeared in the revues The Century Revue and The Midnight Rounders of 1921, the musical Blossom Time, the musical Sky High, and the production Innocent.

Throughout the 1920s Gould continued performing and presenting work in California, including appearances at the Hollywood Bowl in 1927, 1928, and 1929. Her choreographic output included The Fern Fantasy (1919), Dianidra (1921), Shepherd of Shiraz (1928), The Twilight of the Gods (1929), and Lenox Avenue (1938). She held teaching positions in physical education at both the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Southern California, where she also directed campus pageants. In 1932 she founded the Dance Theater, which she led through 1942, overseeing its program of classes and performances. Gould died in a nursing home in Santa Monica, California, in 1980, after many years of dementia, in her nineties.