Olga Burgoyne

Olga "Ollie" Burgoyne, born June 13, 1878, was an American dancer, actress, and businesswoman who became a significant figure in entertainment during the Harlem Renaissance. Also known as Ollie Burgoyne-Calloway, she is recognized as one of eight particularly significant African American dancers and choreographers of her era, alongside Katherine Dunham, Hemsley Winfield, and Edna Guy. Her Broadway career spanned from 1933 to 1937, and included appearances in Run, Little Chillun and Places Please!, though her work in the theater extended across ten productions between 1926 and 1937, among them Tired Businessman, Lulu Bell, and The Constant Sinner.

Burgoyne's stage career began in 1901, when she performed in minstrel shows at the age of six. By 1903, she was appearing in vaudeville with the Seven Creole Girls, a genre she would continue to work in throughout her career under her own company, the Burgoyne Musical Company. That same year, German impresario Paula Kohn-Wollner assembled a vaudeville troupe of Black artists known as the Louisiana Amazon Guards, which included Burgoyne alongside Fannie Smith, Emma Harris, Virginia Shepard, and Coretty Alfred, among others. The group traveled to Germany and performed their first engagement with Herr Director A. Walter in Kiel, where they were described by critics as "the black Uberbrettl." Contemporary reviews praised the troupe's vocal abilities, costumes, and choreography, with one critic noting the performers as "really one of the best song-and-dance ensembles of to-day." The Louisiana Amazon Guards left no recorded trace after 1902, with some speculation that the group may have continued under a different name.

During this period, Burgoyne also joined the British-based cast of In Dahomey, an operetta written and performed entirely by Black artists, which holds the distinction of being the first full-length musical performed at a major Broadway house. Following that production, she created an ongoing duet performance called Duo Eclatant with her partner Usher Watts. As her career developed, Burgoyne mastered oriental dances and performed internationally across Germany, Turkey, France, Denmark, Switzerland, Hungary, Egypt, and Sweden during an eight-year European tour. She returned to the United States in 1909, though she subsequently crossed the Atlantic fifteen more times before settling in St. Petersburg, Russia, where she resided for fourteen years.

While living in Russia, Burgoyne performed for members of the nobility and built a reputation both as an entertainer and as a businesswoman. With earnings from her performances, she purchased and operated an elegant lingerie shop called Maison Creole, employing twenty-seven workers. She also managed Ward Calloway's Hotel. Theatrical critics of the period described her as "the peer of any dancer in the world regardless of color," citing the ease of her arm and hand motions and the gracefulness of her movement. Her signature dances upon returning to the United States included the Snake Dance and the Brazilian and Spanish Dance.

In the later portion of her career, Burgoyne taught Russian dancers and appeared in the 1930 romantic comedy film Laughter. Her performing career spanned nearly fifty years. Olga Burgoyne died on April 2, 1974, in Oxnard, California, at the age of ninety-five.