Sophia Delza

Sophia Delza Glassgold (1903 – June 27, 1996), born Sophie Hurwitz in Brooklyn into a Jewish family, was an American modern dancer, choreographer, author, and practitioner of Wu-style tai chi. She was a sibling of documentary filmmaker Leo Hurwitz and psychoanalyst Marie Briehl. Her early exposure to dance came through her sister Elizabeth Delza, who also pursued a career as a dancer, and the two performed together at the Neighborhood Playhouse during the 1920s. Delza earned a degree in science from Hunter College in 1924, subsequently enrolled in graduate school at Columbia University, and later traveled to Paris to advance her dance training.

Upon returning to the United States, Delza worked in vaudeville and in stage and film productions. She danced opposite James Cagney in the Grand Street Follies of 1928, and in 1929 appeared on Broadway in the play Fiesta. She also pursued studies in Spanish dance and received a grant to study folk dance forms in Mexico. In 1937, following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, she created two anti-fascist works, We Weep for Spain and We March for Spain, and performed that same year in a "Dances for Spain" concert at the Adelphi Theatre alongside modern dancers Anna Sokolow and Helen Tamiris. She also made her studio on West 16th Street available to Sokolow's Dance Unit when the company required rehearsal space.

In 1948, Delza traveled to Shanghai with her husband, A. Cook Glassgold, who worked there for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee coordinating post-war relief for Jewish refugees in the Shanghai Ghetto. During her time in China, Delza studied Wu-style tai chi under Ma Yueliang, taught modern dance, and became the first American to do so in China. She also studied Chinese theater and Chinese theatrical dancing during this period. She and her husband returned to the United States in 1951 and spent the remainder of their lives at the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan.

Delza gave the first documented public demonstration of tai chi in America at the Museum of Modern Art in 1954, and that same year founded the Delza School of Tai Chi Chuan at Carnegie Hall. She went on to teach tai chi as a form of exercise at the United Nations and the Actors Studio, where her students included John Strasberg, son of Lee and Paula Strasberg. Strasberg noted that her instruction did not emphasize the martial aspects of the art. Delza also conducted television demonstrations to promote tai chi for health and fitness, making her one of the first figures to popularize Chinese martial arts in the United States.

In 1961, Delza authored T'ai Chi Ch'uan: Body and Mind in Harmony, the first English-language book on the subject of tai chi. Through her books, articles, and lectures, she continued to advocate for the practice throughout her life. She died on June 27, 1996, at the age of 92 at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City, shortly after the publication of her final book, The T'ai-Chi Ch'uan Experience.