Albertina Rasch


Albertina Rasch was a naturalized American dancer and choreographer.

Early life

Rasch was born in 1891, in Vienna, to a family of Polish Jewish descent. She studied at the Vienna State Opera Ballet school and became leading ballerina at the New York Hippodrome in 1911.

Career

She formed her own dance troupe and the Rasch Ballet, starred in a number of Ziegfeld productions, appeared at the Moulin Rouge, performed with Josephine Baker, toured with Sarah Bernhardt, and opened a Manhattan dance studio before adapting her classical training and techniques for the Broadway theatre and films.
Rasch's early stage work for such projects as George White's Scandals evoked the Black Crook tradition of inserting fantasy dance sequences that had little to do with the plot between book scenes. In 1930 she created the dances for the revue, Three's A Crowd. The New York Times said "... Mme. Rasch, director of the dances, who has made a pleasant departure from music show routine..." She soon established herself as a creative force with a routine she devised for Tilly Losch in the 1931 revue, The Band Wagon. Wearing gloves covered with blacklight paint, Losch stood in front of a mirror on a darkened stage and performed a "ballet" in which only her hands could be seen to the Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz song "Dancing in the Dark".
Rasch also helped establish Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine" as a popular standard by choreographing it to an ethnic dance in Jubilee. Additional Broadway credits include The Three Musketeers, Show Girl, The Bohemian Girl, The Great Waltz, and Lady in the Dark.
Rasch served as choreographer and/or dance director for a number of musical films, including The Merry Widow with Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier, Broadway Melody of 1936 with Jack Benny and Eleanor Powell, Rosalie with Powell and Nelson Eddy, The Girl of the Golden West with MacDonald and Eddy, Marie Antoinette with Norma Shearer, and Broadway Melody of 1940 with Fred Astaire.
Footage of Rasch filmed for the unfinished Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical The March of Time was used in the MGM film Broadway to Hollywood with Frank Morgan and Alice Brady. MGM also reused her "Chinese Ballet" from Lord Byron of Broadway in the short film Roast Beef and Movies.

Personal life

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