Albertina Rasch Dancers | Photograph album

The Eddee Belmount Albertina Rasch Dancers Photograph Album. 1927–1929.

Oblong 14” x 10”; 27 8”x10” b&w photographs; string-bound dark green leather cover tooled in blind; stains, discoloration; heavy edgewear.

A remarkable photograph album that documents the Albertina Rasch Dancers, a pioneering troupe that helped to reshape American dance during the Jazz Age. By 1925, Rasch was directing more than 150 dancers divided into multiple units, performing across vaudeville circuits, Broadway stages, and in moviehouse prologues that accompanied early feature films. All Rasch Dancers had to undergo rigorous ballet training at Rasch’s New York studio (opened 1923, overlooking the Hudson River) or possibly the Los Angeles studio (late 1920s).  Rasch’s regimen emphasized classical ballet techniques—body alignment, breathing exercises, and pointe work—blended with jazz rhythms and precision formations. Belmont likely performed in synchronized chorus lines, wearing the troupe’s signature skimpy costumes (e.g., short skirts or leotards). 

The troupe extensively toured the vaudeville circuits with celebrities such as Josephine Baker and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and appeared at major New York houses like the Palace and Roxy Theaters. They also featured in high-profile revues and musicals: Ziegfeld Follies, George White's Scandals, Rio Rita (1927), The Band Wagon (1931), The Great Waltz (1934), Jubilee (1935), and Lady in the Dark (1941). 

This album, assembled between 1927 and 1929, contains 27 signed headshots inscribed to one Eddee Belmount (or Eddie Belmont), a young member of the company. The photographs (many bear the stamp of Todd Studios in St. Louis) capture the polished allure of Rasch’s performers: chorus girls in feathered headdresses and sequined costumes, male musicians posed with a studied ease. The inscriptions to Belmount, by turns affectionate and matter-of-fact, testify to the fragile camaraderie of a troupe that lived largely on the road. A few notes anchor the collection to specific productions—Rio Rita (Ziegfeld’s 1927 blockbuster), Billie (a 19928 Gershwin revue), and Tick Tick (a 1927 vaudeville act)—and thus to the breakneck schedule of Rasch’s dancers, who moved ceaselessly between Broadway and the provinces.

At the back of the album, folded among its final pages, are several newspaper notices of the company’s appearances, including a scarce reprint of a publicity photograph that features Belmount herself.  The effect is cumulative: a portrait not simply of a single dancer but of a whole ephemeral world.