Adolph Bolm

Adolph Rudolphovitch Bolm (September 25, 1884 in Saint Petersburg – April 16, 1951 in Los Angeles) was a Russian-born American ballet dancer and choreographer, of Scandinavian descent.

Biography

He graduated from the Russian Imperial Ballet School in Saint Petersburg in 1904 (the teacher was Platon Karsavin), and that same year he became a dancer with Mariinsky Ballet. In 1908 and 1909 he ran a European tour with Anna Pavlova.

He then collaborated with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in Paris, along with several other dancers from Mariinsky. In 1917, during the second part of a two-part American tour by the Ballets Russes (without Diaghilev, but with Nijinsky), Bolm was injured during the ballet Thamar. The injury was serious, and he was taken to the hospital for a long time and left the tour to stay in the United States. He went on to organize Ballet Intime in New York and choreographed for the New York Metropolitan Opera. Bolm and dancer Ruth Page appeared together in an experimental dance film Danse Macabre (1922) directed by Dudley Murphy.