Adolph
Bolm

Rosalind Shaffer and Ruth Syndon

Rosalind began studying dance with Mr. Bolm at the age of 9, and continued until he died in 1951. "I remember one of the things that astonished me, 'now he's dead and I teach dance in Long Beach college so my son Arthur can have fencing classes with Ralph Faulkner, and I stay the weekend with Mrs. Bolm, and she tells me all these things about how it was when she was first married, how were parents were, how it was at court, how she and Mr. Bolm met, got married, and had Olaf. And I kept wishing I had a tape recorder, which I eventually bought, and I recorded soem of these things. After she died alot of the people we talked about that were around her I looked up, and I went to visit and talked with them. That's when I was starting to teach Dance History at Long Beach State College. It never occurred to me before that that Dance History existed. I think I got intersted when I was 14 in Mr. Bolm's class when I was 14. You're suppposed to get higher in second position which anguishing. And then it's supposed to get higher here, which is torture. And I was in great pain, and Mr. Bolm was walking along the line of us doing the exercise. And I said, panting, "Mr. Bolm, who invented this?! And he said, "Well, it came from the Courts of Love." And I knew I couldn't ask any more questions about that. But when I was in Italy with Lottie I discovered something about what the Courts of Love were. And when I went back to school to get my Masters Degree, I decided that would be my dissertation. And I did a demonstration as well as lecture, where I demonstrated the differenet phases of the progress of the form, from Italy to France, and eventually to Russia.

The thing was, so now I was in school and I was doing this thing, I guess I had gotten divorced, how was I going to support my kids? But there were two or three teachers at U.S.C., Dr. Ellfeldt , she was my particular teacher at U.S.C., but there were two others that were important. I remember the major one's friend was Dr. Mott. The one whose name I can't remember right now was the head of dance in Texas.

She also worked with Carmelita Maracci, Eugene Loring, and toured with Lottie Goslar. She participated in films with David Lichine.

She taught dance at Smith College until she retired in 1996.