Dancer Frieda Berkoff during a leap in the air. Underwood & Underwood. 1920s | src catawikiDancers Louis and Frieda Berkoff during a leap in the air. Underwood & Underwood. 1920s | src catawikiDancers Louis and Frieda Berkoff during a leap in the air. Underwood & Underwood. 1920s | src catawiki
Press Agency / Newspaper Stamp on the reverse reads: S/644A309 By Underwood and Underwood. / Louise and Frieda Berkoff. Here’s action: How many can do this? / For once in his life “Old Man Gravity”, the well known friend of Isaac Newton, came out second best when Louis and Frieda Berkoff prectised these spectacular flying “steps” of a new Russian dance on the lawn of the Carthay Circle, a Los Angeles suburb. Photo shows: brother and sister “Up in the air”. An exclusive Underwood photograph. Watch your credit line
These pictorial studies of a female dancer leaping are believed to have been taken at the former Ruth Doing Camp for Rhythmics in New York state’s Adirondack mountains. In the 1920’s and 30’s, photographer Delight Weston lived with camp founders Ruth Doing (1881-1966) and Gail Gardner (1878-1949) in New York City, along with other women artists, in a building at 139 W. 56th St. near Carnegie Hall.
Established in 1916, the summer camp was first located on the shores of Upper Chateaugay lake near Lyon Mountain until 1925, when it moved to Upper St. Regis Lake in Paul Smiths, New York. Renamed the Gardner-Doing Camp after this time, it was coeducational: besides regular summer camp activities, it specialized in the “rhythmic” style of dancing popularized by famed dancer Isadora Duncan, whom Ruth Doing was a former student of. Doing’s life partner, Michigan native Gail Gardner, had earlier made a name for herself as an accomplished and world-traveling opera singer. [quoted from Photoseed]
Margaret Michaelis (1902-1985) ~No title [Female dancer in long dress, arms extended], 1940s | src NGAMargaret Michaelis (1902-1985) ~No title [Female dancer in long dress, leaping with arms raised], Sydney, 1940s. | src NGAMargaret Michaelis (1902-1985) ~No title [Female dancer in long dress, stepping forward], 1940s | src NGA
Margaret Michaelis (1902-1985) ~ No title [Female dancer in black leotard, one leg raised] Sydney, 1940s | src NGAMargaret Michaelis (1902-1985) ~ No title [Female dancer in black leotard, leaping], 1940s | src NGA
Margaret Michaelis (1902-1985)~No title [Female dancer in black leotard, jumping], 1940s | src NGAMargaret Michaelis (1902-1985)~No title [Female dancer in black leotard, leaping], 1940s | src NGA
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