Sophia Delza

Delza was born in Brooklyn into a Jewish family.[3] She was a sibling of documentary filmmaker Leo Hurwitz, and psychoanalyst Marie Briehl.[4] She initially learned to dance from her sister, Elizabeth Delza, who also went on to a successful career as a dancer. She performed with her sister at the Neighborhood Playhouse in the 1920s.[1] In 1924, she graduated with a degree in science from Hunter College and entered graduate school at Columbia University. She later travelled to Paris to continue her studies in dance.

After returning to the United States, Delza worked in vaudeville, and in stage and film productions. She danced opposite James Cagney in the Grand Street Follies of 1928. She also studied Spanish dance and received a grant to study folk dance forms in Mexico.[2] When Anna Sokolow's Dance Unit needed a new space to rehearse in, Delza made her studio on West 16th Street available to them.[5] In 1937, after the Spanish Civil War broke out, Delza created two anti-fascist works, We Weep for Spain and We March for Spain. She also performed in a "Dances for Spain" concert at the Adelphi Theatre that year, alongside fellow modern dancers Sokolow and Helen Tamiris.[6]

In 1948, Delza accompanied her husband, A. Cook Glassgold, to Shanghai. There, Glassgold worked for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, coordinating post-war relief for Jewish refugees in the Shanghai Ghetto.[7] While in Shanghai, Delza studied Wu-style tai chi under Ma Yueliang.[2][8] She worked as a dance instructor, and was the first American to teach modern dance in China. During this period, she also studied Chinese theater and Chinese theatrical dancing.[1]

Delza and her husband returned to America in 1951. They lived the rest of their lives in an apartment at the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan. In 1954, she gave the first documented public demonstration of tai chi in America at the Museum of Modern Art.[9] That same year, she founded the Delza School of Tai Chi Chuan at Carnegie Hall. She subsequently began teaching tai chi as a form of exercise at the United Nations and the Actors Studio.[1][2] Among her students at the Actors Studio was John Strasberg (son of Lee and Paula Strasberg), who noted that Delza's teaching of the art did not focus on its martial aspects.[10] She also performed demonstrations on television. In 1961 she wrote T'ai Chi Ch'uan: Body and Mind in Harmony, the first English language book on the subject of tai chi.[1]

In 1996, Sophia Delza died at the age of 92 at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City, soon after publishing her last book, The T'ai-Chi Ch'uan Experience.[1][9]

• Dunning, Jennifer (July 7, 1996), "Sophia Delza Glassgold, 92, Dancer and Teacher", New York Times

• Fowler, Glenn (February 15, 1985), "A. COOK GLASSGOLD; ART EXPERT DIRECTED POSTWAR RELIEF DRIVE", New York Times

• Fowler, Glenn (January 19, 1991), "Leo Hurwitz, 81, Blacklisted Maker Of Documentaries", New York Times

• Graff, Ellen (1997), Stepping Left: Dance and Politics in New York City, 1928-1942, Duke University Press, ISBN 9780822319481

• Inventory of the Sophia Delza Papers, 1908-1996 (PDF), Jerome Robbins Dance Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, February 2006

• Jackson, Naomi M. (2000), Converging Movements: Modern Dance and Jewish Culture at the 92nd Street Y, Wesleyan University Press, ISBN 9780819564207

• Strasberg, John (1996), Accidentally on Purpose: Reflections on Life, Acting, and the Nine Natural Laws of Creativity, Hal Leonard Corporation, ISBN 9781557831965

• Warren, Larry (2012), Anna Sokolow: The Rebellious Spirit, Routledge, ISBN 9781136649844

• Zhang, Tina Chunna; Allen, Frank (2006), Classical Northern Wu Style Tai Ji Quan: The Fighting Art of the Manchurian Palace Guard, Blue Snake Books, ISBN 9781583941546

• Sophia Delza Tai Chi - 8mm film of Delza teaching at her Carnegie Hall school