#occupation:dancer

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Armen Ohanian (1887-1976)

Armen Ohanian, born Sophia Pirboudaghian, was an Armenian actress, choreographer, dancer, and author. She was born in Shamakha, then part of the Russian Empire and now part of modern-day Azerbaijan. In 1905, her father was killed in the anti-Armenian pogroms that took place in the city of Baku. Armen Ohanian began her theatrical career in Baku in 1906, before moving to Moscow where she studied plastic arts.

In 1909, she moved to Iran, where she pursued dance and theater activities and co-founded the Persian National Theater in Tehran. She perfected her skills in Oriental dances and began performing on stage in Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, and Europe. She was the first to introduce traditional Middle Eastern dances to Western audiences by merging them with contemporary dance methods then emerging in Europe, notably those of the "free dance" developed by the American dancer Isadora Duncan.

Her short choreographies, often inspired by poetic texts, were presented without sets or staging. She used Armenian, Russian, and Iranian music, often accompanied by the tar and traditional songs. Armen Ohanian moved to Paris in 1912, where she published several books, often autobiographical, such as The Dancer of Shamakha in 1918, as well as poems and newspaper columns. She performed on stage until the mid-1930s. In 1934, she moved to Mexico, where she founded a dance school. She also continued to write essays on literature and poetry. An active member of the Mexican Communist Party, she translated several books from Russian to Spanish.

Armen Ohanian had several romantic relationships with women, including Natalie Barney during the 1910s.

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Barbara Stanwyck (1907-1990)

Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress, who performed on stage, film and television for sixty years.

She was orphaned and raised in foster homes. She started her career in 1923 at the age of sixteen as a Ziegfeld girl, and became a Broadway star with her role in the musical Burlesque (1927), after which she transitioned from the stage to the film industry. Some of her iconic roles were in Night Nurse (1931), Baby Face (1933), The Lady Eve (1941), Double Indemnity (1944), and Walk on the Wild Side (1962).

She was nominated for four Academy Awards and received an Honorary Oscar in 1982. She was ranked as the 11th-greatest female star of classic American cinema by the American Film Institute.

Her status of Hollywood icon and affiliation to Republicans make it quite impossible to openly discuss her sexuality, even today. She bought land, build a ranch and lived on it with her agent's wife, Marion Marx, and most likely had a 40 years relationship with her publicist Helen Ferguson, who allegedly admitted there was no doubt in her mind that Barbara & Joan Crawford, on top of their very well-known friendship, had been intimate on more than one occasion. Find here a thread of all her possible female lovers.

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Loie Fuller (1862-1928)

Loie Fuller, also known as Louie and Loïe Fuller, was an American actress who revolutionised the art of dancing. By the end of the 19th Century, she was known for the Serpentine Dance, which she created by incorporating to her choreographies silk fabric and multi-coloured lightning that she herself designed.

In Europe, she became a regular performer of the Folies Bergère, mingling in Paris with the lesbians of Natalie Clifford Barney's salon.

She created three films with her lover of 30 years Gab Sorere: Le Lys de la vie (The Lily of Life, 1921), Visions des rêves (Visions of dreams, 1924), and Les Incertitudes de Coppélius (Uncertainties of Coppelius, 1927).

Loie Fuller with veil in Salome.

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June Miller (1902-1979)

June Mansfield Miller, née Juliet Edith Smerdt, was a Romanian-born dancer who lived in the USA and in Paris, where she met author Anais Nin. She was also the lover of poet and artist Jean Kronski. "After you went away the house suffocated me ... I have to imagine that you are there, June ... I want to melt into you, to be so terribly close to you that my own self disappears ... When I look at your face, I want to let go and share your madness", Anaïs Nin to June Miller 1932.

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Natacha Rambova (1897-1966)

Natacha Rambova, born Winifred Kimball Shaughnessy, was an American costume and set designer, as well as an Egyptology scholar later in life. Rambova started her career as a ballet dancer in New York City and it was during this time that she adopted her new Russian-inspired name. At the age of 19, she relocated to Los Angeles where she became an established costume designer for Hollywood film productions, notably as an art director for Alla Nazimova working on such films as Camille (1921) and Salomé(1923).

In June 1928, back in New York, she opened an elite couture shop which sold Russian-inspired clothing that Rambova herself designed. During the late 1930s and 1940s, she devoted herself to studying Egyptology after becoming fascinated with ancient belief systems and symbols.

[ladiesalmanack]

Ada Bricktop Smith (1894-1984)

Ada 'Bricktop' Smith was an African-American Jazz singer, dancer and entertainer. She owned famous nightclubs in Paris (the renowned 'Chez Bricktop' in Pigalle), Mexico city and Rome.

She started her career when she was 16, performing in Vaudeville circuits and in Harlem at Barron's Exclusive Club. Her career was a very enduring one and she performed across the world well into her eighties. She wrote her autobiography, Bricktop by Bricktop, published in 1983 by Welcome Rain Publishers. She also broadcast a radio programme in Paris from 1938 to 1939, for the French government.

She was dedicated throughout her life to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the largest and oldest American civil rights organisation, formed in 1909 to advance justice for African Americans. According to Josephine Baker's son, Jean-Claude, a homosexual himself, and as recorded in his own mother's biography, titled Josephine - The Hungry Heart, Baker and Bricktop were lovers for a time, early in their careers.

[ladiesalmanack]

Damia (1889-1978)

Damia, née Louise Marie Damien was a French singer, actress, and dancer. Rebellious and feisty, she ran away from home at the age of 15 and spent months wandering the streets of Paris. She escaped poverty by landing small roles as a dancer in music-hall shows. In 1911, she began a singing career. She performed a repertoire belonging to the French genre of "chanson réaliste" with the talent of a tragedian. Damia frequented Natalie Barney's salon, where she met three women who would become her lovers; dancer Loïe Fuller, choreographer and director Gab Sorère (Loïe Fuller's partner), and designer and architect Eileen Gray.

Thanks to Loïe Fuller and Gab Sorère, who were interested in lighting effects on theatrical stages, and Eileen Gray, who instilled in her a taste for refined design, Damia perfected the staging of her shows, which remained unchanged throughout her career and became iconic in the eyes of audiences. Lit by a single spotlight, on a pitch-black stage, Damia appeared wearing a black dress and sang without a microphone. This stage arrangement would inspire many other French singers, such as Édith Piaf, Juliette Gréco, and Barbara. Damia became a major star of French music, mainly during the 1930s and early 1940s. Between 1921 and 1956, she also appeared in around ten films and shorts.

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 Valeska Gert (1892-1978)

Valeska Gert, née Gertrud Valesca Somes, was a German dancer, pantomime, cabaret artist and film actress. She is considered one of the pioneers of contemporary dance. She began her career in film but quickly became interested in cabaret, a theatrical genre that mixed song, dance, mime, circus, and political satire. On stage, she portrayed marginal characters and mocked the values ​​of bourgeois society. By turns grotesque, intense, pathetic, or full of rage, she shocked and fascinated audiences.

In 1932, she created a cabaret in Berlin called 'the Kohlkopp'. One year later, the Nazis banned Jews from German stages, forcing Valeska Gert into exile in England and then the United States, where she continued her career. She returned to Germany after World War II and established several cabarets there, including the 'Ziegenstall'(Goat Shed), a nightclub in a village on the island of Sylt, which was known as a lesbian gathering place in Europe.