2 3 Throwback Thursday and Swan Wood | Ballet Webb

Thursday, October 31, 2019

Throwback Thursday and Swan Wood



Throwback Thursday and Swan Wood

Swan Wood was a dancer during the early part of the twentieth century. She performed in many different venues from a solo at the Orpheum in Los Angeles (1909), to performing at the Palace Theater (June 1915), and the Seattle Orpheum (November 1915), and The Metropolitan Opera House Ballet (see The Pacific Coast Musical Review, Vol. 29).

One review of her performance at the Seattle Orpheum mentions Swan Wood and her “eight barefoot dancing girls”. She was featured in The Passing Show of 1913 https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/the-passing-show-of-1913-6904. She was also in the Broadway show The Rose of China (1919).

But when it comes to her personal life history, I have been able to find little. The 1920 Federal census lists a Swan Wood as a single “roomer” in a house on West 48th Street in Manhattan and also states she is an actress in the theater industry. Also listed is a “Rose Wood” age 68 (her mother?) along with numerous other residents. Her father was born in Kentucky, her mother in Indiana, and she was born in California.

So was Swan a stage name? Apparently Wood was her maiden name, based on this census record. More research could probably solve some of these mysteries.

From the Big Blue Book of Ballet Secrets
Dance History Secret #295:
“Swan Wood was a ballerina in vaudeville.”

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Quote of the Day:
“The world, even the smallest parts of it, is filled with things you don't know.”
― Sherman Alexie

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