The Australian Ballet 50th Gala - Blog - ABC Arts

The Australian Ballet 50th Gala - Blog - ABC Arts

Australian Ballet Artistic Directors.

http://www.australiadancing.org/subjects/3.html

The roots of the Australian Ballet can be found in the Borovansky Ballet, a company founded in 1940 by the Czech dancer Edouard Borovansky. Borovansky had been a dancer in the touring ballet company of the famous Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova and, after visiting Australia on tour with the Covent Garden Russian Ballet, he decided to remain in Australia, establishing a ballet school in Melbourne in 1939, out of which he developed a performance group which became the Borovansky Ballet. The company was supported and funded by J. C. Williamson Theatres Ltd from 1944. Following Borovansky's death in 1959, the English dancer and administrator Dame Peggy van Praagh was invited to become artistic director of the company. J. C. Williamson Theatres Ltd decided to disband the Borovansky Ballet in 1961.
In 1961, J. C. Williamson Theatres Ltd and the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust received federal subsidies towards the establishment of a national ballet company. These organisations established the Australian Ballet Foundation to assist with the establishment of a new company, which in 1962 became the Australian Ballet. Peggy van Praagh, who had been kept on a retainer by J. C. Williamson Theatres Ltd through the intervening year between the disbanding of the Borovansky Ballet and the establishment of the Australian Ballet, was invited to become the founding artistic director of the company. The majority of the dancers employed by the fledgling company were drawn from former members of the Borovansky Ballet. The first performance by the Australian Ballet was staged at Her Majesty's Theatre, Sydney. The principal dancers in the Australian Ballet's first season were Kathleen Gorham, Marilyn Jones and Garth Welch. Van Praagh also invited the Royal Ballet's Ray Powell to temporarily became the company's first Ballet Master, with Lehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Australian_Balleton Kellaway (brother of Cecil Kellaway), a former dancer with the Covent Garden Russian Ballet, as the company's first ballet teacher. In 1967 van Praagh established the Australian Ballet School, which was formed specially to train dancers for the company and remains the company's associate school to this day. Excerpt from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Australian_Ballet

Miss Karen's first pay packet (which she has kept) was when as a student of Tessa Maunder was selected at auditions for dancers for J.C. Williamson's production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at The Junction Hunter Theatre (later burnt down).

Maina Gielgud

http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/35285/20120626-0000/www.australiadancing.org/subjects/31.html

Maina Gielgud was the niece of the distinguished British actor Sir John Gielgud. Maina was the longest serving Artistic Director of the Australian Ballet Company. xx

Checkmate.

http://dancelines.com.au/helpmanns-last-move-on-the-chessboard/

Fascinating reading...part of the Australian Ballet history.  xx

Paul De Masson

http://dancelines.com.au/ballet-world-mourns-the-death-of-paul-de-masson-dancer-teacher-balletmaster/

The sad loss of a very talented Dancer.   xx

Dame Margaret Scott.

http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/35285/20120626-0000/www.australiadancing.org/subjects/58.html

During Miss Karen's years at the Australian Ballet School Dame Margaret Scott was the Director of the School.   xx

Dame Peggy Van Pragh

http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/35285/20120626-0000/www.australiadancing.org/subjects/66.html

The Australian Ballet Company's first Artistic Director.  xx

Ray Powell.

http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/35285/20120626-0000/www.australiadancing.org/subjects/6941.html

Before graduating from the school Miss Karen was chosen to replace a corp de ballet dancer (due to illness) in La Fille Mal Gardee. Ray Powell taught her and required her to learn the part in one afternoon before that night performance. xx

Bryan Ashbridge.

http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/35285/20120626-0000/www.australiadancing.org/subjects/6941.html

Bryan Ashbridge and Ray Powell were co assistant Artistic Directors of the Australian Ballet Company during the years Miss Karen was at the school and the short time she was with the Company. Dame Peggy Van Pragh was co Director with Sir Robert Helpmann. xx

Ballet in Australia

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