This ‘voice’ of British Ballet is that of Pamela May. She was born in 1917 and after retiring as a ballerina with The Royal Ballet became the teacher par excellence for generations of Royal Ballet School dancers. May, interviewed by Patricia Linton, starts this clip by describing being a student herself in 1932 and watching Adeline Genée, the great Danish ballerina, and also the first President of the Royal Academy of Dance, perform a minuet with Anton Dolin on tour in Copenhagen. The interview is introduced by the writer and critic Alastair Macaulay who gives a wonderful context and explains how Ninette de Valois became known as "Madam."

Pamela (Doris) May was born in San Fernando, Trinidad in 1917, where her father was an oil engineer. The family returned to England in 1921. She first studied ballet with Freda Grant, and later in Paris with Olga Preobrajenska, Lubov Egorova and Mathilde Kschessinska. She joined the Vic-Wells Ballet School in 1933 and made her debut with the Vic-Wells Ballet in the pas de trois from Swan Lake in 1934.

May became a principal with company and danced the whole gamut of the repertoire, including creating many roles, until she retired from dancing ballerina roles in 1952. She then became a leading mime and character artist and stayed with what became known as The Royal Ballet in this capacity until 1982. All this happened alongside her teaching at The Royal Ballet School from 1954 until 1977. Pamela May was appointed OBE for services to dance in 1977. She died in 2005.

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A conversation Mary Clarke, former editor of Dancing Times. It is thanks to her godson, Jerome Monahan, that we have this evocative and informative interview with Mary Clarke. Writer extraordinaire on all aspects of ballet, she hated the sound of her own voice and even more the look of her transcript. In these few minutes, however, she manages to convey the feeling of several eras, and of many people and happenings. She also explains, in her low-key erudite way, how the word ‘balletomane’ entered the English language. Mary is interviewed by her friend, the former Royal Ballet soloist Meryl Chappell, and the interview is introduced by Jonathan Gray, former editor of Dancing Times, who worked closely with Mary during her later years.

Mary Clarke was the dance historian and writer par excellence. Her two books on the birth of British ballet in the 20th Century - The Sadler’s Wells Ballet: A History and Appreciation (London, 1955) and Dancers of Mercury: The Story of Ballet Rambert (London, 1962) - remain the starting point for all future historians of ballet in the UK.

Mary Clarke was born in London in 1923. After her schooling at Mary Datchelor School, she worked as a typist at Reuter’s Press Agency. She was a youthful enthusiast for ballet and all things theatrical, and her career as a ballet critic and journalist began in 1943 with her first published article (prophetically for Dancing Times) and with her appointment in the same year as London correspondent for the American Dance Magazine. After the end of the war Clarke wrote for the London-based Ballet Today magazine. From the mid-1950s until 1970 she was also the London correspondent for Dance News, another American publication, which was then run by the distinguished critic and writer Anatole Chujoy. In 1954 Clarke became the assistant editor of Dancing Times, first under Philip Richardson and then for Arthur Franks. On Franks’ sudden death in 1963, Clarke became editor of Dancing Times, a post she held until her retirement in 2010. For over half a century she chronicled the changing trends in ballet and dance worldwide and their effects with impeccable judgement and an encyclopaedic knowledge.

Clarke was dance critic for The Guardian newspaper from 1977 to 1994 and associate editor (with Arnold L Haskell) for many years of the Ballet Annual. She co-authored a range of books with the ballet critic and writer, Clement Crisp, notably Ballet: An Illustrated History (London, 1973) and The Encyclopaedia of Dance and Ballet (London, 1977) with David Vaughan. Her quiet demeanour and straightforward style belied deep thought and high ambition for the art. Her contributions to A Dictionary of Modern Ballet (London, 1959) are awe-inspiring in their clarity and humanity, qualities rare in a critic. She was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award of the Royal Academy of Dance in 1990, Poland’s Nijinsky Medal in 1996, and she was made a Knight of the Order of Dannebrog in 1992. Mary Clarke died in 2015.

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In this podcast, the dancer and teacher Leo Kersley discusses his formative years in London in the 1930s and the many different companies he eventually worked with during the Second World War, including a stint at the Windmill Theatre. Talking to Patricia Linton, director of Voices of British Ballet, he also mentions how, as a conscientious objector, he was briefly imprisoned at the start of the war. The interview is introduced by Jane Pritchard.

Leo Kersley was born in poverty in Hertfordshire in 1920. His family having moved to London, he studied dance under a number of teachers, including Marie Rambert at the Mercury Theatre in 1934, dancing professionally from time to time. He was a soloist in Ballet Rambert from 1936 to 1939, and in 1939 worked for the Ballet Trois Arts.

On the outbreak of World War Two in 1939, he registered as a conscientious objector and was briefly imprisoned. On his release, during 1940 and 1941 he combined his work in a hospital with dancing for Rambert in the evenings alongside his first wife, Celia Franca. He was a member of Sadler’s Wells Ballet from 1941-1942, and then the International Ballet. He was a member of the Anglo-Polish Ballet from 1942-1943. From 1945 until 1951 Kersley performed with Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet. 

In 1952, Kersley went to teach in Denver, Colorado, and in 1953 to Rotterdam in The Netherlands. Whilst there he danced with a number of companies but returned to England in 1959 to set up his own school in Harlow, which he ran until his second wife, Janet Sinclair. With Sinclair, who died in 1999, he published the well-regarded Dictionary of Ballet Terms in 1952.   

Photo

Anne Heaton (as A Serving maid), Leo Kersley (as A Shepherd) in THE GODS GO A'BEGGING; Sadler's Wells Opera Ballet; at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London UK 1946;

Credit : Frank Sharman / Royal Opera House / ArenaPAL.com

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You can hear in her voice how much Lucette Aldous appreciated and revelled in every step of her way from Ballet Rambert to Festival Ballet and The Royal Ballet. There’s a fascinating glimpse of the young Kenneth MacMillan and later the mindfulness of the much older John Field. In conversation with Patricia Linton, Lucette speaks about joining – and then leaving – Ballet Rambert; about working in Festival Ballet with John Gilpin and being taken under Anton Dolin’s wing, especially for Giselle; about how, when she went to The Royal Ballet, Field ‘wrapped his ballerinas in cotton wool’; and about how MacMillan’s earlier approach to choreography differed in his later ballets. The interview is introduced by Deborah Weiss.

Lucette Aldous was born in New Zealand in 1939, but lived in Sydney, Australia, from the age of three months. After studying in Sydney, she won a scholarship to study at The Royal Ballet School in 1955. She joined Ballet Rambert in 1957, being promoted to ballerina in 1958. She went to Festival Ballet in 1963, dancing with John Gilpin, and then in 1967, at the behest of John Field, to The Royal Ballet.

Aldous returned to Australia in 1970 and joined The Australian Ballet. When there she was invited to work with the Kirov Ballet, one of the first Australian dancers to be so honoured. Acclaimed in many ballerina roles of all parts of the repertoire, her partnerships with Rudolf Nureyev in The Nutcracker for The Royal Ballet and in Don Quixote for The Australian Ballet were noteworthy. She retired from dancing in 1976, subsequently teaching in Perth, Western Australia. In 2018 Lucette Aldous was made a Companion of the Order of Australia. She died in 2021.

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In conversation with Alastair Macaulay in 2019, Kenneth Tharp conveys a multitude of observations, along with historical content, and both personal and professional insights. He paints a picture of a vibrant moment in the unfolding of dance history in this country and all the key people of this moment are there. The interview is introduced by Alastair Macaulay.

Kenneth Olumuyiwa Tharp, a key figure in UK arts and culture, was born in Croydon in 1960, with a Nigerian father and an English mother. He attended the Perse School, Cambridge, and the Cambridge College of Arts and Technology, before training at the London Contemporary Dance School, graduating in 1981. When the LCDS began offering degrees he returned to study whilst a member of the London Contemporary Dance Theatre and gained a first-class degree in 1987.

He performed professionally as a dancer for 25 years, first with the London Contemporary Dance Theatre (from 1981 until 1994) and then with Arc Dance Company (from 1994 to 2005). He was co-director of Artyfartyarts, a multidisciplinary arts group, and he has choreographed over 45 dances. He was chief executive of The Place from 2007 until 2016, and director of The Africa Centre, London from 2018 to 2020. He has worked with The Royal Ballet School’s Dance Partnership and Access Programme as a choreographer, teacher, director and advisor, and taught for many years at The Royal Ballet School’s Summer School at White Lodge. Among many other roles in the arts, he has served on the board of the Royal Opera House, and as a trustee of Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures Company and the Chineke! Foundation and Orchestra. Kenneth Olumuyima Tharp was appointed an OBE in 2003 and a CBE in 2017, both for services to dance.

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Keith Money is a pioneering photographer of ballet. He moved from loving and photographing horses to loving and photographing dancers. He decided he wanted to see the nuts and bolts of a dancer’s life, so he developed an entirely different approach to ballet photography. In this podcast he explains to Patricia Linton how it was watching Margot Fonteyn and her artistry that first inspired him to work with dancers. The interview is introduced by Tobias Round who is the son of dance photographer, Roy Round.

Keith Money was born in New Zealand in 1927 and educated there. He received a Fine Art degree from the Elem School of Fine Art before setting off for the country of his English forbears. Gifted in four disciplines, writing, photography, and painting in oil and watercolour, he has written, painted and travelled extensively.

Initially a contributor and illustrator for a variety of equestrian publications, Money also wrote for national newspapers and journals. He then authored books of his own and published collections of his own extraordinary photographs, as well as painting in oils and watercolour. Throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s he had both solo exhibitions and was included in many others. His work has given lasting pleasure. The nub of it all is his wonderful eye, whatever his subject, whether it is horses, dancers or skies; and it is this that will hold true for posterity.

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Joseph Horowitz is the composer of16 ballets scores, two one-act operas, five string quartets, nine concertos, and many works for wind and brass, as well as music for television. He made his Royal Ballet debut in 1990, revising Adolphe Adam’s score for Peter Wright’s production of Giselle. Other ballets include Alice in Wonderland, composed for Festival Ballet in 1953.

In this episode he explains to Patricia Linton that his early enthusiasm was for the visual arts, and that it was only from about the age of 19 that he turned seriously to music. After a degree at Oxford University, he attended the Royal College of Music and then went to Paris for revelatory study with the legendary Nadia Boulanger. While there he went to Boris Kochno’s ballet class, saw Yvette Chauviré dance (which greatly inspired him), and was given sage advice on writing for the ballet by Roland Petit. After that, in 1951 he conducted for Colonel de Basil’s Ballet Russe, at the end of their existence. Colin Davis, a contemporary as a student, was co-conductor, and the ballet master was Serge Grigoriev, whose musical understanding turned out to be somewhat idiosyncratic. The episode is introduced by Stephen Johnson.

Joseph Horowitz, the British composer and conductor, was born to a Jewish family in Vienna in 1926. His father was the co-founder of Phaidon Press, which he founded in 1923. In 1938, the family emigrated from Austria, to escape the Nazi threat, and to seek a safer life in England. Horovitz read music and modern languages at New College, in Oxford, while simultaneously giving piano recitals for army camps during the war. This progressed to studying composition at the Royal College of Music in London under Gordon Jacob, where he won the Farrar prize. He then went to Paris to continue his studies under Nadia Boulanger.

In 1950, Horovitz became the music director of the Bristol Old Vic. During the Festival of Britain in 1951 he conducted ballet and concerts at the Festival Amphitheatre in London. He then conducted for Colonel de Basil’s Ballet Russe. During the 1950s, a number of his compositions were broadcast on the BBC, and in 1961 he became Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music where he was later awarded an Honorary Doctor of Music.

As well as the Commonwealth Medal in 1959, Jospeh Horowitz won many awards for his music, both in this country and abroad. He died in 2022.

Image: © Wolfgang Jud

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In this podcast featuring Donald MacLeary, the ballerina Darcey Bussell makes a fascinating and full introduction to her friend and mentor. She stresses the importance of a coach who is both knowledgeable and intuitive, for a dancer flourish. The backbone of British ballet is storytelling and both Darcey and Donald underline how important it is to keep this tradition alive. Donald Macleary is in conversation with the dance critic Alastair Macaulay.

Donald MacLeary was a dancer noted for his finesse and natural romanticism, and for his legendary partnering skills. He had an association with The Royal Ballet for 48 years. Born in Glasgow in 1937, he studied ballet with Sheila Ross from 1950. He then went to the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School and joined Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet in 1954. In 1959, when Svetlana Beriosova asked for him as her regular partner, he moved to The Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, becoming its youngest principal dancer at the time.

MacLeary created roles for John Cranko, including in Brandenburg 4 and 6 in 1964, and for Kenneth MacMillan, including in The Burrow (1958), Symphony (1963) and Elite Syncopations (1974). After his retirement from dancing in 1975 he was appointed ballet master for The Royal Ballet from 1976 until 1979. He later appeared as a guest artist for a number of companies, including Scottish Ballet, and was a répétiteur at The Royal Ballet from 1981 (for principal dancers from 1984) until his retirement in 2002. Donald MacLeary was appointed an OBE for services to dance in 2004.

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Here Barbara Fewster tells us about working at The Royal Ballet School. Her voice has a mixture of authority and kindness which will be remembered by literally thousands of students over the 40-odd years she both taught and directed there. However, there is also has a tinge of something students rarely noticed, something more searching and pensive, of sadness even. Many dancers, both in The Royal Ballet and in many other companies, owe their careers to her, and remember what she did for them with genuine gratitude. Patricia Linton, founder and director of Voices of British Ballet, feels she owes her own career to Fewster, saying, “She scooped me up from a moment of student gloom when I was about 18 and gave me an opportunity that led to a chance to join The Royal Ballet’. In this interview Barbara Fewster talks to Patricia Linton who also introduces the episode in conversation with Natalie Steed.

Barbara Fewster was born in 1928. She studied dancing at the Wessex School in Bournemouth before joining the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School in 1942. By 1943, at the height of World War Two, she was performing and touring the country with the Sadler’s Wells Opera Ballet. In 1946 she became a founder member of the Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet, a company that became a hot bed of talent for the future of British ballet and a springboard for many and varied careers. There were extensive tours, both at home and abroad, where Fewster was at first a dancer, and then assistant ballet mistress from 1947. When Peggy Van Praagh left the company in 1951, Fewster became the ballet mistress.

Against all the odds of a depressed post-war Britain, ballet was vibrant. The emergence of a swathe of talented choreographers, together with a remarkably varied existing repertoire, helped to build a bright future. On leaving the Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet in 1954, Fewster toured the United States of America as ballet mistress with the Old Vic Company’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, before joining the staff of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School, which was now based with the Sadler’s Wells Ballet at Barons Court in West London. She became deputy principal to Ursula Moreton in 1967 and succeeding her as principal in 1968. Fewster joined the Grand Council of both the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (ISTD) and the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD). She was made an Honorary Fellow of the Cecchetti Society by its founder, Cyril Beaumont, in the late 1960s.

Barbara Fewster was an indefatigable traveller and was always inspired by her experiences of teaching and adjudicating worldwide. She was at the heart of an historic cultural exchange with China in the early 1980s, involving an exchange of students and teachers. Fewster was also the driving force of a video for the Cecchetti Society in 1988, to promote and improve good practice in the teaching and understanding of pointework. She has frequently mounted ballets for professional companies, notably Coppélia for the Turkish Ballet in 1993 and a revival of La Fête étrange by Andrée Howard, a ballet close to her heart, for The Royal Ballet in 2003. There is a scholarship in Fewster’s name as part of the Cecchetti Class Ballet Vocational Awards.

image: Barbara Fewster, Ballet Principal of Royal Ballet School (1968-1988) helping a student prepare for a school performance, circa 1960's; Credit: Royal Ballet School / ArenaPAL

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From a start in Flamenco, Greek dancing and a bit of ballet, Anita Landa describes here not only how her dancing life took off, but how Festival Ballet started. The Cone Ripman School, Alicia Markova, Anton Dolin, a healthy injection of glamorous Diaghilev stars and repertoire all get proper credit. However, the lion’s share of the company’s success, she says, was down to the indefatigable impresario Julian Braunsweg. ‘Without him there would be no English National Ballet!’ In this interview Anita Landa talks to Patricia Linton, and it is introduced by the dance writer and critic Deborah Weiss who is a former senior soloist with London Festival Ballet.

Anita Landa must have been vivacious from birth! Her dancing life has been refreshingly varied. Born in Las Arenas in Spain in 1929, she moved to the UK just before World War Two, but the Spanish part of her character and her early life was to prove an important catalyst and influence on her future. After four years studying a variety of dance styles at the Ginner-Mawer School, Landa spent some time at the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School whilst simultaneously continuing her Spanish dancing studies with Elsa Brunelleschi. Her next and fortuitous move was to the Cone-Ripman School. From here she succeeded in an audition for the newly formed Markova-Dolin Ballet in 1949. The company soon took root and became known in 1950 as Festival Ballet.

The company’s very distinct international outlook suited Landa. She revelled in the life, absorbing much from the galaxy of star dancers and the extensive repertoire. She became a principal and danced until 1960 when, married to fellow dancer, Michael Hogan and expecting their first of three children, she retired. However, after eight years she returned to the ballet world. Her broad dance background and natural intelligence and sparkle made her an ideal choice for the intricate role of ballet mistress. After working with Northern Ballet Theatre and on various Nureyev Festivals, she joined the staff of the Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet in 1979. She remained with the company as ballet mistress and character dancer until 1995, including the company’s move to Birmingham in 1990, when Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet became Birmingham Royal Ballet. A wealth of work and activity and acclaim was achieved over these 16 years, until Anita handed the baton over to Marion Tait. She continued to be involved in ballet related activities, including being a member of the National Council for Dance Education and Training for several years. Hugely knowledgeable and exuberant, she is a bonus at any gathering.

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