The Modern Women of Ballet

Researching the Australian women leaders hidden in our ballet history
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When I finally decided it was time to do a PhD on ballet in Australia, I really had no idea what I wanted to focus on.

I knew the time I wanted to look at was before The Australian Ballet Company established in 1962. And as ballet didn’t really come to Australia until the late nineteenth century, this gave me about a sixty-year period to look at.

Today’s cultural memory of that time are first, the touring Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova (1920s), then, the touring Russian ballet company, The Ballet Russes (1930s) and then, the local Borovansky Company based in Melbourne, but which toured both nationally and internationally (1940s and 1950s).

A image in black and white of a ballerina in costume stand on some stairs
'Novelty Chocolates', Truth (Brisbane, QLD), 27 June 1926, nla.news-article199287029

This is the story we tell about the development of ballet in Australia leading up to The Australian Ballet Company.

Now, I am not going to argue that these three were not important to ballet in this country.

But as I researched, I found there was so much more going on. There was a plethora of ballet makers who were doing original and modern work.

And among them, some were migrants, and some were men, but there were four women who seemed to be the first Australian born generation of ballet leaders. They were Louise Lightfoot, Laurel Martyn, Joanna Priest and Valrene Tweedie.

A page from the The Daily Telegraph showing scenes from various dance productions of the Australian Ballet in black and white
‘National dances featured by the first Australian Ballet’, The Daily Telegraph, 29 November 1933, nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/27208889

How did I know they were important?

Let’s take Laurel Martyn, for example.

A basic Trove search using her name throws up thousands of results. In newspapers and gazettes alone there are 3, 553!

With that number I guess the obvious thing to do would be to narrow the search, but I didn’t really know what I was looking for. So, I just started reading all the newspaper articles. I read thousands.

There were lots about her as a dancer, a choreographer, a teacher and a company director. And the articles appeared in local, state, and specialised publications from The Australian Women’s Weekly and The Telegraph to The Argus and The Australian Jewish News. This told me that she was well known as a key figure in ballet in Australia.

An article titled 'Laurel Martyn to go aboard' to the left is a image of Laurel Martyn in black in white in full ballet costume
‘Laurel Martyn to go aboard’, The Herald (Melbourne), 11 March 1954, nla.news-article245138117

But as I read on, I noticed that there had been a lot of stories about her doing non-ballet activities, like opening art exhibitions for example.

'This week's new art shows', a regular society column from John S. Loxton
‘This week's new art shows’, The Argus (Melbourne), 21 October 1947, nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/22515138

And her wedding in 1945 was featured in fifteen newspapers across the country and her opinions on cultural matters were also published.

A article about ballerina Laurel Martyn wedding. A black and white image of her is incluude.
‘Ballerina to marry today at South Yarra’, The Herald (Melbourne), 14 November 1945, nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/245658674

So, what did this tell me?

I guess it’s possible that a young ballerina might open a major art exhibition today but somehow unlikely.

And I realise that you can’t compare media of today with media of the 1940s. Today, balletomanes keep up with opinions and who’s marrying who on social media.

But I think it means two things: ballet had a more central position in Australian society and these women were not just household names but were perceived as part of the cultural intelligentsia, they were cultural leaders.

Article titled 'Wise grants for culture' by Laurel Martyn
‘Wise grants for culture’, The Age(Melbourne), 20 October 1953, nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/206460634

This was one of the earliest of my many Trove breakthroughs and they are the moments we researchers live for.