Festival Ballet
There are two reasons for writing my small tribute to the company in this issue of DANCE. The first being the recent donation to the library of a book entitled John Gilpin, and the second, an invitation to the Ruby Ginner Awards on Saturday 1st November.

For those of you who know nothing about Festival Ballet, the story starts with a few concert performances given by Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin who were back in England after the Second World War.

In January 1949 they were appearing before audiences of 6,000 at the Empress Hall, Earl’s Court with, amongst others, Sara Luzita, Joyce Lyndon, Angela Ellis, Robert Harrold and a small corps de ballet from the Cone-Ripman School. These successful performances, as well as a later tour organised by Julian Braunsweg to concert halls up and down the country and large cinemas in Sutton, Kilburn and Bristol, set the seal on the future of the permanent company which became Festival Ballet.

The trials and tribulations of a touring ballet company are many and varied, with finance coming top of the list, and the enormous touring programmes undertaken in the following years were continually beset by alarming financial shortfalls.

They appeared in Monte Carlo, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Israel, Canada, South America, and during one tour, 52 towns in the USA. The regular summer and winter sessions at the Festival Hall, plus support from the LCC, kept the company going from one season to the next.

During its existence as Festival Ballet, the company were pioneers in many towns and countries with a repertoire of classical and contemporary works hitherto unseen by their audiences.

Many famous dancers appeared with the company, Violetta Elvin, Natalie Krassovska, Paula Hinton, Vassilie Trunoff, Yvette Chauvire, Tatiana Riabouchinska, Alexandra Danilova, Toni Lander, Oleg Briansky, Belinda Wright and Moira Shearer to name a few. Partnering the ballerinas was the most brilliant English male dancer of his generation, John Gilpin.

Gilpin was responsible for the success of many of the early performances, with his perfectly proportioned body, wonderful sense of line, astonishing elevation, speed, attack and control. In certain ballets, the effect was electrifying. While still at the Cone-Ripman School, he had appeared in several West End plays as a child actor, and on leaving school, had the difficult choice of drama or dance as a career. He chose ballet and was taken into Marie Rambert’s school, quickly transferring into the company for an extended and exhausting tour of Australia.

On his return to England he left the company to gain wider experience with Roland Petit’s Ballet de Paris and the Marquis de Cueva’s company. In 1950 he finally joined Festival Ballet to make his name as a virtuoso dancer, as in Études and Symphony for Fun, and as a sympathetic, unobtrusive and reliable partner, eventually taking over the great classical roles from Anton Dolin, from whom he had learnt so much. Also as he gained confidence and maturity, he was able to bring his skills as an actor into his performances, seen to great effect in ‘Witch Boy’.

At the Ruby Ginner Awards, I was able to have a long chat with Anita Landa, one of the soloists in the very early days of the company, who spoke of the energy, enthusiasm and love of dance that permeated the young company at that time, and wondered why there were no photographs of John to be seen anywhere at the Festival Hall or mention of the company that had packed audiences in to performances of Nutcracker year after year.

In 1989 the company, after many changes of Directors, was re-named English National Ballet, and as such, continues to take first class productions and enjoyment of dance to audiences all around the world. Further information can be found in:

• Ballet Scandals by Julian Braunsweg
• Festival Ballet by Hugh Fisher (Ed)
• John Gilpin by Cyril Swinson
• A Dance with Life by John Gilpin
• English National Ballet 1950-1990 published ENB

All these publications can be found in the ISTD Library.

Donations
Very many thanks go to Mary Vaughan, Diana Steer and Wendy Mitchell for interesting and useful donations to the library during recent weeks.

Mollie Webb FISTD ARAD