 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(April 2015) |
Kathleen Ann "Kathy" Gorham OBE (7 September 1928 - 30 April 1983) was an Australian ballerina.
| This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(April 2015) |
Kathleen Ann "Kathy" Gorham OBE (7 September 1928 - 30 April 1983) was an Australian ballerina.
Born in Narrandera, New South Wales, the second of four children of Marcus Gorham, an Irish-born railway employee, and his English-born wife, Hilda Muriel Florence (née Somers), Kathy Gorham lived much of her life in Melbourne. [1]
She began dancing at the age of fifteen with the Borovansky Ballet, continuing to dance with the Ballet until it disbanded in 1960 upon the death of Edouard Borovansky. She then danced overseas with companies in Paris and London. In 1962, Gorham became prima ballerina of the newly formed Australian Ballet.
During 1952 and 1953 she danced in London with the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, and in Europe with Le Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas. In 1954 she returned to Australia with Borovansky, and that same year she was selected by John Cranko to dance "Poll" in his restaging of Pineapple Poll for the Borovansky Ballet. She continued to dance for Borovansky and as guest artist for various European companies until she became a principal with Dame Peggy van Praagh's Australian Ballet in 1962, where she danced a wide range of roles for four years. She danced new roles in association with Robert Helpmann and played an important role in the artistic development of the new ballet company. She retired from dancing after the Australian Ballet's first overseas tour in 1966, and then taught ballet in Melbourne at her own School until 1975, The National Theatre Ballet (1975–81) and Southport, Queensland until her untimely death.[ citation needed ]
She served as co-artistic director of the National Theatre, Melbourne. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1968 for her services to ballet. [2]
On 18 November 1958 Gorham married Robert Michel Pomie, a French choreographer and dancer, at Parramatta, Sydney; they had one son, Anthony Marrows. The couple divorced in 1964 and Gorham remarried, to Barney Frank Marrows, an engineer, on 6 September 1967.
Gorham’s son Anthony, a Social Worker, had four children, Jack, Kate, Georgia and Joshua whom Gorham is the paternal grandmother of. Anthony died in 2007 of a heart attack.
After a stroke in 1979, she settled in 1981 at Southport, Queensland, and continued to teach. She died there, aged 54, following a heart attack. She was survived by her son and her second husband. [3]
The Australian Ballet is the largest classical ballet company in Australia. It was founded by J. C. Williamson Theatres Ltd and the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust in 1962, with the English-born dancer, teacher, repetiteur and director Dame Peggy van Praagh as founding artistic director. Today, it is recognised as one of the world's major international ballet companies and performs upwards of 150 performances a year.
Dame Catherine Margaret Mary Scott, was a South African-born pioneering ballet dancer who found fame as a teacher, choreographer, and school administrator in Australia. As the first director of the Australian Ballet School, she is recognised as one of the founders of the strong ballet tradition of her adopted country.
Dame Margaret van Praagh was a British ballet dancer, choreographer, teacher, repetiteur, producer, advocate and director, who spent much of her later career in Australia.
Garth de Burgh Welch is an Australian dancer and choreographer.
Marilyn Fay Jones OBE is an Australian dancer and teacher of dance. She has been described as "the greatest classical dancer Australia has produced".
Jodie-Anne White-Bivona was an Australian dancer, choreographer and artistic director of the Ballet Theatre of Queensland.
Beverly Jane Fry is an Australian ballerina.
Paul Clement Hammond OAM was an Australian ballet dancer, teacher and choreographer.
Edouard Borovansky was a Czech-born Australian ballet dancer, choreographer and director. After touring with Anna Pavlova's company, he and his wife, Xenia, settled in Australia where they established the Borovansky Ballet company. This company provided the foundation for modern ballet in Australia and was subsequently used as the basis for the first national Australian ballet company, The Australian Ballet which was established in 1962.
Laurel Martyn was an Australian ballerina.
Janet Karin OAM was born in Perth, Australia in 1938. She became one of Australia's leading dancers in 1956, and has danced with the Victorian Ballet Guild, Borovansky Ballet, and was a founding member of The Australian Ballet. She is a Nationally and Internationally recognised dance educator, and is currently the Head of Artistic Studies and Kinetic Educator for the Australian Ballet School in Melbourne, Australia.
Jocelyn Vollmar was an American ballerina, known for her career with the San Francisco Ballet.
The Australian Archives of the Dance is Australia’s oldest specialist dance archive. Established by The Australian Ballet in 1972, the Archive was transferred to the Performing Arts Collection of the Melbourne Arts Centre in 1998.
Hélène Kirsova was a Danish prima ballerina, choreographer and ballet teacher and is noted as the founder of the first professional ballet company in Australia. She trained in Paris with former Sergei Diaghilev ballet dancers and choreographers. She then performed in companies run by Léo Staats and Ida Rubinstein before in 1931 becoming a soloist with Les Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, dancing for several years in Europe and North America. In 1936, as a principal dancer, she joined René Blum's Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo in which she scored a singular success in London. Later that year she joined Colonel Wassily de Basil's Monte Carlo Russian Ballet as prima ballerina on an extensive tour of Australia and New Zealand where she was fêted by critics and audiences. She remained in Australia, started a ballet school in Sydney, and in 1941 formed the Kirsova Ballet. Despite wartime restrictions she directed the company for several years before retiring in 1948. She has been described as the "Godmother" of Australian ballet.
Roma Jean Egan was a child actress on Australian television, and an Australian ballet dancer and teacher. She was notably a senior soloist for The Australian Ballet, and variously performed for the Queensland Ballet, Basel Ballet, Ballet Victoria and Royal New Zealand Ballet.
Tamara Tchinarova, also known as Tamara Finch, was a Romanian-born émigré Russian and French ballerina who contributed significantly to the development of Australian dance companies and was a Russian/English interpreter for touring ballet companies. She was a dance writer and author, as Tamara Finch, of a number of non-fiction books. She was the first wife of actor Peter Finch.
"Johnny Belinda" was a 1959 Australian TV adaptation of the 1940 play by Elmer Harris which had been filmed in 1948. It was the first "live" one hour drama on commercial television in Australia.
Elaine Fifield was an Australian ballerina, perhaps best known for creating the title role in John Cranko's comic ballet Pineapple Poll in 1951.
Xenia Nikolaeva Smirnova Krüger Borovansky was a Russian-born dancer and choreographer, based in Australia after 1939. She was principal teacher at the Melbourne Academy of Russian Ballet, and active in running the Borovansky Ballet.
Rachel Cameron was an Australian ballet dancer and teacher. She was one of the leading dancers in early Australian ballet in the 1940s, performing with the Borovansky and Kirsova ballet companies, and was one of the first ballet dancers in Australia to reach the rank of principal. After emigrating to Great Britain she was an inspirational educator of ballet teachers at the Royal Academy of Dance in London for over forty years. In 2010, she received the Royal Academy of Dance's prestigious Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award in recognition of her outstanding services to ballet.
National Treasure by Frank van Sraten (1994)
