Anne Woolliams

Anne Woolliams (3 August 1926 – 8 July 1999) was an English artistic director, ballet choreographer, dancer and teacher. She began studying dance at age five, performing with the Russian Opera and Ballet, the Ballet de la Jeunesse Anglaise and the St. James' Ballet and danced in the film The Red Shoes and stage musicals. Woolliams taught at Folkwang School, was appointed ballet mistress of Stuttgart Ballet, founded the John Cranko School with the director John Cranko, was the third artistic director of The Australian Ballet, was dean of dance at Victoria College of Arts, Melbourne and was artistic director of the Vienna State Ballet.

Biography

Early life Woolliams was born in the English coastal town of Folkestone, Kent, on 3 August 1926. Her father was a Group Captain in the Royal Air Force and her mother was named Mrs Frank Hawker Woolliams. She had one brother and one sister. before learning classical ballet under Judith Espinosa, Noreen Bush, George Goncharov and Vera Volkova. Woolliams passed every major examination at the Royal Academy of Dance before turning 13. she joined Lydia Kyasht Ballet de la Jeunesse Anglaise the following year, and in London stage musicals, such as Brigadoon and Paint Your Wagon. Her contract stipulated Bahen could overrule her in certain circumstances, which she believed could only occur through dialogue with the board. She agreed to the terms and left the role in December 1978. Woolliams allowed dancers who had left The Australian Ballet to practise at the School of Dance at the college on a daily basis. She began a student touring group to represent Australia in overseas youth festivals and domestically, directed Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin for the Victoria State Opera in 1982, and remained associated with The Australian Ballet with revivals of Romeo and Juliet and Swan Lake. Woolliams returned to Europe in 1987. She established the Schweizerische Ballettberufsschule, a vocational ballet school in Zürich, and continued to stage the ballets of Cranko. In 1993, she was appointed artistic director of the Vienna State Ballet, presenting Wright's new production of The Sleeping Beauty. Woolliams eventually became disillusioned with ballet, and retired to Canterbury, Kent, in 1995, devoting herself to her lifelong interests of line drawing and painting in her studio.

Personal life She married the principal dancer and choreographer Jan Stripling in 1963. There were no children of the marriage. In 1999, Woolliams was diagnosed with cancer of the spine, and died from the disease on 8 July 1999 in Canterbury. On the afternoon of 30 July, a memorial service was held in her honour at St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne.

Personality and legacy

According to the press, Woolliams was instrumental in building the Stuttgart Ballet's international reputation, and Nadine Meisner of The Independent noted she was able to get dancer to understand their inner discipline, and was "very forthright" with a strong personality. Cranko said of her, "Miss Woolliams’ teaching has been of inestimable value to the Stuttgart Ballet. She is to be felt everywhere, from our prima ballerina to our kindergarten.” She won the first John Cranko Medal in 1976, and the 1978 Australian Critics' Award for Dance for her staging of Cranko's Onegin.