Pioneers – Estelle Anderson
CECCHETTI PIONEERS
Estelle Anderson
Estelle Anderson was the founder of the New South Wales Branch of the Cecchetti Society. Madam Lucie Saronova founded the Society in Australia in Melbourne in l934, and almost immediately the other states were able to join in and have exams. Miss Anderson became an examiner, and traveled all over Australia during her lifetime, examining and teaching the Cecchetti work.
She was a tall, rather overweight, yet elegant woman. She must have weighed about 14 stone, and she never demonstrated any steps. Although we had a pianist for exam classes, for our open classes Miss Anderson would play the piano, sitting in her ubiquitous black dress, slightly turned towards the class, playing without looking at the keys, and sometimes showing us the movement of our arms.“… like moving through water” she would say, as her arm passed across her body.
She had a wonderful talent for teaching us all to ‘dance.’ Of course she taught us all the steps and the technique required for the exams, but she also had a theatrical flair; she wanted us to use the music and dance, not just do steps. Miss Anderson was the queen of the musical societies. Because she had a large school, and was famous for teaching male dancers, she was more or less the resident choreographer for the larger musical societies in Sydney. There was The Rowe Street Musical Society, which of course rehearsed in our studio, but she also looked after the Rockdale Musical Society and the Ashfield Musical Society. She supplied the dancers, their costumes and the choreography which was most inventive and amusing, so she was much in demand.
Earlier in her life, she had had a job at His Majesty’s Theatre in Perth training and choreographing the dancers for the Variety and Vaudeville shows that were produced for that theatre. She would get on a boat in Sydney and travel across to Perth, stay there for about three months and then come back and pick up her teaching again. She told us that the only time she ever lost weight was when she was on the ship eating three meals a day. Of course we know now that it is a scientific fact, but she thought it was very strange. Her eating habits were extremely erratic because of the hours she worked, so I think that three meals a day was definitely not the norm for her. She used to volunteer our services as the dancers for the wonderful old operettas―Lilac Domino, Victoria and her Hussars, and of course The Desert Song. Later on she did a wonderful job of choreographing The King and I, with the Ballet in the 2nd act as one of her most memorable achievements.
Miss Anderson told us that after the war, she had a lot of men who came to her classes. Her theory was that having been through a war and all the horrors that came with that, these men were determined to realize their life time ambitions. The social ramifications of a male going to ballet class now meant nothing to them, the desire to dance comes from the heart, and they were now determined to fulfill their hearts desire. It’s a wonderful theory, and I remember quite a few men of mature age in our open classes. I often think about Miss Estelle Anderson’s extraordinary success at teaching male them. I remember, from the first time I set foot into her Rowe Street studio, in Sydney in 1949, when I had just arrived as a ten quid migrant from England, there were always male dancers in the studio.
She seemed to have to ability to take a man who had never learned ballet, or even dancing, and inspire him to work amazingly hard, to come to classes almost every evening and at week-ends, to take part in performances for the musical societies, and for the operatic societies―in other words, to do things which were extremely unusual for men at that time―men who had full time jobs as waiters, office workers, teachers, salesmen―all manner of everyday occupations not normally associated with the pursuit of ballet dancing as a hobby.
My memories are of classes of almost equal numbers of male and female dancers, big burly bodies, long slender bodies, short, tall, fat and skinny―pointed and unpointed feet, lots of allegro, and grand allegro, lots of pirouettes, and always lots and lots of lifts and pas de deux. I remember the little sign on the wall which I always found very funny: DANCING IS 1% INSPIRATION AND 99% PERSPIRATION. And how true that was―the male dancers used to literally drip, and we all had to duck during pirouettes when sweat would come flying off the dancers like a garden sprinkler.
Miss Anderson – she was Estelle to some of the students, but I have never yet been able to refer to her as anything but “Miss Anderson”, had very good rapport with her adult students, and for some reason she knew exactly how to deal with each one of this diverse array of male students. Perhaps it was because she looked an unlikely dancing teacher – a very big woman who held herself beautifully with a marvelous strong back – perhaps she looked like their mother, or grandmother.
Of course she did teach the Cecchetti work, which seemed to challenge the men with its physicality, the need for stamina and strength, the demanding pirouette combinations; it was certainly wonderful work and never boring―always the challenge―and she was able to teach it in a way that was accessible to us all, and especially to the male dancers. In class everyone did everything. The girls did the boys work, and the boys did the girls work, and we competed with each other for the highest jumps and the most pirouettes.
And then there was the partnering. Miss Anderson was able to teach the men how to lift the women while she sat at the piano. She had a repertoire of lifts which she would explain, and then we would just do them. We were able to work on all the adagio lifts that were so popular at the time. We did all the classical lifts―fish dives, one leg lifts, shoulder lifts―we learned all the supported pirouettes – it was a marvelous time and I remember it with great joy.
I am reminded of some of the names of the male dancers who passed through Miss Anderson’s classes and into professional dancing careers. In the Borovansky Ballet Company at various time, were Tommy Merrifield Barry Walsh, John Sherwood, Gordon Hutchings, Rodney Harvison, Robert Olup and Peter Condon. I remember Colin Peasley attended classes in the Rowe Street Studio, and in musical theatre, Connell Miles, Robert Foster, and Roy Mann all came to class with “Estelle.”
Many have gone on to take their place in the dance profession in other capacities. Peter Condon was at one time production manager for The Australian Ballet, Robert Olup is now Development Officer with The Australian Ballet, and of course Colin Peasley, our patron, celebrated his 25th year with the Australian Ballet Company in 1993. I expect every one of “Estelle’s Boys” remembered his time in her classes and has taken that experience into whatever else they chose to do.
More on Estelle Anderson
Estelle Anderson was a real ‘Lady of Dance’. She was the New South Wales organiser, the first organiser, of the Cecchetti Society from 1935 until her death in 1971. She took her first Cecchetti lessons in 1925, from Errol Addison, who was a pupil of Maestro Cecchetti in London, and who was visiting Australia under contract to the Tivoli Circuit.
In 1926 Alex Dolinoff toured Australia in the first Pavlova season, and stayed on, at its conclusion, to open a school in Sydney, where Estelle Anderson took lessons, and eventually became his assistant teacher. After 2 years, when he moved on Miss Anderson took over this school. It is of interest to note that a private lesson of one hour cost 1 guinea in 1926, or approximately $2.10.
After appearing in Pavlova’s 1929 touring company, and fulfilling engagements to J.C. Williamsons in Perth for several years, she entered the first N.S.W. Cecchetti examination students in 1935, and the students, about six of them all passed, some with Honours. These exams were held at The Sword’s Club in Sydney. Miss Anderson became the Cecchetti examiner in early 50s and continued her dedicated interest in the Method and in the Society until her death.
She was succeeded by Robina Beard who studied with her from 1949 when she arrived from England, and over the past years Robina and Eulalie Giles have shared the responsibilities of N.S.W. representative. Miss Anderson’s dancers spread far and wide, in many countries for she not only taught us the Cecchetti method, she taught us to dance it with joy and love.
Written by Robina Beard
