BALLET FOR NEW ZEALAND

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5330, 17 February 1947, Page 7

BALLET FOR NEW ZEALAND

TOUR OP CELEBRATED I COMPANY. , I V ! ' Cabled adyice has. been received by J Mr.' Frederic McCallum that negotia- ! tions have been completed for the -New Zealand tour of the Bodenwieser Viennese Ballet. The company will commence its tour in the first week of March and will be accompanied by Madame Gertrud Bodenwieser, who. is responsible for the choreography of several numbers in the ballet's repertoire. Included in the company as leading dancers are the English dancer Hilary Napier, who attracted the attention of the critics and graduated with honours at the State Academy of Music and Dramatic Art at Vienna, and a Dunedin-born dancer,- Shona Dunlop, who is also a graduate of the academy and of the Bodenwieser School of Ballet in Vienna. Madame Bodenwieser is famous as one of the creators of the modem expresSive school of ddncing and was formeidy Professor of Choreography at the State Academy in Vienna. "This tour," s-aid Mr. McCallum in an interview, "marks a milestone in New Zealand's theatrical history ._ It is the first opportunity the New Zealand public has had of witnessing the expressive "free style" ballet at the hands of a company who are ali the, pupils of a famous European dancer. Although the tour cannof be a very extended one, it is intended to inciude as many provincial towns as possibl'e, as the interest in modern ballet is very widespread. Intimate theatres are essential to see ballet at its best, and arrangements have been made with Kerridge-Odeon for the presentation through its chain of theatres in the centres and a number of provincial towns. Mr. McCallum is a New Zealand entrepreneur, who while overseas with the 2nd N.Z.E.F., eommanded and produced the Kiwi Concert Party through the Western Desert, Palestine, Egypt and Syria. After relinquishing command of the entertainment unit, he was working "With the intelligence on security and counter-espionage in Egypt and Italy, and was attached to Mr. Winston Churchill's staff during the first of the Three-Power Conferences.