ONLY ONE OF HER KIND

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 62, 30 August 1940, Page 13

ONLY ONE OF HER KIND

Josephine Bradley Arrives From England

RECENT arrival from England was Josephine Bradley. Few ‘&X listeners will have missed hearing of Miss Bradley. Her ballroom orchestra is justly celebrated in England and, as she says, she is the only woman dance band leader there. But when Miss Bradley arrived the other day it was to begin a busy few weeks examining dancers and their teachers in this country: for what is probably not as widely known as her musicianship is the fact that she is one of the foremost exponents of ballroom dancing in the Empire. On her arrival, a reception was held in Phyllis Bates’s studio in Wellington, where gathered dancing teachers and students from far and wide to chat over sherry glasses and listen to Miss Bradley’s little speech of thanks. She said: "Some people have said I was brave to come all these miles at a time like this. But if you had been in England such a short time ago as I was and had seen then the quiet confidence and calm with which events were being awaited, you would agree that there was no reason to lack courage. Josephine Bradley’s career began in 1921, when she won the only ballroom dancing championship then availablefor the Slow Foxtrot. This title she held for five years. Then, in 1925, she won the Open Championship for four dances; and later became a judge of these competitions. She was soon afterwards elected Vice-President of the Ballroom Section of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing, and she still holds that office. Her orchestra, by which she has become known on this side of the world, was started roughly three years ago.

Dancing in England, she told a representative of The Listener, was going strongly up to two months before her departure; and then, about six weeks before she left, with crisis succeeding crisis, dancing slumped a little. At the beginning of the war, Miss Bradley organised tea dances, the first of their kind to be held during the war, at Grosvenor House, Miss Bradley plans to go from here to Australia, but she will be jin New Zealand for a short time later on before she goes to New York where work awaits her.