Mary Clarke (1923-2015). British dance writer, critic, historian and editor

Mary Clarke was the dance historian and writer par excellence. Her two books on the birth of British ballet in the 20th Century, The Sadler’s Wells Ballet: A History and Appreciation (London, 1955) and Dancers of the Mercury: The Story of Ballet Rambert (London, 1962) remain the starting point for all future historians of ballet in Britain. Born in London in 1923, Clarke studied at Mary Datchelor School and worked as a typist in Reuter’s Press Agency during World War Two. She was a youthful enthusiast for ballet and all things theatrical. Her career as a ballet critic and journalist began in 1943 with her first published article (prophetically for the Dancing Times) and with her appointment in the same year as London correspondent for the American Dance Magazine. After the end of the war Clarke wrote for the London-based Ballet Today magazine, and from the mid-1950s until 1970 she was the London correspondent for Dance News, another American publication, which was then run by the distinguished critic and writer on ballet Anatole Chujoy. In 1954 she became assistant editor of the Dancing Times, first under Philip Richardson and then Arthur Franks. On Franks’ sudden death in 1963, Clarke became editor of the Dancing Times, a post she held until her retirement in 2008, having chronicled the changing trends in ballet and dance worldwide and their effects with impeccable judgement and encyclopaedic knowledge for over half a century.

Clarke was also dance critic for The Guardian from 1977 to 1994 and associate editor (with Arnold L Haskell) for many years of the Ballet Annual. She co-authored a range of books with the ballet critic and writer, Clement Crisp, notably Ballet, An Illustrated History (London, 1973) and The Encyclopaedia of Dance and Ballet (London, 1977) with David Vaughan. Her quiet demeanour and straightforward style belied deep thought and high ambition for the art. Her contributions to A Dictionary of Modern Ballet (London, 1959) are awe-inspiring in their clarity and humanity, qualities rare in a critic. Mary Clarke was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award of the Royal Academy of Dance in 1990, Poland’s Nijinsky Medal in 1996, and Knight of the Order of Dannebrog in 1992. She died in 2015.