Peggy Van Praagh (1910–1990). British dancer, director, teacher, writer and founding artistic director of The Australian Ballet

Born in 1910 and brought up in London, Peggy Van Praagh started dancing at an early age. However, it wasn’t until 1929 that the full thrust of her long and successful career began. Anton Dolin, after the death of Serge Diaghilev, formed a small but short-lived company. Van Praagh danced with them for only a few weeks, but it was long enough to start training with Margaret Craske, a guardian of the Enrico Cecchetti method of dance. Van Praagh was able to study mime with Tamara Karsavina and repertoire with Lydia Sokolova, both dancers from Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, as well as ballet history with Cyril Beaumont.

Intelligent, vivacious and supremely theatrical, Van Praagh held her lessons dear. She understood the importance of firm knowledge and foundations of technique, both of which she pursued for the rest of her life to the benefit both of herself and of the people later in her charge. She was a natural teacher.

Van Praagh joined Ballet Rambert in 1933 and followed Antony Tudor, for whom she had already created several roles, to his London Ballet in 1938. In 1941 she joined Sadler’s Wells Ballet as a dancer, becoming ballet mistress in 1946 and later assistant director of the young and talented Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet. From 1955 Van Praagh travelled abroad as an envoy of Ninette de Valois, to stage ballets from the Sadler’s Wells repertoire. In 1960 she went to Australia as director of the Borovansky Ballet, although it collapsed shortly after her arrival. She then worked briefly with the Grand Ballet de Marquis du Cuevas in Paris, where the newly defected Rudolf Nureyev was performing in Bronislava Nijinska’s production of The Sleeping Beauty.

In 1962 with the support of the Australian government, Van Praagh was invited to establish The Australian Ballet. She was its artistic director from then on, first alone and then jointly with Robert Helpmann from 1965 to 1974. She built the company up very much on the lines of De Valois’ successful development of The Royal Ballet, something of which she had first-hand knowledge, having herself played an important role in that success. She continued to teach, lecture and write after her retirement and received many awards, both from Britain and Australia, not least her DBE, awarded in 1970. Peggy van Praagh died in Melbourne, Australia, in 1990.