Podcast » Rowena Fayre
Born in 1921 Rowena Fayre combined a career in ballet with a very different sort of life. After boarding school in Hertfordshire, and daily lessons at Sadler’s Wells School with Ninette de Valois,...
people » Rowena Fayre
LES PATINEURS ;
Pas de trois ;
Rowena Jackson ;
Annette Page ;
Brian Shaw ;
Choreography by Frederick Ashton ;
Composer Giacomo Meyerbeer ;
Musical arrangement Constant Lambert ;
Designer William Chappell ;
Lighting Designer John B. Read ;
1956 ;
Credit: Roger Wood / Royal Opera House /ArenaPAL
Rowena Fayre (1921 – 1916). Dancer
Rowena Fayre was born in 1921. While attending Highfield School in Hertfordshire, she won a scholarship to Sadler’s Wells School. While there she won the student of the year prize in 1939, and studied in Paris with Olga Preobrajenska (whom she found ferocious) and also with Marie Rambert. She danced various roles with Vic- Wells Ballet, notably in Checkmate in 1937, in an Old Vic production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1938 and in the Sleeping Princess in 1939. She also worked briefly with Mona Inglesby at Eton College (to mark the uncovering of some old frescoes in the chapel). With the advent of war, she joined the WRENS, and left dancing altogether.