Guide to the Papers of Margaret Walker, 1938-1991

Summary

Collection number:

MS 8495, AccGB 1995.2505, Acc97.109, Acc10.022

Creator:

Walker, Margaret, 1920-1996

Extent:

(85 boxes + 4 cartons + 1 small box + 3 folio boxes + 1 phase box + 1 poster box + 1 piece + 72 cassettes)

Language:

English and English

Preferred citation:

Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Margaret Walker Dance Archive, National Library of Australia, [class/series/subseries/file/piece/item number]'.

Availability:

Available

Access conditions:

Part available for research; part requires permission for research. Not for loan.

Background

Content Summary:

Professional and personal papers documenting Walker's involvement in a variety of Australian and international dance organisations from the late 1930s to the 1980s. These organisations include the Borovansky Ballet, Ballets Russes, the Colonel de Basil Ballet, the New Theatre Company (Melbourne), Unity Dance Group (Melbourne), Roseville Dance Centre (Sydney), the Australian Association of Dancers, Australian Association for Dance Education, Dance Concert, Margaret Walker Folk Dance Centre, Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre and Western Districts Arts for Youth (Sydney).

Biographical Note:

Margaret Evelyn Walker (née Frey) was born in Bendigo, Victoria in 1920. Her childhood was spent in various Victorian country towns. She matriculated from MacRobertson Girls' High School in Melbourne in 1938. With no previous dance training, she began studying classical ballet with Edouard and Xenia Borovansky at the Borovansky Ballet Academy in Melbourne in 1940. She was a founder-member of the Melbourne Ballet Club and the Borovansky Ballet Company.

In 1944 her interest in dance and theatre was broadening and she joined the fledgling New Theatre Company. Moving away from classical ballet, she formed the Unity Dance Group in 1946. This group took a program of character ballets to workplaces and factories and developed a repertoire of Australian ballets on contemporary themes. Margaret also established a recreational dance group for the Junior Eureka League. In 1949 she married John Walker, an architect. Margaret was an Australian delegate to the World Festival of Youth and Students for Peace in Berlin in 1951. She subsequently visited the USSR on a three-week delegation tour and went on to several other European countries.

Margaret moved to Sydney in 1952. She organised the growing number of recreational dance groups into one body, the Association of Australian Dancers, with branches in each state. Between 1952 and 1964 Margaret was actively involved in all aspects of the Association of Australian Dancers. In 1958 she was invited by the Waterside Workers' Federation to assist in the formation of their Children's Arts Club, which gave the children of trade union members experience of dance, theatre, art and film. Margaret took into her family the first of her four adopted children in 1964. Her son, Kim Walker, is now a dancer and choreographer in his own right. From her home, Margaret ran the Roseville Dance Centre, a local school which taught folk and character dance and classical ballet.

In 1967, a visit to Australia by the Osipov Orchestra from the USSR gave Margaret the impetus she needed to establish a professional folk/character dance group in Australia. Her group was called Dance Concert. For the next ten years Margaret developed programs of international dances for performance at schools and in local festivals. Guest teachers were brought from overseas to pass on their skills in particular dance forms.

1974 saw the first year of funding from the Australia Council for a professional centre and with additional funding from the New South Wales government Margaret ran large-scale teaching programs in public and Catholic schools in Sydney suburbs. Increases in funding meant that from 1976 Dance Concert had to have a board of management. Relations between the Board and Margaret as artistic director were never easy, and in August 1977 Margaret was dismissed by the Board.

In September of the same year she established the Margaret Walker Folk Dance Centre for the resourcing, teaching and demonstration of folk dance. From 1978 to 1988 she fostered teaching programs involving Western Districts Arts for Youth (Sydney) Theatre in Seven Hills, Sydney and the Blacktown Dancers and she continued to teach in Catholic and public schools whenever projects could be funded. Margaret also continued to bring overseas teachers and choreographers to Australia, arranging tours and funding for them. In addition, she was closely involved with the New South Wales branch of the Australian Association for Dance Education. Eventually she was to become one of the first Life Members of the Australian Association for Dance Education.

In 1982 Margaret was invited to choreograph the display of folkloric dance which formed part of the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane. That same year her lifetime's work was officially recognised in the Queen's Birthday Honours when she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia. Despite growing ill health Margaret continued to work as much as she could and was also involved in organisations such as the Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre and the Western Sydney Performing Arts Foundation. In 1988 for the Bicentennial celebrations Margaret organised and choreographed the Wollongong Pageant of Nations and also toured a folkloric program to New South Wales country schools.

In 1989 Margaret moved to Canberra, where the Margaret Walker Folk Dance Centre was incorporated. She died in Sydney on 20 December 1996.

Written by Marie Anne Slaney.

Collection Retrieval Advice:

Please note: each consignment in this collection has a separate box number sequence (i.e. there are multiple Box 1's). Please cite the relevant Class number as well as the Box number when requesting retrieval of material from the collection

Immediate Source of Acquisition:

In 1989, the Performing Arts Board of the Australia Council provided a grant to organise and preserve these archives as a record of the pioneering work done by Margaret Walker in the field of folk and character dance. The Margaret Walker Folk Dance Centre Archives was purchased by the National Library and received in two consignments. The first consignment arrived in November 1991. A guide detailing most of the documents in this consignment was prepared by Marie Anne Slaney (Series 1 - Series 15). Some material in this consignment was not arranged and described by Marie Anne Slaney, but was described subsequently by staff of the Manuscript Section (Series 17- Series 22). Much of this supplementary material consisted of issues of journals and periodicals, most of which was already held by the Library and was consequently offered to other collecting institutions. Those that did not duplicate existing holdings have been retained and are held in the Library's Australian and overseas collections. The second consignment consisting of three photograph albums (Series 23) was received in February 1993.

Further papers were added in 1997 and 2010.

Arrangement:

Prior to 1989, there was no formal arrangement to the material in the collection. Office files were created during the administrative work of the various organisations with which Margaret Walker was involved, but not on a systematic basis. Other material was simply allowed to accumulate. The collection was re-housed several times during Margaret Walker's career.

Related

Existence and Location of Copies:

The photograph albums in MS 8495 Series 23 have been digitised, and are available online through this finding aid and via the Library's catalogue (http://nla.gov.au/catalogue).

Indexed terms

Subjects:

Performing arts

Conditions Governing Access:

Access conditions may apply to this collection, please refer to the collection's catalogue record for further information (http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn561487).

Conditions Governing Use:

Copying and publishing of unpublished manuscript material is subject to copyright restrictions. For such material, written permission to publish must be obtained from the copyright holder(s). Copying of unpublished material for research purposes is permissible 50 years after the death of the creator of the material.

Preferred citation:

Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Margaret Walker Dance Archive, National Library of Australia, [class/series/subseries/file/piece/item number]'.

Location of this collection:

National Library of Australia

Parkes Place

Canberra ACT 2600, Australia

Contact:

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