Guide to the Papers of Laurel Martyn, 1901-1988
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Collection context
Summary
- Collection number:
- MS 9711
- Creator:
- Martin, Laurel
- Extent:
- 4.2 metres and (1 large folio box + 7 medium folio boxes + 1 ms box + 1 ms carton + 16 sound/av carriers)
- Language:
- English and English
- Preferred citation:
- Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Laurel Martyn, National Library of Australia, MS 9711, [box number and series and/or file number]'.
- Availability:
- Available
- Access conditions:
- Available for reference. Not for loan.
Background
- Content Summary:
- The collection mainly comprises records relating to Martyn's directorship of the Ballet Guild (renamed the Victorian Ballet Company in 1963 and Ballet Victoria in 1967). The records include financial records, grant submissions, curriculum materials, Ballet Guild board and committee meeting records and medial releases. The papers also include photographs of cast members and performances of Ballet Guild/Ballet Victoria productions, audio tapes of recordings which accompanied performances and dance classes, and printed and manuscript music. There are also photographs relating to Martyn's dancing career with the Vic-Wells Ballet and Borovansky Ballet.
- Biographical Note:
-
Born in 1916 in Toowoomba, Queensland, Laurel Gill received her early dance training with Kathleen Hamilton in Toowoomba and Marjorie Hollinshed in Brisbane. In 1933 Gill left Australia for further training. In England she studied with Phyllis Bedells and in 1934 won a choreographic scholarship from the Association of Operatic Dancing (later the Royal Academy of Dancing) with her first composition Exile. She passed all her Royal Academy exams to Solo Seal and in 1935 won the Adeline Genee gold medal, the second Australian to do so in the then short life of the competition. In 1935 Gill also arranged the dances for a production of The Waltz King and in the same year received second prize in a choreographic competition, the Pavlova Casket, for her ballet Sigrid.
Gill joined the Vic-Wells Ballet (later Sadler's Wells Ballet) in 1936. She was the first Australian woman to be accepted into the company and by 1938 was a soloist. While in England she changed her name from Gill to Martyn, also a family name. She danced in many of Frederick Ashton's early ballets including Horoscope, Nocturne and Le Baiser de la fee and also spent time in Paris studying with the Russian emigré ballerinas Lubov Egorova and Mathilde Kchessinska.
Martyn came back to Australia in 1938 following the death of her father. On her return she took up a position in Melbourne with well-known teacher Jennie Brenan. While teaching for Brenan she worked as both choreographer and dancing lead in Hiawatha, a pageant produced by T. E. Fairbairn, which opened in Melbourne's Exhibition Building on 21 October 1939. The ballet cast of 80 was led by Martyn, Serge Bousloff and Lawrence Rentoul. While performing in Hiawatha Martyn was noticed by Edouard Borovansky who persuaded her to join his fledgling Borovansky Ballet, which she did in 1940 following a brief return to Queensland. Martyn, along with Edna Busse and fellow-Queenslander Dorothy Stevenson, was Borovansky's leading artist in the early Borovansky days and she danced and created leading roles with Borovansky until 1945. Created roles for the Borovansky Ballet included the Spirit of the River in Borovansky's meditation on his Czech homeland, Vltava. While with Borovansky she also restaged Sigrid and reworked what is probably her best known work, En Saga, which premiered for the Borovansky Ballet in 1941.
Martyn left the Borovansky Ballet after her marriage to Lloyd Lawton in 1945. In 1946, at the request of the Melbourne Ballet Club, Martyn took on the directorship of Ballet Guild, as the Melbourne Ballet Club had renamed itself. She was its director for an extended period. Ballet Guild became Victorian Ballet Company in 1963 and Ballet Victoria in 1967. Martyn was at the helm until 1973. She also established a school associated with Ballet Guild and students from the school augmented professional dancers in Ballet Guild productions. Martyn created many original works for Ballet Guild and Ballet Victoria productions and collaborated with Australian composers, including Dorian Le Gallienne, Margaret Sutherland, John Tallis, Esther Rofe, and Verdon Williams, and Australian designers, including Alan McCulloch, Len Annois, and John Sumner. Some of her works also had specifically Australian themes, notably The Sentimental Bloke (1952) and Mathinna (1954). Other significant works that Martyn made in this period included L'Amour enchantée (1950), a full-length Sylvia (1962), Voyageur (1956) and Eve of St Agnes (1966).
Martyn also developed a specific method for teaching dance especially to children, the principles of which she published in Let them Dance (1985). She also was instrumental in forming the Young Dancers' Theatre, for which she choreographed several works in the 1980s, and the Classical Dance Teachers Australia Inc, which provided in-service training for dance teachers. She was also on the steering committee for the Australian Institute of Classical Dance in the early years of its development. Martyn guested with the Australian Ballet as Mar in The Sentimental Bloke in 1985, as the Mother of James in La Sylphide also in 1985, as Berthe, Giselle's mother, in Giselle in 1986 and as Miss Maud in The Competition (Le Concours) in 1989. In 1991 she reproduced Michel Fokine's Le Carnaval for the flagship company.
References: Australia dancing website http://www.australiadancing.org/subjects/42.html. A list of Martyn's choreography from 1935-1991 is in Brolga, 4 (June 1996), pp. 22-23. This issue of Brolga, a special issue in honour of Martyn's eightieth birthday, contains a number of articles about Martyn's work.
- Immediate Source of Acquisition:
-
The collection was donated to the Library by Laurel Martyn in 2002.
- Arrangement:
-
The papers have been arranged by Library staff into four series based on physical form.
Indexed terms
- Names:
- Martin, Laurel
Access and use
- Conditions Governing Access:
- Please refer to the collection's catalogue record for the access conditions (http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn307525).
- 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], Papers of Laurel Martyn, National Library of Australia, MS 9711, [box number and series and/or file number]'.
- Location of this collection:
-
Parkes PlaceCanberra ACT 2600, Australia
- Contact: