Guide to the Papers of Meryl Tankard, 1970-2015

Summary

Collection number:

MS 9940, MS Acc16.058

Creator:

Tankard, Meryl

Extent:

(115 boxes + 21 map folios + 3 oversize poster rolls)

Language:

English and English

Preferred citation:

Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Meryl Tankard, National Library of Australia, [class/series/file number]'.

Availability:

Available

Access conditions:

Part not available for research (MS 9940, Series 4, Files 1-3; Series 5, Files 4-9, 23-29); remainder requires permission for research during Meryl Tankard's lifetime. Not for loan.

Background

Content Summary:

MS 9940 documents Meryl Tankard's career from her early engagement with The Australian Ballet and her work with the Pina Bausch Tanztheater Wuppertal to her later independent and collaborative freelance projects up until 2002. It includes programs, press clippings, photographs and conceptual and production notes for works created by Tankard, particularly Echo Point (1984), Travelling Light (1986), Two Feet (1988), The Deep End (1996) and Deep Sea Dreaming (2000) for the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony. A significant component of the collection is business documents and correspondence relating to the activities of the Meryl Tankard Company and Meryl Tankard Australian Dance Theatre (29 boxes + 2 map folios).

The MS Acc16.058 consignment includes production notes, notebooks, programs and research materials; designs of costumes, dances and sets; photographs of dancers and models; music scores; contract agreements; correspondence; audiovisual material; ephemera and posters of the work of Meryl Tankard, her partner Regis Lansac and the Meryl Tankard Company. Represented works include Two Feet, VX18504, Songs with Mara, Aurora, Possessed and Seulle (86 boxes, 19 map folios, 3 oversize poster rolls).

Biographical Note:

Meryl Tankard was born in Darwin but took her first dance lessons in Melbourne after moving there as a young child. Tankard took classes in Newcastle and then in Sydney before being accepted into The Australian Ballet School at the end of 1973.

Tankard began her professional career as a dancer with The Australian Ballet at the end of 1975, choreographing her first work, Birds Behind Bars for a workshop program titled Dance Horizons in 1977.

Tankard's greatest early successes as a performer, however, came during the time she spent in Germany with Pina Bausch and her Tanztheater Wuppertal between 1978 and 1984. Tankard was a principal artist with Bausch and toured extensively with the company. She created roles in several of Bausch's best-known works, including Cafe Muller, Kontakthof, Arien, Keuschettslegende, 1980, Walzerand Bandoneon. In Germany Tankard also worked with the medium of film. In 1980 she played the leading role in Quak fur Donald Mit Lieben Gruss, which was filmed in Munich and Disneyland and screened on German television, and in 1982 she co-wrote and performed in Sydney an der Wupper, a 45 minute film that was awarded the Gold Film Band at the 1983 Berlin Film Festival.

After leaving Bausch, Tankard divided her time between Australia and Europe for a number of years. In Europe she guested with Bausch's company and danced with Lindsay Kemp. In Australia she made Echo Point in 1984 and in 1986 worked on Robyn Archer's television production of The Pack of Womenand in the television serial Dancing Daze. In 1986 she also devised and directed Travelling Light. In 1988 she created her evening-length solo work Two Feet, which marked a major turning point in the creative collaboration she had established with photographer and visual artist Régis Lansac whom she had met in the mid 1980s. Lansac created slide projections to accompany Two Feet and continued to develop this aspect of the collaboration in ensuing years.

In 1989 Tankard took up directorship of a small company in Canberra, which she named the Meryl Tankard Company. Works made in Canberra included Banshee (1989), VX18504 (1989), Nuti (1990), Kikimora (1990), Court of Flora (1990), Chants de mariage I and II (1991-1992), and Songs with Mara (1992). While working in Canberra Tankard also revived Echo Point and Two Feet, collaborated with the theatre director Pierre Bokor on Circo (1991), created choreography for Opera Australia's Death in Venice (1989) and made Slothas part of Seven Deadly Sins, a program of seven works from seven contemporary Australian choreographers filmed by the ABC and screened in 1993.

After four years in Canberra, Tankard moved to Adelaide to take on the directorship of Australian Dance Theatre. For Meryl Tankard Australian Dance Theatre, Tankard reworked some of the pieces she had made in Canberra. New works created in Adelaide included Furioso (1993), Aurora (1994), Possessed (1995), Rasa (1996), which was made in collaboration with Padma Menon, Seulle (1997) and Inuk (1997). While in Adelaide she also choreographed The Deep End (1996) for The Australian Ballet and her second work for Opera Australia, Orphee et Euridyce.

Tankard left Adelaide in 1998 after a dispute with the Company's Board and began a career as a freelance choreographer. Her commissions since then have come from a diverse range of sources. In 1998 she made Bolerofor the Lyon Opera Ballet and in 2000 Tankard created Deep Sea Dreaming for the Olympic opening ceremony and The Beautiful Game for Andrew Lloyd Webber. In 2002 she and Lansac created Merryland, a work for Nederlands Dance Theater III. Wild Swans (2003) was a joint commission from The Australian Ballet and the Sydney Opera House.

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.

Provenance:

The Meryl Tankard Papers were acquired by the Library from Meryl Tankard through the Cultural Gifts Program in 2003 and 2016.

Arrangement:

The collection has been organised to retain the arrangement of the donor where possible.

Indexed terms

Subjects:

Performing arts

Conditions Governing Access:

The collection is partly restricted and partly closed.MS 9940 Series 4 (Files 1-3) and MS 9940 Series 5 (Files 4-9, 23-29) are closed for 50 years after Tankard's death. Access to the remainder of the collection is restricted, and written permission is required to use this material.

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 Meryl Tankard, National Library of Australia, [class/series/file number]'.

Location of this collection:

National Library of Australia

Parkes Place

Canberra ACT 2600, Australia

Contact:

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