📍Invercargill, Southland, New Zealand
1926 – 1934“I was born in Invercargill, at the southern tip of New Zealand's South Island, in February 1926, and spent my early childhood there, in a flat, windswept town of wide streets, sheep country and cold southerly gales off the sea. I was often unwell with bronchitis as a little girl, and when I was about eight, my family moved north to Dunedin, where a doctor recommended exercise for my chest, and my mother took me to dance classes. In Dunedin I studied with Stan Lawson and Rosetta Powell, and I found that dancing came naturally to me, especially turning; I could spin and spin without losing my balance. I went to schools in Invercargill, Dunedin and Auckland as my family moved, and I kept dancing wherever we went. In 1940, at fourteen, I performed 121 fouettés on the spot, a world record for consecutive fast turns, and in 1941 I won the first Royal Academy of Dancing scholarship ever awarded in New Zealand, a bursary to study in London. The war meant I had to wait years to use it. In 1946 I finally sailed for England and joined the Sadler's Wells Ballet School, and soon the company. I became a principal of the Royal Ballet, famous for my brilliant technique and speed, dancing roles such as the Black Swan and the Sugar Plum Fairy, and I toured the world. I married the dancer Philip Chatfield, and in 1959 we came home to New Zealand, where we directed the New Zealand Ballet and taught a new generation. Invercargill remembers me as its own.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today