Anita Young

Tuesday 30th May 2006
Conference Room, St. James's Church, Piccadilly SWI

Michael Ludgate welcomed our guest, Anita Young, a distinguished teacher at the Royal Ballet Lower School, following a most successful career as soloist with the Royal Ballet and a Cecchetti teacher. Michael described her as a "female Billy Elliot", coming from a working-class background, and paid tribute to her determination in overcoming many obstacles to achieve an inspiring career.

Anita's dancing career really began through Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital. She was ill with whooping cough as a small child and lived with her parents in a small flat with unsympathetic neighbours. The combined strain of illness and the difficult domestic situation affected Anita's health. At Great Ormond Street her mother was advised to send Anita to a dancing school as therapy to aid her recovery and they found a very good school in Old Compton Street. With Miss Francis she began classes and was entered for the Sunshine competitions and for RAD exams, and at RAD Grade V achieved a "starred" report. She then became a RAD Scholar for two years, and her fellow pupils included Marion Tait, Carl Myers, Jeanetta Laurence and other dancers. well known to ballet audiences. At the same time Anita was attending her local comprehensive school and,was bullied and unhappy. Fortunately, a teacher at the school knew that she was going to dancing classes and spoke to her parents about White Lodge. The teacher got the necessary forms for her parents to fill in, and Anita found herself auditioning for White Lodge. ,She described the impression made on her by Dame Beryl Grey, who was on the panel, and impressed Anita with her stylish big red hat. Anita was 12 years old (the other girls at the audition were younger) and was very surprised to find sbe had passed and was granted one of the three scholarships available. She went into Form 3 and was a day girl, and after overcoming the feelings of strangeness in this new environment she began to mix with the other students and soon settled in. She mentioned how awed she was by some of the other students at the school; including Geraldine Chaplin, Ingrid Boulting and a girl from Mauritius sponsored by Elizabeth Taylor. Anita was proud of her background and what her parents had done for her and did very well at White Lodge, and was then accepted for the Upper School.

Anita then told us about her teacher, Miss Nora Roche, who was Cecchetti trained. Sir Frederick Ashton was also a lover of this style, as can be seen from the use of epaulement and port de bras in his ballets. At Upper School Anita was taught by Pamela May and remembered mime lessons and the visit by Tamara Karsavina, who demonstrated the Lilac Fairy mime. At that time Dame Ninette de Valois was still teaching, and sometimes interrupted a class to take over and show the teacher how to teach! Anita was in de Valois' class for a term and like all in the class, became very good at beats and fast footwork. For some reason, Anita said Madam was convinced that. Wayne Sleep was Anita's brother (perhaps because they quite often danced together)!

During her time at Upper School, Anita had been watched by Sir Frederick Ashton and was accepted into the company on 14th February 1968 at the age of 17, She was in Nureyev's production of "The Nutcracker", which she admired very much and told us how good he was in dealing with the White Lodge children and with young inexperienced dancers. He expected dancers to give their best, and she described his great kindness in coaching her when she was having trouble with a pirouette in the "Pastorale" pas de trois. Anita was in the Royal Ballet for 14 years and during that time performed with "Ballet for All" and was congratulated by Sir Peter Wright on her performance of ,the "Aurora" grand pas de deux. At the time of the premiere of , "Manon", in which she danced, she was promoted to Soloist. Another highlight was the Beatrix Potter film, in which she had to do some "high wire" flying and also wore a costume from "Le Train Bleu' at the Sotheby sale of Diaghilev costumes.

While Anita was an RAD scholar she was chosen for the gala which included the debut of Nureyev in London, soon after his defection from the Kirov. She reminisced about the performance and seeing so many great stars, and Princess Marina of Kent, and also the kindness of Dame Margot Fonteyn, who apologised to the young RAD students for blocking their view in the stalls while she spoke to stage staff seated in front of them. Anita said Dame Margot is one of her heroes and her humility and unpretentiousness made a great impression on Anita. When Anita was taken ill during a South American tour Dame Margot personally looked after her and when Anita left the company she had a phone call from Dame Margot inviting her to dinner at her home with her family.

During her career Anita has worked with many great choreographers and was privileged to have danced for Ashton, McMillan, Balanchine, Antony Tudor, Jerome Robbins (who was scary!) and many others. After leaving the company, Anita took the teachers' course and went back to Miss Roche. She got honours and a fellowship, and then tragically Miss Roche died. Later on Anita carried out Miss Roche's wishes when she returned to White Lodge as a teacher herself. However, before going back to the Royal Ballet School she moved to Manchester to Robert de Warren at Northern Ballet. While there, she worked with Dame Alicia Markova. She loved Dame Alicia but did not like her taste in sandwiches: tomato, banana and mayonnaise! Unfortunately, Anita was taken ill at that time and during her slow recovery, she worked as a free-lance. She also got married but sadly after five years the marriage ended and she had a three year old son to look after. During her 14 year free-lance period she went to all the stage schools in London and eventually returned to the Royal Ballet organisation at White Lodge. She now teaches Form 3 ­the class she started in - so her life has come full circle.

Anita told us about her life philosophy and how she tries to help her pupils to accept the events that may affect them later in life. This led on to a discussion about assessments and how she can help children cope with these changes. She described the training at White Lodge, which is mainly Vaganova, and now with Monica Mason as Director, more Ashton ballets are being taught, which show the influence of Cecchetti. Technical development over the years was discussed, and lack of expression, and how this led to change of emphasis in certain ballets. She mentioned an arabesque in "Cinderella" in the pas de deux, which was originally quite low and is now a very high arabesque.

Anita dealt with questions about physical demands on dancers today, how the type of dancer we see depends on the wishes of the choreographer, "political correctness" in teaching students, the
importance of a happy atmosphere, importance of teaching mime, and some hilarious memories of incidents on stage. She stressed the importance of having as many dancing skills as possible, e.g. tap, musical comedy etc. and mentioned stage stars who began with ballet, - Joanna Lumley, Jane Seymour, Bonnie Langford. As Anita says: "it's not where you start, it's where you finish!"

The evening ended with Michael Ludgate thanking Anita for coming to speak to us at this difficult time for her when her mother is seriously ill. We all send our best wishes for a speedy recovery, and a gift was presented to Anita with many thanks for a marvelous evening.