FAMOUS BALLERINA VISITS CHRISTCHURCH

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28323, 8 July 1957, Page 2

FAMOUS BALLERINA VISITS CHRISTCHURCH

Fame has come gracefully to Miss Rowena Jackson, Inver cargill-born prima ballerina of the Royal Ballet, London. Even with all the praise, applause and flowers that are always lavished on a top-flight artist in big city theatres, Rowena Jackson has stayed an unaffected and gentle person. Her beauty has an elusive quality, missed by cameras. It comes from an inner serenity, subtly expressed in her movements and the elegant poise of her head. Determination and a tremendous will for hard work were not obvious characteristics in Miss Jackson as she sat relaxed in a hotel chair yesterday, talking quietly about ballet. But as she told of her rigorous training, the long hours of practising for perfection, rehearsals and performances, the disappointments that go hand-in-hand with success in the gradual climb to the top, the strong-minded disciplinarian came through. Ups-And-Downs “It’s like that in all forms of theatrical life,” she said. ‘lt’s full of ups-and-downs. There’s many a time I’ve told myself I would never be a dancer, but in my heart I had a grim determination to keep on going, even when the odds were against me. One has to be prepared to take each opportunity as it comes along.” Dancing lessons were prescribed for Rowena Jackson for health reasons. As a small child she was subject to bronchitis and the family doctor told her mother that this type of exercise would help. By the time she was eight .years old, the Jackson family had moved to Dunedin, and there the girl, who would some day become a star of the Royal Ballet, began her ballet training. The Way Ahead Next to Dame Margot Fonteyn, prima ballerina assoluta of the Royal Ballet in London, are three prima ballerinas. Rowena Jackson is one of them. Some day Dame Margot will retite; someone must take her place. “It could be you? 7 That was an embarrassing question, put rather diffidently, but Rowena Jackson accepted it graciously. She sat silent a while alone with her thoughts, seeing her beyond the view outside her window.

“Well, I don’t know,” she replied. “I’m perfectly happy tp dance leading roles. I love dancing on the stage, but I can’t say I crave limelight. The lile of a prima ballerina assoluta is very much like the life of a princess. She can’t go anywhere without all eyes upon her.” New Zealand Tour Rowena Jackson, Bryan Ashbridge, Pearl Gaden and Derek Westlake have brought to New Zealand on their tour excerpts

of ballet as performed by the Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

“There has been serious consideration about bringing the company to Australia and New Zealand for about six weeks, but I should imagine such a venture would need financial support from governments. Fares alone would

sides, the Royal Opera House would be reluctant to release the company for the length of time such a tour would need.”

The company cannot be spared for more than five-and-a-half months even for a tour of the United States, where big profits are made.

, The present tour of New Zealand has been strenuous for the four dancers. “With only four of us we all have to dance every night of the week except Sunday and it is very tiring. At home I only do one to three performances a week,” Miss Jackson said. Marriage and Ballet When a prima ballerina marries it is not difficult for her to continue her career. “Many of Britain’s leading dancers have married and are very happy,” she said. “After they have become stars they have several nights off a week and they can spend much more time with theii; husbands than you might think. If I married I would not feel I had to give up dancing.”

Rowena Jackson has no favourite ballet, but she finds “Swan Lake” the most satisfying of the classical works. It was in “Swan Lake” as Odile, a technically exacting part, that the young ballerina was given her first big chance.

Then, at short notice, she had to step into the dual role of Odette-Odile and London critics called. Rowena Jackson “the rising a&r of Sadler’s Wells.”