Request For Films From ‘Out Of Blue'

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30941, 23 December 1965, Page 2

Request For Films From ‘Out Of Blue'

A Christchurch ballet dancer, Miss Joan Adams, has . been asked by the Philadelphia Dance Academy, Pennsylvania, to send films and photographs of herself dancing.

The films are wanted as a contribution to a new project recording the history of the dance to the present time for a secondary schools curriculum. “The letter came out of the blue; I can’t imagine who told them about me as I have no contacts in the United States,” said Miss Adams yesterday. As it happened, she had two films of herself in excerpts from “Don Quixote” and “The Sleeping Princess,” taken when she danced these solos on television last year. The films are already on their wav to Philadelphia. After her television performance she received a most encouraging letter from Rowena Jackson Chatfield, a former ballerina of the Royal Ballet now living in Auckland. Mrs Chatfield praised highly her personality, her presentation, turns and work on point. Known Abroad

The letter from the Philadelphia Dance Academy said that the director, Nadia Chilkovsky Nahumck, knew of the “valuable work” Miss Adams was doing and asked for any photographs or films which would best represent her dancing for inclusion in the project. The University of Pennsylvania had received a grant for dance research to be conducted by Miss Chilkovsky, entitled “A Comprehensive Graded Dance Curriculum for Secondary Schools,” the letter said. It will include the development of special pedagogic techniques, films and material for classroom instruction. On Ethnic Styles One of the features of the prbject will be the presentation of a series of lectures on dance history from its earliest records to the present, with emphasis on dancing in its cultural setting. The lec-

tures will be illustrated by films of various ethnic styles and is expected to be an outstanding contribution to the development of dancing arts. Joan Adams was granted the solo seal by the Royal Academy of Dance some years ago and has been practising assiduously on her own since then. She is now working hard on “The Dying Swan,” made famous by Anna Pavlova, and will have a film made of it for her own records.

A typist in a Christchurch office, Miss Adams regards her dancing as a hobby. But she spends most of her leisure time at it or teaching children, at her home in Linwood avenue.

“My main interest is to pass on my knowledge and experience to young dancers,” she said. Last year Miss Adams judged ballet sections at the Dunedin competitions festival and has been invited to do the same in Wellington next year.