Dancing Examiner For 29 Years

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31188, 12 October 1966, Page 2

Dancing Examiner For 29 Years

For students and teachers alike, examination time is a period of tension, hope, happiness and frustration, and for Miss Bessie McDonald, who is resigning her post as organiser of the Royal Academy of Dancing examinations for Canterbury and the West Coast after 29 years, a lot of hard work behind the scenes.

When Miss McDonald took the job in 1937, she told Miss Frances Scully, an Australian teacher who had previously examined in New Zealand that she would “try it for 12 months.”

“It’s been a long 12 months,” she said with a chuckle yesterday. “I've seen

pupils come out of the examining room in tears, or bound out with joy, and now their families are coming to me for lessons.”

At a recent reception given in Miss McDonald’s honour, at which she was presented with a gold watch from the academy and a “handsome handbag” from appreciative teachers, Mr R. C. Morpeth spoke of her as “a pioneer of dancing in Christchurch.”

This accolade she can well claim. As one of the first ballet teachers in the city and the first and only examination organiser. Miss McDonald is devoted to ballet

“The standard of teaching Is rising every year, but how the married teachers with families managed I just don't know. It’s a full-time job for me.”

But Miss McDonald loves teaching and has no intention of giving up “for a while

yet.” With her “bonny” babies of three years old to her senior pupils, she finds satisfaction and joy in her classes. She has seen the technical standard of ballets steadily rising, and is a firm believer in examinations.

“They give a child something to work for, and freshen up the brain,” she said. Although stilled at present for the examination period when Miss McDonald is kept very busy at the Trades Hall, the insistent beat of the piano has resounded from her studio in the Norwich Union building for 30 years. Three assistants help with the 100 pupils, including seven boys, aged five to 24, and a great crowd of five to six-year-olds. “Gracious me, we’re falling over them!” she exclaimed.

A class at Wigram also keeps her busy, but she finds this a little disheartening. “I just cannot get past grade one because they are transferred all the time.” Born in Sydney, Miss McDonald went with her mother to the Ruth St Denis School of Ballet in Los Angeles. Their ship was met by a group of reporters and tiny Miss McDonald found herself lifted up on to the piano and introduced as the ballet dancer from New Zealand, Australia. *T’m a Kiwi now of course,” she added.