DANCING EXAMINER.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 220, 17 August 1939, Page 10

DANCING EXAMINER.

MISS KATHLEEN DAINTREE. Flying from centre to centre throughout New Zealand is Miss Kathleen Daintree, examiner for the Royal Academy of Dancing, who arrived in Palmerston North yesterday. Miss Daintree, who is a member of the executive committee of the Royal Academy as well as an examiner, is having a busy time, as there are a large number of pupils to be examined in this country and her time is limited. She left London on March 11 for South Africa, where she flew all over the Union and Rhodesia, conducting examinations and judging competitions. The visitor commented yesterday that the standard of dancing in South Africa was exceedingly high. Leaving on June 23, Miss Daintree sailed for Perth and again conducted examinations in that city, and in Adelaide and Sydney, flying between the centres. She came by boat to New Zealand and began examining in Auckland. She will go as far south as Dunedin and will then go to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane before leaving by air in November for England in order to produce the ballets for the Christmas pantomimes at Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool. Miss Daintree finds air travel in Australia and New Zealand very good and comfortable. The Christmas pantomime is, of course, a definite institution in England and the large centres stage them on a large and spectacular scale. • Miss Daintree has had an extensive and varied experience. She began her training as a dancer in Birmingham and later studied under all the foremost teachers before turning her attention to theatre work, and studying produc, tion in Birmingham, London and Paris. Besides her Royal Academy activities, she conducts her own school in Birmingham and acts as adjudicator at competition festivals which, are similar, though on a larger 6cale, to those run in New Zealand. Miss Daintree paid a warm tribute to the work, as president of the academy, of Mme. Adeline Genee, probably the finest dancer known, whom many New Zealanders will remember from her tour a number of years ago. She has retired and devotes all her energies to promoting the work of the Royal Academy. Nothing was too much trouble for her untiring devotion, said Miss Daintree. Mme. Genee combined brilliant technique with an amazing personality and a wonderful gift for mime. From its first days she had guided the academy to its present high position, and she was greatly loved by its thousands of members.

The Royal Academy had many activities besides conducting examinations, continued the visitor. There was the educational side, a production club for members and lectures on national dancing and subjects kindred to dancing such as music and costume. The academy’s present difficulty was lack of adequate accommodation, and recently tho first Royal l>all bad been organised to raise funds for a fitting homo for the great art of dancing. The ball had been an outstanding success. All the best-known dancers, such as Anton Dolin and Olga Baronova had danced there, and Mme. Genee herself had led the ballet. All the members of the academy were working hard for the new building and it was hoped to raise a definite sum by the ball every year. This is Miss Daintree’s first visit to New Zealand, but she believes that the standard of dancing has probably improved since the first visit of a Royal Academy examiner, Mr Felix Demery. The people in New Zealand seemed very keen and enthusiastic about dancing, Miss Daintree thought.