Laurel Martyn was an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n ballerina

Ballerina

A ballerina is a title used to describe a principal female professional ballet dancer in a large company; the male equivalent to this title is danseur or ballerino...

. She studied under Kathleen Hamilton in Toowoomba, Marjorie Hollinshed in Brisbane

Brisbane

Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...

, and Phyllis Bedells

Phyllis Bedells

Phyllis Bedells was an English ballerina and teacher. She studied with Bolm, Cecchetti, and Pavlova. From 1907 she was a dancer at the London Empire Theatre and became the first British prima ballerina there in 1914. She left in 1916 to dance in West End musical revues and in opera ballets at...

 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. In 1934 Martyn won a choreographic scholarship from the Association of Operatic Dancing (later the Royal Academy of Dance

Royal Academy of Dance

The Royal Academy of Dance is an international dance education and training organization, and examination board that specialises in the teaching and technique of Ballet. The RAD was established in London, England in 1920 as the Association of Operatic Dancing of Great Britain, and received its...

) for her first composition Exile. In 1935, she became the second Australian to win the Adeline Genee

Adeline Genée

Dame Adeline Genée DBE was a Danish/British ballet dancer.-Early years:Anina Kirstina Margarete Petra Jensen was born in Århus, Denmark. Her uncle, Alexandre Genée, gave her dancing lessons from the age of three. When she was eight, Alexandre and his wife, the former Antonia Zimmerman, adopted her...

 gold medal. Martyn joined the Vic-Wells Ballet (later Sadler's Wells Ballet) in December 1935 as the first Australian woman to be accepted into the company. By 1938 she was a soloist. In 1938 she returned to Australia and became a dancing teacher. In 1940 she joined Edouard Borovansky

Edouard Borovansky

Edouard Borovansky was a Czech- born Australian ballet dancer, choreographer and director. After touring with Anna Pavlova's company, he and his wife settled in Australia where they established the Borovansky Ballet company...

's Borovansky Ballet. Martyn left the Borovansky Ballet after her marriage to Lloyd Lawton in 1945.

Works

After leaving the Borovansky Ballet in 1945 Martyn went on to create some of her own attempts at dance works. These included The Sentimental Bloke who couldn't be a man in 1952 and Mathinna in 1954. These works were inspired by Australian themes as at the time of production, many choreographers were being inspired by Australian themes. The Sentimental Bloke used Australian literature for inspiration, maybe for the first time in Australian dance; and her Mathinna, way ahead of its time, looked at the political, social and racial implications of relationships between Aborigines and white colonial settlers. It was about an Aboriginal girl adopted into white society, most likely as a result of the stolen generation.

External links

• Laurel Martyn Collection at the Performing Arts Collection
  Performing Arts Collection
  The Performing Arts Collection at the Arts Centre, Melbourne is the largest specialist performing arts collection in Australia, with over 450,000 items relating to the history of circus, dance, music, opera and theatre in Australia and of Australian performers overseas.- Highlights of the...
  
  , Arts Centre, Melbourne
  Melbourne
  Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...