Cecil Hall Papers and Auckland’s Ballet History Scrapbook

During the process of researching the dancing life of New Zealander Jan Caryll, I have discovered valuable insights into the history of New Zealand dance, significantly, teaching methods that link practices here to late nineteenth century European ballet. While accounts of local dance recitals in New Zealand from the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including programmes and newspaper articles, mention the numerous dances performed by children, usually stating the name of an item and its performers, a lesser known element in these accounts are the styles and techniques of those dances. It has been assumed that dance in New Zealand in this era consisted of frivolous, somewhat exuberant displays of ‘fancy dancing’. While it is true that ‘fancy dancing’, a style enveloping a myriad of steps that propelled a dancer across, up and down the stage or studio, formed a component of dance classes and performances, my research has unearthed hidden evidence of strict and historically accurate teaching of ballet techniques that were taught across Europe from the late nineteenth century onwards. 

Jan Caryll, born Thomas O’Carroll in 1893 in North Canterbury, proclaimed in his slim memoir published in 1981 by Caxton Press, (Jan Caryll: a Dancers [sic] Memories as told to Shane Tyler, Christchurch: Caxton Press, 1981), that he was ‘the very first male ballet student of New Zealand’ and there is no reason to doubt this claim.  His is a remarkable story: raised in Ashburton, O’Carroll arrived in Wellington in 1912 age nineteen and commenced dance classes with the well-known Wellington dance teacher, Estelle Beere. In a short space of time, a combination of natural talent and hard work led him to becoming well known not only in the Wellington region, but also in Auckland. Concurrent with his studies and performances with Beere, O’Carroll travelled back and forth between Wellington and Auckland for dance opportunities between 1915 and 1918, interrupted in 1917 by his stint on a WWI Medical ship working as an orderly. In Auckland, as recounted in his memoir, O’Carroll was invited to perform in Cecil Hall’s recitals.  

A contemporary of Beere, Cecil Hall was born in 1883 in Invercargill and, like Beere, was sent to Europe as a teenager to further her education, which included instruction in drawing, music and two related physical expressions: ballet and fencing. In Cherie Develiotis’s  expansive account of Auckland dance teachers, Dancing With Delight: Footprints of the Past (Auckland: Polygraphia ltd, 2005) Hall’s 1902 itinerary is listed with stops in Switzerland, Austria, Germany, France and Italy. In Europe, Hall stayed primarily in London and Paris between 1900 and 1902 but after some time back in New Zealand, returned to Europe in 1908 and studied dance with ‘Mademoiselle Mantes, Grand Opera Paris, Academie Desportes’. By 1912 Hall was living in Auckland, dancing and staging dances for young students while also appearing in these concerts herself.   She opened her own dance studio, while continuing to travel back and forth to Europe over several years, furthering her studies. 

Image: New Zealand Herald, 2 September, 1916, p. 14. 

Newspaper notices in 1915 and 1916 advertising Hall’s classes in Auckland publicised the ‘French and Russian methods of Ballet and Classical’ on offer. It was assured that Hall was well qualified, having ‘spent six years on the Continent studying under the most notable exponents of dancing in Europe…her methods are founded on French and Russian successes’. 

Hall kept meticulous notebooks of her dance tuition, and later, of her own teaching and class lessons. Her notebooks form a part of the series Cecil Hall papers, NZMS 1468 along with programmes, newspaper clippings, correspondence, photographs, and financial records of her dance school and recitals. As with all good Continental educational experiences at this time, Hall practiced art and languages, and her extant sketchbooks display her talent in pencil and watercolour works. 

One of her earliest dance notebooks from her time in Paris c.1902, records with precise detail, the exercises of her ballet classes in preparation for her exams, as well as the many different character dance forms she was taught. Hall was introduced to many cultural dances popularised on the modern stage. The list is exhausting: ‘Greek, Spanish, Hawaiian, Hungarian, Portuguese, Javanese, Hindu’ and others. Hall’s early notebooks are also filled with her notes on the exercises she was learning in her London ballet classes, including the ‘Cecchetti method’ of ballet technique. 

Image: Notes from Hall’s time studying in London. Cecil Hall Papers, Series 3.3, Notebook 2. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections NZMS 1468.

Image: Cecil Hall Papers. Series 3.3, Notebook 2, c. 1900, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections NZMS 1468.

The reference to Cecchetti in Hall’s notebooks is significant and points to a legitimacy and pureity of the study of ballet not explored in New Zealand’s dance history. Enrico Cecchetti, (1850-1928) ‘one of the great teachers of classical ballet’, stood at the centre of the convergence of the Italian, Russian, French and British ballet styles. Born in Rome to parents who were also dancers, Cecchetti danced and taught in St Petersburg with the Russian Imperial Ballet, where he gave lessons to a young Anna Pavlova (1881–1931). In 1909 he joined Diaghilev’s influential touring company the Ballets Russes as teacher and ballet master. Long before he opened his own dance studio in London, in 1918, his approach to the teaching of ballet, ‘the Cecchetti method’, had spread to dance studios across Europe and the United Kingdom. His classes were unique in that he combined exercises of strength, speed and endurance within the classical ballet vocabulary.

Hall’s notes covering the ‘Intermediate syllabus’ for her ballet exams, show her commitment to grasping both the execution and mechanics of a Cecchetti exercise as well as its purpose. These are a unique record of a New Zealander’s ballet training, showing how devoted Hall was to mastering ballet techniques and also making clear to the future researcher just how similar her training was to current practice. For instance, Hall follows the entry ‘Grande Battement en cloche’ with a question (‘what is it?’) and an explanation: ‘a continuous grande battement from 4th devant to 4th derriere, commencing and passing thru and ending in 1st position heel well pressed down’. She augments this with ‘an important point to remember’ about ronde de jambe: ‘to straighten the supporting leg when working leg reaches 2nd’.  This is exactly how these exercises would be executed at the barre today.  

Image: Cecil Hall ballet class notebook, dance examinations and questions. This entry outlines how to execute Grande ronde de jambe dehors and Grand ronde de jambe dedans in the Cecchetti method, Cecil Hall Papers, Series 3.3, Notebook 3, date unknown, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections NZMS 1468.

Throughout World War I, Hall presented benefit concerts for the war effort. These concerts raised funds for various elements of the war and in 1916 Thomas O’Carroll travelled from Wellington to Auckland to appear in one of many Great Dance Carnivals she produced with her students. An advance notice for this concert appeared in the Auckland Star, pointing out that ‘Thomas O’Carroll, the second Volinin, a Marvel of Grace and Agility’, Mr O’Carroll…has received special permission from the Defence Department, Wellington, to take part in the Carnival’. The reference to Volinin was particularly flattering as the Russian dancer Alexander Volinin, who had toured to New Zealand in 1913 with ballerina Adeline Geneé, was renowned as a ‘dancer of rare capacity’ with a ‘figure of a Greek god’, a ‘muscular man with an astonishing, explosive energy’.   By this time O’Carroll had enlisted and was  working in the Defence Department’s Wellington office as a clerk while he continued to dance. 

Image: 'Thomas O'Carroll, a Marvel of Grace and Agility, Mr O'Carroll...has received special permission from the Defence Department, Wellington, to take part in the Carnival.' Auckland Star, 25 October 1916, p.12. 

While I was looking for other programmes of Hall’s recitals not included in her manuscript papers, I stumbled upon a programme for another concert in aid of the war effort. As I was rifling through a folder labelled WWI Concert and Theatre Programmes, EPH- 06804, I came upon the programme for a Dance Carnival, held on 24th November 1916 at His Majesty’s Theatre. 

Image: Programme. Miss Cecil Hall's Dance Carnival. 24 November 1916. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections Eph-06804.

As I carefully opened the programme I came face to face with a full page image of Thomas O’Carroll, ‘New Zealand’s Premier Dancer’. I doubt that anyone had seen this one hundred and ten year old image for many decades, apart from the person who had donated this programme to the Auckland Public Library and the librarian who had catalogued this folder of material.  

Image: Thomas O'Carroll. Miss Cecil Hall’s Dance Carnival. 24 November 1916. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, Eph-06804.

I was beyond excited and rallied whoever was nearby to try and decipher the inscription signed by ‘Tommy’. I am still trying. The photograph shows O’Carroll in a very similar pose and costuming to that of one of  Volinin’s publicity photographs from a few years earlier. O’Carroll’s stance does confirm his solid training in ballet as noted in correct ‘line’ and posture in croisé arabesque.   

Cecil Hall also offered classes in Ballroom and ‘Interpretive’ dance, the latter classes most certainly influenced by the work of Canadian-born dancer Maud Allen, referred to as the ‘Salome Dancer’ for her role in a play inspired by the Oscar Wilde work.  First performed in Vienna in 1906, The Vision of Salome went on to create a sensation in London in 1908 and the in US in 1910. Allen toured New Zealand in 1914 performing her dances in sheer costumes which depicted Egyptian and other ‘exotic’ females, introducing the New Zealand theatre-going public to ‘bare foot dancing… to the music of Chopin, Mendelssohn and Schubert’. The influence Allen’s dances had on the teaching of dance locally was noticeable. Hall, like Estelle Beere also featured Nautch and ‘Slave dancers’ in her recital programmes.  

In 1923 Hall and her partner Len Wilson performed the ‘Persian Dance-Scena Fate’  with Hall appearing as the High Priestess. A full-page photo spread in the Ladies Mirror, 1st January, 1923 features Hall dressed in an exotic costume and headdress.

Image: Miss Cecil Hall as the High Priestess. The Ladies Mirror 1st January 1923, p.16.

Cecil Hall died in Auckland in July 1958. Her legacy to New Zealand dance history cannot be overstated. Through her solid training in ballet in Europe in the early twentieth century, and her committed application to her studies, as evidenced in her extant notebooks, the art form of ballet settled here, producing some of the world’s finest artists. Thomas O’Carroll became Jan Caryll in 1918, and settled in London where he created a successful dance career for himself, working across the UK and Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. 

Two of  Cecil Hall’s students, Bettina Edwards and  Beryl Nettelton, took over her studio and one of their most recounted experiences was conducting the RAD Solo Seal exam for  Rowena Jackson. Jackson went on to became a Prima Ballerina with the Royal Ballet in London. Newspaper clippings of Jackson abound in Auckland’s Ballet History Scrapbook, NZMS 1536, 1/3, 1922-1954. Though outside the scope of my current research project, this scrapbook of clippings provides a fascinating and informative glimpse into the burgeoning world of ballet in Auckland up to the mid-twentieth century. It is pertinent to remember that New Zealand did not have its own ballet company until 1953. In the absence of films or oral histories of these dancers, the archival materials held in Heritage and Research Collections are invaluable in piecing together stories of New Zealand’s dance artists of the past. 

Image: Article on Rowena Jackson, 1939. Auckland's Ballet History Scrapbook NZMS 1536, 1/3, 1922-1954. 

Author: Dr Marianne Schultz

Dr Marianne Schultz is the author of monographs Performing Indigenous Culture on Stage and Screen: A Harmony of Frenzy (2016) and Limbs Dance Company: Dance for All People (2017). She convenes the dance history course, Aotearoa Dance at Unitec, School of Performing and Screen Arts. She is guest lecturer for the NZ School of Dance and ballet teacher for the New Zealand Dance Company.

Marianne was led to the Cecil Hall papers and scrapbook of  cuttings on  Auckland's ballet history during the course of her research into the dancing life of New Zealand's 'first male ballet student'  Jan Caryll, aka Thomas O'Carroll. Caryll/O'Carroll danced in Hall's recitals in the years 1915-1918. 

 

References:

Cherie Devliotis, Dancing with Delight: Footprints of the Past, dance and dancers in early twentieth century Auckland, (Polygraphia: Auckland, 2005), p. 109. 

Cecil Hall Papers, NZMS 1468, Series 3.3 Notebooks, 3.3.1, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections.

Jan Caryll: a Dancers [sic] Memories as told to Shane Tyler, (Christchurch: Caxton Press, 1981), p. 9.