Australia Dancing - Priest, Joanna (1910

Priest, Joanna (1910 - 1997)

Martin, Philip: Portrait of Joanna Priest, 1988

Joanna Priest was born in Adelaide but received her first dance training in Perth from Linley Wilson. In 1930 she went to London with Wilson and there pursued her studies by taking classes with Marie Rambert and Ruth French. In 1932, on her return to Australia, Priest opened a dance school in Adelaide and, famously, made available to her students classes not just in dance technique but in art, French, music and drama as well. She was awarded the Advanced Teachers' Certificate of the Royal Academy of Dance (then the Society of Operatic Dancing), passing this examination in 1937 during the visit to Australia by the examiner Felix Demery. Priest was one of the first Australian teachers to gain this award.

In 1937 Priest opened a new studio in Adelaide and in 1939 founded the South Australian Ballet Club with the aim of developing an audience for ballet and the associated arts. The club gave regular performances of original works and organised talks on dance related subjects. In 1954 Priest opened her well-known Studio Theatre in a converted church in Adelaide and continued to present performances of original ballets. Between 1959 and 1964 she was instrumental in the growth and development of Southern Stars, a children's television program screened regularly by Channel 9.

Priest made her debut as a professional choreographer in 1949 when she produced her ballet The Listeners, originally created in 1948, for the newly constituted National Theatre Ballet. Other major choreographed works included Catulli Carmina for the Australian Ballet in 1964. Priest also produced Let's Make an Opera for the New South Wales Division of the Arts Council, and between 1954 and 1958 Amahl and the Night Visitors for both stage and television. Another venture was the production of Tales from Noonameena for the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust's Marionette Theatre in 1973.

Priest was a major figure in the development of dance in Australia. She was a significant influence on the artist and designer for the theatre, Kenneth Rowell, offering him his first professional commission in 1947 - the designs for her work Winter Landscape for the South Australian Ballet Club. Others who, over the years of her teaching career, came under her influence as students and who went on to have major careers in the arts themselves include Stephen Baynes, Jacqui Carroll, Rosetta Cook, Lisa Heaven, Josephine Jason, John Nobbs, and Paul Saliba.

Bibliography:

Margaret Abbie Denton, Joanna Priest: Her Place in Adelaide's Dance History (Adelaide: Joanna Priest, 1993)

Note: also known as Joanne Priest

Research Materials

Ephemera | Manuscript | Notated score | Oral history | All

Gould, Ross: Michelle Heaven in Sue Healey's 'Fugue - in pursuit of flight', Vis-a-Vis Dance Canberra, 1994

Interview with Michelle Heaven, 2003

Interview with Michelle Heaven, 2003 (Oral history): Interviewer: Shirley McKechnie; Interviewee: Heaven, Michelle; Audiotape; 58 mins; Michelle Heaven begins this interview by speaking about her early dance training in Adelaide with Joanna Priest, and about the influence on her of her aunt, dancer Lisa Heaven. She continues with a discussion of the beginnings of her interest in imagery as a creative tool and of the importance of her work with Sue Healey and Vis-a-Vis Dance Canberra as a catalyst for further development in this area. She talks especially about the film material used in Healey's work Fugue - in pursuit of flight. She then discusses the benefits of making dance for film and her first experiences of working with film. She speaks in particular about the making of her dance film Interior, which won an Award at the Inaugural Reel Dance Festival, and her interest in working within confined spaces. In relation to her interest in detail and confined movement she goes on to talk about her recent work Disagreeable Object and her collaborations with Phillip Adams on his work Upholster. She also talks about the various elements of the installation that formed part of her Masters degree from the Victorian College of the Arts, including the input from film maker Louise Curham and visual artist Carlo Golin and the influence on her of American installation artist Bill Viola. She talks about her future and the potential for her further creative development, and concludes the interview by reading from her Masters thesis a section about the use and effects of distortion in film and video recordings.

For more about Disagreeable Object see Shirley McKechnie, 'Disagreeable object: a work devised and performed by Michelle Heaven', Brolga 18 (June, 2003).; Heaven, Michelle ; Healey, Sue ; Vis-a-Vis Dance Canberra ; Adams, Phillip ; ReelDance, International Dance on Screen Festival; Location:; Conceiving Connections oral history project; National Library of Australia; TRC 4958
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Interview with Paul Saliba, 2000 (Oral history): Interviewer: Michelle Potter; Interviewee: Saliba, Paul; Audiotape; 130 mins; Paul Saliba discusses the nature of the dance program at NAISDA College before going on to talk about his own dance training. He discusses the importance of mentors and refers to Joanne Priest and Elizabeth Dalman. He talks about joining the Australian Ballet School and then the Australian Ballet and speaks about the attitude of artistic director Anne Woolliams towards coaching. He continues with an account of his experiences in New York and studying there with Martha Graham. He talks about working with Sydney Dance Company, the choreographic process, the importance of developing Indigenous dance theatre and the challenge of teaching.; Dalman, Elizabeth Cameron ; Woolliams, Anne ; Australian Ballet, The ; Sydney Dance Company ; Saliba, Paul; Location:; The Keep Dancing! Oral History Project; National Library of Australia; TRC 4554
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McFarlane, Jim: Justine Summers, Steven Heathcote and Li Cunxin in Stephen Baynes' 'Beyond Bach', the Australian Ballet, 1995

Interview with Stephen Baynes, 1995 (Oral history): Interviewer: Michelle Potter; Interviewee: Baynes, Stephen; Audiotape; In this interview choreographer Stephen Baynes discusses his attitude to working with the vocabulary of classical ballet. He speaks in particular about his 1995 work for the Australian Ballet, Beyond Bach. He also talks about his family background and his dance training, including his experiences with his teacher Joanna Priest. He goes on to discuss his professional career as a dancer with the Australian Ballet and with Stuttgart Ballet. He speaks about the development of his choreographic aspirations with both those companies and gives his thoughts on the artistic directors he has worked with including John Cranko, Peggy van Praagh and Maina Gielgud. Edited extracts from this interview have been published as 'Contemporary Classicist' in Michelle Potter, A Passion for Dance, (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1997), pp. 1-13.; Baynes, Stephen ; Australian Ballet, The ; van Praagh, Peggy ; Gielgud, Maina ; Beyond Bach; Location:; National Library of Australia; TRC 3378
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Newspaper clippings, Joanna Priest, 1974-1997 (Ephemera): A small selection of press articles from various Australian newspapers relating to Priest's career, including articles on teaching, the Blue Door Studios, the South Australian Ballet Club, and former students.; Location:; National Library of Australia; Access through Newspaper/Microform Reading Room

Notated score for 'The Listeners', 1991 (Notated score): Set: Rowell, Kenneth; Costume design: Rowell, Kenneth; Notator: Bates, Cecil; Choreography: Priest, Joanna; A Labanotation score for Joanna Priest's The Listeners. This work was first performed by the South Australian Ballet Club in 1948 and was restaged by Priest for the National Theatre Ballet in 1949. This score was created when The Listeners was reproduced in 1991 for students at Priest's school.

Bound with the dance score is material collected by Meg Denton including historical information, reviews, details of set and costume designs, programs from various productions of the work and the music score for the work, Erno Dohnanyi's String Quartet in D flat Major.; Bates, Cecil ; National Theatre Ballet ; Rowell, Kenneth ; Denton, Meg; Location:; National Library of Australia; MUS N m 792.842 L773

Papers of Jean Garling, 1897-1998 (Manuscript): This extensive collection includes diaries, correspondence, genealogical papers, notebooks, literary papers, scrapbooks, newsclippings, school exercise books, programs, musical scores and miscellaneous items relating to the career of Jean Garling. Literary papers include notes and research materials on ballet in Australia. Correspondents include Edouard Borovansky, Kira Bousloff, Joyce Graeme, Leon Kellaway, Charles Lisner, Noel Pelly and Joanna Priest. This manuscript material is part of the Jean Garling Collection at the State Library of New South Wales, which also contains pictorial and and oral history materials. For further details see Jean Garling Personal Papers.; Garling, Jean ; Borovansky, Edouard ; Bousloff, Kira Abricossova ; Graeme, Joyce ; Kellaway, Leon ; Lisner, Charles ; Pelly, Noel; Location:; State Library of NSW; MLMSS 7020

Programs, National Theatre Ballet, 1949-1952 (Ephemera): A small collection of material from the early years of the National Theatre Ballet. It includes programs from the 1949 seasons of Aurora's Wedding, Les Amours de Pierrette (Jean Alexander), Kaleidoscope (Laurel Martyn), Prince Igor, Romantic Suite (Joyce Graeme), The Listeners (Joanne Priest), Les Belles Creoles (Rex Reid) and Indira Vijayam (Louise Lightfoot), the 1950 season of Prasnik (Kira Bousloff), Swan Lake Act II, Divertissements, Peter and the Wolf (Margaret Scott), the 1951 staging of the full-length Swan Lake, and the 1952 season of Pas de quatre, Antonia (Walter Gore), Theme and Variations (Walter Gore) and Graduation Ball.; National Theatre Ballet ; Martyn, Laurel ; Bousloff, Kira Abricossova ; Scott, Margaret ; Gore, Walter ; Graeme, Joyce ; Graduation Ball ; Lightfoot, Louise ; Aurora's Wedding; Location:; National Library of Australia; PROMPT Collection (Access through Petherick Room)

Programs, South Australian Ballet Club, 1940-1948 (Ephemera): A smalll collection of programs for seasons between 1940 and 1948 of Joanna Priest's South Australian Ballet Club. Included is a program for the inaugural season in 1948 of Priest's well-known work The Listeners.; Location:; National Library of Australia; PROMPT Collection (Access through the Petherick Room)

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