Australia Dancing - Jones, Marilyn (1940

Jones, Marilyn (1940 - )

Stringer, Walter: Marilyn Jones in 'Swan Lake', c. 1963

Marilyn Jones studied dance with Tessa Maunder in her hometown of Newcastle and then with Lorraine Norton in Sydney before leaving Australia, the recipient of an Australian Women's Weekly scholarship, to study at the Royal Ballet School in London. Her first professional engagements were with companies in England and Europe. Returning to Australia she danced with Robert Pomie's short-lived company at Ballet Theatre Le Francais in Sydney in early 1959. She was billed on the Pomie program as 'presenting her debut as a prima ballerina'. She joined the Borovansky Ballet in that same year. It was there that her acclaimed partnership with Garth Welch began.

Jones joined the Australian Ballet as a principal dancer for the company's inaugural season of 1962 and danced all the major roles in the company's repertoire. She was artistic director of the Australian Ballet between 1979 and 1981 and during that time founded the Dancers Company. This company offers performing and touring experience to senior students at the Australian Ballet School and provides opportunities for younger dancers in the Australian Ballet to gain experience in principal roles.

In 1990 Jones was the recipient of a Creative Artists Fellowship from the Australian Government and during her tenure of that award set up the Australian Institute of Classical Dance. The Institute is a non-profit organisation with branches in Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and New South Wales and a board composed of eminent members of the dance profession. It was set up with the intention of establishing an Australian teaching syllabus, and aims to oversee and encourage the development of Australian classical ballet. It acts as an assessment body, initiates workshops, runs summer schools, conventions and seminars, arranges visits by distinguished guest teachers and offers scholarships to dancers. Since 1996, the AICD has held its Dance Creation choreographic competition every second year in Melbourne. Beyond her involvement with the AICD, Jones has taught and coached extensively and prior to her retirement in 2005 was lecturer in classical dance at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University, Perth.

Regarded by many as Australia's finest ballerina, Jones's finely proportioned body was in the true classical mould and she excelled in the traditional classics. In addition to her outstanding partnership with Welch, to whom she was married for a number of years, in the 1970s she also established a highly regarded partnership with John Meehan. Her two sons, Stanton and Damien Welch have carved out dance careers in their own right, Damien as a dancer with the Australian Ballet and Stanton as a choreographer for many companies around the world and currently as artistic director of Houston Ballet.

Jones received the 2009 Green Room lifetime achievement award. She also returned to the stage in 2009 as Clara the Elder in Graeme Murphy's revival of his Nutcracker - the Story of Clara for the Australian Ballet.

Bibliography:

Patricia Laughlin, Marilyn Jones: a brilliance all her own (Melbourne: Quartet Books, 1978). A list of Jones' roles from 1959 to 1991 is in Martha Bremser (ed.), International Dictionary of Ballet (Detroit: St James Press, 1993), pp. 732-733.

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Internet - Google
Articles - New York Public Library Dance Collection
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