Australia Dancing - Chapple, Margaret (1923

Chapple, Margaret (1923 - 1996)

Michaelis, Margaret: Margaret Chapple in 'Pilgrimage of Truth', Bodenwieser Ballet, c. 1950

Born in Lithgow, New South Wales, Margaret Chapple began regular dance classes in Sydney at the age of ten. She was introduced to the work of Gertrud Bodenwieser at Abottsleigh Girls' School, and began taking classes given at Abbotsleigh by Bodenwieser dancer, Shona Dunlop. Dunlop later introduced her to classes at the Bodenwieser Studio in Pitt St, Sydney, and Chapple eventually became one of the first Australian members of the Bodenwieser Ballet and a teaching assistant of Bodenwieser. Chapple danced in all the major works of the Bodenwieser repertoire including Demon Machine, The Blue Danube, The Pilgrimage of Truth, Errand into the Maze and The Imaginary Invalid, and toured with the Bodenwieser Ballet to New Zealand and South Africa and across Australia.

On the death of Bodenwieser in 1959, Chapple and Keith Bain, who had also danced with the Bodenwieser Ballet, established a partnership that led to the formation of the Bodenwieser Dance Centre in Sydney. With this dance studio Chapple and Bain aimed to keep alive the spirit and name of Bodenwieser but offer a wider range of contemporary dance techniques. Chapple taught there and choreographed many pieces over several decades. In a eulogy published for Ausdance in 1996 Bain wrote of Chapple's dancing: 'She was ... a beautiful dancer - sleek, swift, versatile, dramataic, funny, with exquisite line and capable of a rare spiritual quality ... No wonder Bodenwieser used her in so much of the repertoire, as her unmannered movement style made her adaptable to a wide range of dynamics and choreographic demands'. At the inaugural 1997 Australian Dance Awards, Chapple was posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame.

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Internet - Google
Articles - New York Public Library Dance Collection
Pictures - Picture Australia