Australia Dancing - Bartram, Reg (1921

Bartram, Reg (1921 - )

Stewart, Jean: Reg Bartram as the Bloke and Laurel Martyn as Doreen in Martyn's 'The Sentimental Bloke', Ballet Guild, 1952

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Born in Melbourne, Reg Bartram went to secondary school at the Collingwood Technical School before beginning an electrical apprenticeship in 1937. During his apprenticeship he developed an interest in dance as a result of seeing a 1938 performance by the Covent Garden Russian Ballet. In 1939 he began taking ballet classes from Edouard Borovansky and soon began dancing with Borovansky’s embryonic company, the Borovansky Australian Ballet. He was given small roles in Borovansky productions from quite early in his career, including a role Borovansky's Czech-inspired ballet Vltava.

In 1941 Bartram finished his electrical apprenticeship. He subsequently joined the armed forces and spent the time until the end of WW II in the Pacific. At the end of the war Bartram returned to Melbourne and rejoined the Borovansky Ballet. He worked on a number of shows in the following two years, including Scheherazade, The Dancing Years, Gay Rosalinda, Coppelia, Le Beau Danube, Façade and Swan Lake.

In 1947, following a tour to New Zealand, the Borovansky Ballet went into recess. Bartram spent time in North Queensland and Sydney before returning to Melbourne where, in 1949, he joined the staff of His Majesty’s Theatre as an electrician and lighting technician. In the same year he joined the cast of Oklahoma!, which toured Australia in 1949 and New Zealand in 1950. Also in 1949 he married fellow dancer Judy Burgess.

After a second stint in North Queensland and Sydney, Bartram and Burgess left Sydney for Melbourne where, in 1952, they joined the National Theatre Ballet under the directorship of Walter Gore. With this company Bartram performed in a number of works, including Crucifix, Swan Lake, and Protee. In 1953 Bartram began working with the recently established Melbourne branch of Strand Electric. Throughout 1953 he performed with Laurel Martyn’s Ballet Guild, in shows that included The Sentimental Bloke, in which he danced the leading role of the Bloke, and Giselle.

In 1953 Bartram and Burgess moved to Sydney to establish a branch of Strand Electric. An influential turning point in Bartram’s professional career in theatre lighting came in 1958 when the New York City Ballet toured to Australia. The lighting for the tour was created by Jean Rosenthal, whose three-dimensional lighting designs impressed Bartram for the expanded potential they offered in the field of lighting design. In Sydney during the 1960s and 1970s Bartram lit many shows for the Sydney Ballet Group and Ballet Australia.

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Find more about Bartram, Reg in:

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