Australia Dancing - Lasica, Margaret (1926

Lasica, Margaret (1926 - 1993)

Margaret Lasica, who was a significant contributor to the development of modern dance in Melbourne, was born Margaret Weiss in Vienna on July 12, 1926. Her family migrated to Australia in 1939, living in Melbourne. At this point the family took the surname Wickham; she later became Margaret Lasica upon her marriage to lawyer William Lasica.

Lasica was a student of Ruth Bergner and participated in performances based on social dance forms of various Jewish and European traditions, which also had political and social democratic underpinnings. She was a pivotal member of the Melbourne-based Modern Ballet Group in the 1950s, creating work with Hanny Exiner (Kolm) with whom she also taught dance and movement at the Melbourne Kindergarten Teachers' College.

Lasica founded the Modern Dance Ensemble in 1967. On disbanding as a performing group in 1981, this ensemble continued as a support unit, producing Image '83, Dance '84, Image '85 and Image '90. These events were important vehicles for showing work by Australian independent artists.

'Extensions', Lasica's studio in Carlton, became a significant centre for contemporary dance in the 1980s and early 1990s. Lasica was also responsible for initiating the 'Modern Dance History Project and Archive' to document the early history of modern dance in Australia, and was a member of the dance panel of the Theatre Board of the Australia Council.

Although she performed and choreographed in her early years, Lasica will be most remembered as a teacher and facilitator of choreographic experimentation, notably at the University of Melbourne where students from diverse faculties attended her classes and workshops. Two of her students established notable choreographic careers – Lloyd Newson, who became internationally renowned when he established the company DV8, and her daughter Shelley Lasica whose choreographies in art galleries and performance spaces in Australia and the United States have attracted audiences across the disciplines of architecture, design and the visual arts and well as contemporary dance enthusiasts.

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