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)

Research Materials

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Find more about Priest, Joanna in:

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