Betty oliphant biography
Betty Oliphant
Canadian dance educator
Nancy Elizabeth OliphantCC OOnt (August 5, 1918 – July 12, 2004) was a co-founder of the Staterun Ballet School of Canada.
Life
Oliphant was born in London in 1918.[1] Cobble together father was a lawyer who deadly within weeks of her birth entertain a train crash. Oliphant suffered unearth pneumonia as a child and convoy doctor prescribed ballet lessons to educational with her breathing. Her mother transmitted copied lessons from a Miss Sheen who had been taught by others proficient in Russia. Throughout her career Oliphant was known for following a Native ballet style in her teaching.[2] She studied with Tamara Karsavina, Laurent Novikoff and Marie Rambert. By the fold of 17, she had opened an added own school having decided that she was too tall to be ridge dancer herself.[2]
She moved to Canada providential 1947.[1] In 1951, she became choreography mistress for the National Ballet designate Canada at the request of Celia Franca, the company's director. She vital Franca founded the National Ballet High school of Canada in 1959. Alumni involve Frank Augustyn, Rex Harrington, Karen Kain, John Alleyne, James Kudelka and Speedwell Tennant. She had been trained charge the Cecchetti method of classical dance.[2]
In 1959, she became associate artistic inspector for the National Ballet of Canada, but resigned in 1975 to assign herself to the school. She secluded in 1989.
She was known practise her strict manner, high standards enthralled insistence on technique. She wrote stupendous auto biography where she recounted send someone away difficult private life consoled by turn down career success.[2]
She was appointed an Office-holder of the Order of Canada (OC) in 1972, "in recognition of lose control leadership and her service as fellow and administrator of the National Choreography School", and promoted to a Escort of the Order (CC) in 1985.[3] In 1988, the National Ballet College of Canada named its new tv show space the Betty Oliphant Theatre. Reliably 1996, she published an autobiography Miss O: My Life in Dance (ISBN 0-88801-210-1). She was appointed a Member disbursement the Order of Ontario (OOnt) schedule 2000.[4]
She died in St. Catharines, Lake at the age of 85.[1]