Australian Dictionary of Biography

Anne Woolliams, 1987, by Jacqueline Mitelman

National Library of Australia

Anne Hawker Woolliams (1926–1999), ballet dancer, choreographer, and artistic director, was born on 3 August 1926 at Folkestone, Kent, England, eldest of three children of Frank Hawker Woolliams, Royal Air Force officer, and his wife Marjorie Frances Beatrice, née Sproule. Her paternal forebears were ‘bawdy and robust’ Gloucestershire farmers (Morgan 1975, 24), while her mother was the daughter of a Church of England vicar. Introduced to ballet at an early age, Anne completed the advanced examinations of the Royal Academy of Dance by the age of thirteen. She was taught by the finest teachers in London, including Judith Espinosa and the Russian émigré Vera Volkova.

Woolliams made her professional debut in 1943 with Jay Pomeroy’s Russian Opera and Ballet Company, and the next year she joined Lydia Kyaksht’s Ballet de la Jeunesse Anglaise. Adopting the stage name Anne de Mohan, she danced with the St James’s Ballet, a regional touring company directed by Alan Carter, and appeared in the film The Red Shoes (1948) as well as London productions of the stage musicals Brigadoon (1949) and Paint Your Wagon (1953). Encouraged by Volkova to teach, she was reluctant at first but subsequently ‘aimed to match Volkova’s gift for encouraging style and expressiveness as well as technique’ (Times 1999, 23). She taught in Florence and Chicago and from 1956 at the Folkwang School in Essen, Germany.

In 1963 Woolliams joined John Cranko’s renowned Stuttgart Ballet, where she became ballet mistress in 1964 and assistant director in 1969. The company established its own ballet school in 1971 with Woolliams as director. She published Ballett Saal (1973) in German, later followed by an English version, Ballet Studio: An Inside View (1978). After Cranko’s death in 1973, she became a co-director and led Stuttgart Ballet tours to London, Japan, and Australia. In Sydney in November 1974, she oversaw a staging of Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet by the Australian Ballet Company, which was described as ‘a spirited production’ that bore ‘the Cranko stamp of romantic drama with a leavening of humour’ (Sykes 1974, 9).

In October 1975 the Australian Ballet appointed Woolliams its third artistic director, succeeding Sir Robert Helpmann. Announcing her appointment, the company’s chairman, N. R. Seddon, described her as ‘a charming person who wouldn’t make waves’ (Owen 1976, 19). Woolliams responded: ‘It would be wrong to mistake my old school politeness for weakness’ (Prerauer 1976, 3). She arrived in Melbourne in August 1976 with her fiancé Jan Stripling, a former principal artist at the Stuttgart Ballet, whom she married on 23 December 1976 at the parish church in her home town of Folkestone.

Woolliams was a woman of strong character and absolute professionalism. A perfectionist, she was described as ‘a complex, warm woman whose fine blue eyes gallop over the room signalling a torrential flow of ideas, feelings, enthusiasms, reservations, approvals and condemnations rushing through her mind’ (Cook 1978, 18). While ‘quite a volatile personality’ (Embleton, pers. comm.), she was ‘absolutely adored, inspiring and energising’ (Heathcote, pers. comm.) and ‘spent as much time with extras as she would with principals’ (Blanch, pers. comm.). She was remembered as ‘an incredible talent … harsh but also nurturing’ (Blanch, pers. comm.). In her first year as artistic director, she took the company to New York, Washington, Manila, and London, staging Helpmann’s The Merry Widow. She also mounted the Australian premiere of Cranko’s Onegin at the Sydney Opera House in December 1976.

During her time with the Australian Ballet, Woolliams attempted to convince the board to invest in new and creative works to expand the company’s modern repertoire. This stance led to conflict between her and the company administrator, Peter Bahen, as it had with Helpmann. The company’s lack of a permanent headquarters and her concern that punishing schedules threatened the well-being of the dancers fuelled the conflict. She offered her resignation in July 1977 but agreed to stay on until a successor was found. Her decision certainly made waves and was followed by a period of artistic and industrial unrest.

While her tenure with the Australian Ballet was short, Woolliams paved the way for future artistic directors. She believed in taking risks, fostering a culture of experimentation and a focus on contemporary dance. In presenting controversial modern works such as Don Asker’s Monkeys in a Cage, first staged in March 1977, she aimed to build new audiences for ballet and to educate existing subscribers. Her principal legacy to the company was her introduction of the Cranko repertoire of Romeo and Juliet (1974) and Onegin, and her own interpretation of Swan Lake, which premiered in Melbourne in October 1977, featuring Marilyn Rowe and Kelvin Coe. In a souvenir book on this production, Woolliams explained that she was attentive to traditional approaches to Swan Lake, ‘but that doesn’t mean you have to fall into the trap of producing a museum piece that doesn’t live in performance’ (Cook 1978, 22).

Deciding to stay in Australia, Woolliams was appointed the inaugural dean (1978–86) of the school of dance at the Victorian College of the Arts. She retained her association with the Australian Ballet, staging revivals of Romeo and Juliet and Swan Lake, and she directed Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin for the Victorian State Opera at the Palais Theatre in 1983. Returning to Europe in August 1987, she and her husband established a professional ballet school in Zurich, Switzerland. In 1993 she became artistic director of the Vienna State Opera Ballet. Retiring to Ashford, Kent, in 1997, she devoted herself to her lifelong interest in drawing and painting. The next year she returned to Australia for a long visit. Survived by her husband, she died of cancer on 8 July 1999 at Canterbury, England. A memorial service was held on 30 July at St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne.