Programme for 'Let's Make a Ballet', 195507

Item

Reference Code: GBR/1849/FP/279/1/C/iii

Scope and Contents

This was part of the Arts Theatre Summer Festival 1955. It ran from 25th to 30th July and included one new ballet, 'Les Rats', by Mari Bicknell, with music by Joseph Horovitz. The programme cover and back include illustrations by Charles Handley Read

Dates

Creation: 195507

Creator

From the Fonds: Darwin, Charles Robert, 1809-1882 (naturalist) (Person)
From the Fonds: Downs, Brian Westerdale, 1893-1984 (literary scholar, translator and college head) (Person)
From the Fonds: Hartree, Douglas Rayner, 1897-1958 (scientist) (Person)
From the Fonds: Rouse, William Henry Denham, 1863-1950 (scholar and eduational reformer) (Person)
From the Fonds: Todd, Alexander Robertus, 1907 - 1997 (Baron Todd of Trumpington, Professor of Organic Chemistry) (Person)

Biographical / Historical

Mari Bicknell trained dancers in Cambridge over several decades and choreographed original productions. In 1936, after her marriage to the architect Peter Bicknell, she began teaching ballet in Cambridge to young dancers aged from 10 to 20 years old. In 1950 Britten's 'Let's Make an Opera' inspired her to create Let's Make a Ballet for her most talented students. The first performance took place at her home, Finella, in Cambridge in 1950, performed by a cast of dancers all under the age of 13. George ("Dadie") Rylands saw this production and suggested that she staged her ballets at the Cambridge Arts Theatre. In 1952 Mari Bicknell presented a programme of three ballets there: 'Dream Street', 'Elsie Piddock' and 'The Happy Prince'. Her fledgling company, 'Let's Make a Ballet', eventually became The Cambridge Ballet Workshop in 1968.