Notes on the Tribute.

G'day all,

On Friday March 15 there was a memorial at The State Theatre to celebrate the life of Dame Margaret Scott AC, DBA, OBE, better known as Maggie or Miss Scott.

Hundreds arrived at the Arts Centre: teachers, past and present, ex students, Board members, choreographers, television performers and others, whose lives had been affected in varying degrees by this formidable woman.

Guard of Honour

On slowly filing into the theatre we were greeted in the aisles by a “Guard of Honour“ by what seemed zillions of students from “the School,” causing me to reflect that 52 years ago “the School” in Brunswick St, Fitzroy consisted of only some 30 boys and girls of the First and Second years.

I watched the audience shuffling past as the students stoically maintained graceful posture, particularly the girls, having to hold their arms out so their hands were at tutu’s edge and further reflected on the audience / performer relationship with a misappropriation of Milton’s, “They also serve who only stand and wait."

Angus Denton

10 minutes later Steven Heathcote introduced proceedings with heartfelt tributes from himself, Maggies son Angus, Colin Peasley, and David McAllister AM, Director of The Australian Ballet. Heathcote, Peasley and McAllister were generally all young contemporaries and noted how, through their association with Maggie their lives had irrevocably altered, something they would never change

Interspersed with these tributes was a poignant work, by Paulina Quinteros, ”Embrace” dedicated to Maggie’s husband Dick and sons Matthew and Angus, and beautifully danced by Chloe Reynolds ( NCD, Newcastle) and Daniel Savetta (formerly Washington Ballet.)

"Embrace"

Graeme Murphy’s tribute followed and for perhaps the next 10-15 minutes (?) he took us on an enthusiastically spontaneous, note-less journey: part history, part anecdote, part aesthetic and manifesto but all highlighting his joyous relationship with a like mind; and who, as a protege and later in his own mature creative works paved a continuum of Maggie’s legacy and that of a ballet tradition in Australia.

I thought, too of the tenets of Noverre, Blasis, Diaghilev, the works of Martha Graham , Pina Bausch and others and that “...many are called but few are chosen.”

 A delightful pas-de-deux, from Murphy’s Nutcracker was movingly and fluidly performed by the AB’s Benedicte Bemet and Jarryd Madden...a testament to his amalgam of historical acuity and contemporary elegance.

Nutcracker, Pas-de-Deux.

Tributes from Marylin Rowe AM, OBE and Lisa Pavanne, respectively, former and current Dir: ABS followed and Stephen Baynes,”Ballo Barrocco” was then well danced by the Level 8 students from the School with the memorial finishing with a video presentation of a fruitful life with past staff and students filing onto the stage to lay a rose in honour of Maggie.

"Ballo Barrocco"

It was quietly, emotional.

Rose laying tribute.

To Dick, Angus and Matt and families, condolences, hopefully the extensive sympathy publicly expressed for your wife and mother’s death will in some way assuage your private grief.

Lawrence Winder