Sometimes, when buying theatre programmes, I take advantage of offers by buying things I am either not as interested in, or have less knowledge of. One of these was a ballet programme from a company called the Ballets Minerva. I was so intrigued by this I included the programme in my purchase. ‘How weird?’ I thought, ‘what’s the story of this company?’. I knew the company was hardly going to be a long-lost bastion of ballet, but there was still a lot of intrigue.

A good year later, at least, and I am digitising the information in my programmes. Having filed away this programme with many questions still to be answered, I realise I can hardly digitise something I know nothing about. I recalled doing a few basic Google searches, but not much more. So, I decided to start again, and see what I could find.

What I Already Knew

Of course, I had somewhere to start. The programme I already owned. Unfortunately, that programme lacked a lot of information you’d expect a programme to have. No date on the programme was given, nor was a performance location. Plus, the listed works could not all be performed in one evening, unless it was a very long one. The only whole full-length work listed is Giselle, with Swan Lake, The Nutcracker and Coppélia being cut into just their 2nd, 3rd and 2nd Acts respectively. The other works include Les Sylphides, a staple of the majority of these smaller companies, the Black Swan Pas de deux from Act III of Swan Lake, and multiple original works.

What I did have, was a lot of people involved with the company, along with the address for Minerva Productions, which was in Wembley (the same place as the famous football stadium). Furthermore, the printers of the programme were also based in Wembley: The Walrus Press Ltd.

The people listed include the dancers, the Director of the company, and the Ballet Master. But, as is rather typical, the Director and Ballet Master are also dancers in the company, of which there doesn’t seem to be many. It suddenly becomes clear as to why full-length works have been cut – they seemed to have been performing Giselle with only 4 Wili (and that’s not including Myrtha). All in all, a grand total of 10 dancers are named. These 10 are:

• Edward Gaillard (also the Company Director)
• Harold Foster (also the Ballet Master)
• Margaret Cameron
• Joy Fisher
• Susan Haxton
• Francesca Tansley
• Suzanne Sarova
• Kathleen Gray
• George Reid
• and Isa Seaton

The Works

Note: If you want a full run-down of the works and their performers see the programme listing in my database here.

I have already mentioned some of the works performed. Apart from the lack of peasants and Wili, their Giselle seems to be a fairly typical one, with choreography credited to Jean Coralli, who worked on the original 1841 production. Their Act II of Coppélia is along similar lines (being credited to the original choreographer Arthur Saint-Léon), while Act III of The Nutcracker is ‘after [Marius] Petipa’. Petipa also gets his credit for the Black Swan Pas de deux, but Act II of Swan Lake is credited to Leon Ivanhoff. I stared at this for a good 30 seconds, wondering who on Earth this man could be, before realising it is most definitely supposed to say Lev Ivanov, the original choreographer of the Act.

The last of their non-original works, Les Sylphides, also credits Mikhail Fokine, the original choreographer. But from here, it becomes more intriguing. Five of the nine other works have choreographed credited to Harold Foster, but the other four have no listed choreographer at all.

Harold Foster’s credits are Reverie, Circe & Ulysses, Othello, Etude and Suite de Ballets. Both Reverie and Suite de Ballets have a one-sentence synopsis, describing them as Romantic style ballets. The first is to music by Frédéric Chopin, while Suite de Ballets is to music by Charles Gounod. Etude, set to music by Beethoven, claims to be ‘a study in classical movement’. Othello and Circle & Ulysses are both to the music of Richard Strauss, and are based on pre-existing works, the former Shakespearean, and the latter mythological.

Another mythological-themed ballet, Diana’s Mythtake, is stated to be ‘After Degas (well after!)’. I take this to be a reference to French painted Edgar Degas (1834-1917), who famously painted ballet dancers. No composer or choreographer is listed for this work. The music of Day Trip is credited to Émile Waldteufel, The Jewels to Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Nuances to Tchaikovsky.

The proper research begins

Sometimes I look into companies and find it’s a lot more difficult to establish a roster of dancers and a repertory than it is information about the company itself. I began to feel lucky that I did have this programme, at least I knew something. Before starting my research I had a few theories:

• This was a company based in one place (almost undoubtably Wembley), who only performed in local theatres, and not very often. This was, somewhat plausible. This theory places the company in the same sort of existence of a village dance school, or an amateur musical theatre company – doing one or two proper shows a year. This would explain how the company seemed to have one Odette, or one Giselle – they weren’t needed to perform the role over and over. It does not explain the number and range of works, and why no date or location is given on the programme.
• This was a company who toured, but only in small theatres. This does explain the lack of a date or location. It may have been more practical to list all the works in the programme, then only one design had to be printed. It also explains the number of works, which would be picked and chosen, and changed at each location. This theory would mean the programme most likely covered a season of performances, but does not explain how the cast does not change.
• The small company toured, and this programme was for a specific date and theatre, but was a rotating program of works over say, a week of performances. This overlaps with the second theory, and was the most frustrating theory. It would mean the programme I had could be from any location and date, and I just had to narrow it down.

So, I set off on my research, seeing if I could find the same sources I found in my Google search before, and anything else.

Initial Searches

When you search Ballets Minerva, the first result is a digitised programme on the website of the Mercury Theatre, Colchester. This was good. The programme has a year, 1961, a location, and the company are performing much of the same repertory: The Nutcracker Act III, Coppélia Act II, Diana’s Mythtake, Les Sylphides, Nuances, Suite de Ballets, Reverie, The Ugly Duckling and The Big Top. The majority of the dancers are the same, with Penelope Jones and Peter Butler also being on the roster.

This programme lends credence to Theory 2/3. A schedule for the week of performances at the theatre is given, showing that it was indeed a week of mixed bills, and not one preposterously long evening of dance. It also helped towards my belief that my programme was also from the 1960s. The printing of the programme is similar, but I also had the information that the addresses on my programme were for Wembley, Middlesex. Wembley was merged into London Borough of Brent in 1965, upon the creation of Greater London. It could be that this programme was from the early 1960s, although I couldn’t say for certain.

The next relevant result is a poster from the Hackney Museum collection, dated to 1975. This advertises a performance by the company at the Stoke Newington Assembly Hall, which is in the London Borough of Hackney. There is no mention of any individuals or a repertory, just that they were there. I now had a date range from 1961-1975.

There was then a record from the Lewisham Archives, a few more irrelevant results, and then, I struck gold. The next result was what appeared to be an online autobiography of a dancer called Richard Holden. Holden (1927-2015), was a dancer, choreographer and choreologist. And he was in the Ballets Minerva.

Dancing on a Greyhound Bus

Holden’s account of the Ballets Minerva comes in Chapter 6 of his online autobiography. He recounts he was asked to join the company and went to audition at their rehearsal studio in Sudbury (which is very close to Wembley). Edward Gaillard accepted Holden into the company. This happened in the late 1950s.

Eddie [Gaillard] lived with his mother. The three principal girls of the company lived a kind of sequestered life in a tiny cottage at the bottom of his parent’s garden. There was an older male dancer, Harry. Where he lived I never knew. These five people were the starters of this company, then in its ninth seemingly imperishable year.
Then there were the extra dancers of which I was the newest recruit. Actually, I was the only male dancer. The other male, Harry, only did the character roles. I think he also did the choreography but I never saw him get any credit for it.

Richard Holden, Dancing on a Greyhound Bus

After reading this I wondered whether ‘Harry’ was Harold Foster, which may well be the case. Anyway, Holden goes on to say the the ‘three principal girls’ were Kathleen Gray, Margaret Cameron and Suzanne Sarova, and that these were the five founders of the company.

He also describes the touring schedule. 48 weeks on tour, 3 weeks rehearsing in London. Each week would be spent in a different theatre, performing smaller versions of the classics alongside their own works, for what were mainly family audiences. The company would travel on a coach with room for them and their costumes and sets, and the ‘five founders’ would stay in the better hotels, while the others were in the cheaper digs.

The new ballet for the year Holden was in the company was Alice in Wonderland, but he also mentions Hamlet, Swan Lake, Coppélia, A Christmas Carol, Circe & Ulysses, and Plat du Jour, which focused on a chef, a housekeeper and two maids. Holden moved on from the company after a year, going on to work as a dance notator, but his words are invaluable.

The People

A couple more Google Search Results pushed the dates of the company’s existence from the 1950s to at least 1980, but I thought it was time to focus more on the people involved.

Edward (or Eduard) Gaillard performed in The Red Shoes (1948). The Internet Movie Database states he lived from 1915-1993. Holden says he danced with the Vic-Wells Ballet and Ballet Rambert. But he wasn’t in any books I had access to, and a search on the Rambert Archive brought up nothing.

Then I found a post on a website called Wartime Gilford from someone who knew Gaillard very well- his son.

His son Armand writes here that Gaillard was of Belgian origins. As you’d expect from the name of the website it focuses on his wartime work, but it does mention the Ballets Minerva. Armand also mentions Gaillard passed away at the age of 80, which means the IMDb dates must be incorrect.

The majority of the other results I already knew about, or were to do with a baseball player named Eddie Gaillard, but it was nice to know a bit of his story, especially as someone who grew up watching The Red Shoes.

Harold Foster was a little harder to track down, but I was able to find a bit on him, particularly his choreography work. The Coton Collection, held at the Royal Holloway University of London, has programmes from the Ballets Minerva. In their online information we can see Ballets Minerva programmes from 1954-1968.

Foster’s choreography credits are for Circe and Ulysses, Suites de ballet, Concerto (to music by Henryk Wieniawski), Impressions (composer Georges Bizet), Variants (music Johannes Brahms), The Big Top and Othello. A 1948 BBC TV listing also shows a Harold Foster performing Wilfred in Giselle as part of Molly Lake’s Continental Ballet.

Kathleen Gray, the company’s Giselle, Odette and Swanilda, was a bit easier to find. The first result of my Google Search was an obituary, saying she died in April 2021 at the age of 96. Old newspapers articles state she trained at the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School, and Gray also helped out with the choreography of the Ballets Minerva’s original ballets, being pretty much an uncredited Assistant Artistic Director.

A Margaret Cameron, who may be the same one from our company, is listed among the members of the Kirsova Ballet, founded by Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo alumni Hélène Kirsova. This company existed from 1941-1945 in Australia. As there were many Australian dancers who came to the UK at the end of the Second World War, it’s possible this is the same Margaret.

Suzanne Sarova was a bit of an enigma, as the top results were either irrelevant, or told me more about the Ballets Minerva than they did her. I then struck gold, as I remember I had seen her name somewhere before: in a Festival Ballet programme. This is the company founded by Anton Dolin and Alicia Markova that is today known as the English National Ballet. I couldn’t discern Sarova’s full tenure with the company, but she was there in 1952.

Conclusion

To be quite honest, I was no closer to finding a date or location for my programme than I was at the start of my search. But I felt I had learnt so much about this company and the people who were involved with it.

I feel somewhat confident in saying the programme I had was most likely from the 1960s, but I cannot definitively say that. The location is an enigma, but I imagine this programme is representative of any week’s repertory, and I’d much rather have the repertory than the location.

All in all, I’m very happy to have learned about this company. It seems they provided ballet to audiences who would not have the opportunity to see other companies, and it’s admirable to see a small company producing a new yearly ballet. The schedule sounds tough, especially when you factor in how much dancing the dancers would’ve had to do in a evening. And considering the lifespan of the company I presume they did well. I’m glad I know more about them, and I hope anyone reading this feels the same.

Sources

Dancing on a Greyhound Bus by Richard Holden: https://richka.net/sitemap.html

My Father Eduard Gaillard… Blog Post: https://www.wartimegilford.com/after-the-war-my-father-eduard-gaillard-res-became-the-principal-dancer-in-the-famous-film-the-red-shoes/

Coton Collection including Ballets Minerva programmes, 1954-1968: http://personal.rhul.ac.uk/uhyl/007/coton.htm

Mercury Theatre 1961 programme listing: https://www.mercurytheatre.co.uk/mercury-voices/programme-for-ballet-minerva/

Hackney Museum Collection 1975 poster: https://museum-collection.hackney.gov.uk/object-1988-194

V & A collection 1980 poster: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1168544/poster-unknown/

National Ballet of Australia Kirsova Ballet pdf: https://www.nla.gov.au/sites/default/files/blogs/refresh_01_2015_prompt–kirsova_ballet_1941-1944-_feb_2010.pdf