Jennifer Shennan, respected dance teacher, writer and lecturer in dance studies, has been awarded the Friends of the Turnbull Library Research Grant for 2008, for research towards a book on the life of celebrated Danish dancer Poul Gnatt, who formed this country's first professional dance company, The New Zealand Ballet, in 1953. With life-long experience in dance, as performer, teacher and critic, Jennifer Shennan is considered the best person to undertake this significant biography.
'Jennifer Shennan's research will include the extensive resources in the collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library; including the Royal New Zealand Ballet collection, the New Zealand Music Archive, the Drawings, Paintings and Prints collection, the Photographic Archive, and material from the family of Poul Gnatt,' said Rachel Underwood, President of the Friends of the Turnbull Library. 'We are very pleased that the grant will support research in the field of dance in New Zealand and result in a biography of such an influential man.'
Poul Gnatt, who became a naturalised New Zealander, had been a celebrated Principal Artist with The Royal Danish Ballet before he arrived in New Zealand in the early 1950s, and his international reputation in ballet remained strong throughout his life.
The $10,000 grant will enable Ms Shennan to continue research in the Alexander Turnbull Library and to continue conducting interviews and research in other New Zealand locations and overseas. A book of some 300 pages is planned, with up to 50 black and white photographic illustrations.
Jennifer Shennan is the fifth recipient of the Friends' Research Grant. Previous grants have been awarded to Philip Norman for a biography of Douglas Lilburn; Tim Beaglehole for a biography of his father, the late historian J. C. Beaglehole; Alex Bremner to complete a study of colonial Anglican architecture, and to Paul Diamond for his photo-biography of Makareti (Maggie Papakura) published last month.
For further information
Rachel Underwood
Phone (04) 475 9394
Email Rachel.Underwood@clear.net.nz
Friends of the Turnbull Library website
About Jennifer Shennan
Jennifer Shennan is a dance teacher and writer with research interests in world dance history and traditions, particularly of New Zealand and the Pacific.
She has been dance critic for The Evening Post / The Dominion Post for 25 years, and has also written about New Zealand dance for the International Encyclopedia of Dance (OUP 1998), for The New Zealand Dictionary of Biography, and for journals, Dance Now ( UK), Ballet Tanz (Germany) and Studia Choreologica (Poland).
In 2003 Jennifer wrote 'A Time to Dance - the Royal New Zealand Ballet at Fifty', a history of the country's first professional dance company, which was founded by Poul Gnatt in 1953.
Her other publications include: 'The Maori Action Song - no whea tenei ahua hou?' (NZCER, 1985) in which she traces the origins and development of a 'new' dance form in 20th-century Aotearoa New Zealand, and 'The Workbook of Kellom Tomlinson - 18th century English Dancing Master' - (Pendragon Press, NY. 1992) - a facsimile edition prepared from an original manuscript now held in the Turnbull Library. The remarkable story of how this 300-year-old priceless dance manuscript came to be in New Zealand continues to intrigue dance historians internationally.
Jennifer co-authored with Makin Corrie Tekenimatang, an article for The Turnbull Library Record, Pacific issue, 1999, on the historic photographs of Banaba (aka Ocean Island) which are held in the ATL. This led to the preparation of a book, 'One and a Half Pacific Islands - stories the Banaban people tell of themselves' (Victoria University Press, 2005),also co-edited with Makin Corrie Tekenimatang. The volume marks the 60th anniversary of the re-location, in 1945, of the entire Banaban population to Rabi Island in Fiji, following the total devastation of their original homeland. Since 1900, Banaba had been mined for the phosphate that ended up as fertiliser on New Zealand farms, but which left the Banabans homeless and 'amongst the poorest and most beleaguered of Pacific peoples' (in the reported opinion of Michael Field,journalist specialising in Pacific affairs).
Dance remains the most urgent and effective expression of Banaban identity, and many of the 72 stories in this collection reflect that. The book has been receiving positive reviews (see, in particular, The Contemporary Pacific, May 2007) which in turn contribute to a Banaban sense of gratitude that their poignant history is not altogether forgotten in the wider world. A major oral history of Nei Makin, conducted by Jennifer and her husband Allan Thomas in Fiji in 1998, has recently been deposited in the Oral History Centre of the Turnbull Library.
Jennifer has been lecturing in Dance Studies in the Theatre Department of VUW since 2005, but will use a pause in that teaching to focus on research towards the Gnatt biography during 2008. (Early expression of interest in the proposed publication has been received by VUP.)
The Centre for Continuing Education of VUW has invited Jennifer to guide a study tour to the 10th Pacific Arts Festival which will take place in Pago Pago, American Samoa, in July 2008. The group will undertake to document this important quadrennial festival for the Pacific section of the Turnbull Library.
