Mary Skeaping

Mary Emma Skeaping (15 December 1902 – 9 February 1984) was an English ballerina who is better known as a ballet teacher, director, choreographer, and producer.

Skeaping was born at Woodford, Essex, on 15 December 1902, the youngest of the four children of Kenneth Mathiason Skeaping (13 December 1856 – 16 May 1946) and Sarah Ann Skeaping née Rattenbury (2 January 1867 – second quarter 1960)

Her three older siblings were:

The children had an unusual upbringing.

They never attended school as children, although Skeaping herself attended a convent school later on and got seven honours in the school leaving certificate.

Skeaping was still in Woodford in 1905, but had moved to Cliftonville, Warren Road, Bexleyheath, London, by the time of the 1911 census, and stayed there until at least 1918.

When she first auditioned for Pavlova in 1925, it was with the intention of dancing for a season and returning to the Royal College of Music.

While Skeaping's initial ballet training was with Francesca Zanfretta, she also studied with most of the great teachers of the era including Laurent Novikov, Leonide Massine, Seraphina Astafieva, Stanislas Idzikowski, Lubov Egorova, Vera Trefilova and Margaret Craske.

Skeaping became a leading exponent of the Cecchetti method under the tutelage of Craske.

Skeaping toured as a dancer with Anna Pavlova's company for two seasons, 1925 and 1930–1931.

She toured with the Nemchinova-Dolin company from c. 1927.

By 1929 the electoral register shows Skeaping, living with her parents and eldest brother Kenneth at 2 Eton College Road, in Camden, London.

She also performed with the Ballet Club, later known as the Rambert Dance Company from c. 1930.

In the summer of 1930, Skeaping was one of six dancers selected by the Nemichova-Dolin company for a season in The Netherlands.

Berry (who was Skeaping's assistant) describes Skeaping as a technically competent but uninspired dancer whose broad training and insatiable curiosity about all dance forms were an aid in the 1930s when she appeared in appeared in pantomime, music halls, and cabaret, as well as appearing in classical ballet.

Browse said that Skeaping's "approach to her dancing was matter-of-fact and workmanlike but tinged with a wry bump of humour."

They were still there ten years later at the time of the 1939 Register in September of that year.

While her obituary in The Times states that Skeaping worked in South Africa during the Second World War, she returned from there in September 1939, and spend the next three years touring the UK with Anna Ivanova of the Ballets Russes and performances as far afield as Perth, Scotland and St. Ives, Cornwall.

Their intent was to bring professional performances to remote areas which never had the opportunity of seeing such.

They then extended this to tours of the armed forces, and had performed in ships, in air-raid shelters, and in barracks and billets.

In Summer 1942 they performed under the auspices of the Western Command#Second World War for the Auxiliary Territorial Service, Women's Auxiliary Air Force, anti-aircraft units and transport personnel.

Skeaping was still was still working in England up to November 1942, when she performed in a concert at Cambridge in aid of the Civilian Nurses Air Raid Victims' Fund.

By 1951, Skeaping was living at 42a Craven Road, Paddington, London, which was to remain her London address for the next 33 years.

She served as director of the Royal Swedish Ballet in Stockholm for nine years (1953–1962), and became an international authority on ballet from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century.

In a 1968 interview her brother John recalls her father as saying: ". . . two great qualities that children have are imagination and the power of imitation so the only things they should do is develop their imagination by learning music, dancing, painting, sculpture, and so forth an imitation - they can learn languages. What is stuffed into children against their will over ten years they can forget in six months. What you learn willingly over that ten years, you never forget."

When Skeaping was born the family lived at Kersal Villa, Malmsbury Road, South Woodford, Essex, quite close to Epping Forest, where the children went daily for walks with their father.

Some normal childhood activities were forbidden, including football and cycling.

In the home, the children were taught to read, grammar, and their tables, but no history or geography.

What history Skeaping learned was from historical novels until she cycled daily to a convent school run by a French order of nuns, initially to learn French, but then to take the school leaving certificate.

She was much older than the other pupils.

When Skeaping attended at a local dance class with her brother John and sister Sally, the instructor said that their mother should take them up to London for instruction.

Eventually, Skeaping and Sally were taking lessons from the Italian Francesca dancer and mime Zanfretta in London, at a guinea a time, with the lessons being paid for by a wealthy man who was a client of their father.

John had dropped out of dance lessons and was concentrating on art.

Their mother accompanied the Skeaping girls to the lessons and took notes to the annoyance of Zanfretta, who objected until their mother threatened to withdraw them altogether.

They had a barre in their father's studio at home and practised there between lessons based on the notes taken by their mother.

The outbreak of the First World War brought an end to the lessons.

Skeaping died on 9 February 1984 at St Charles's Hospital, Kensington, London.

Her estate was valued at £116,452.

Her passing was marked by obituaries in both The Times and The Stage.

Initially, Skeaping was training in music at the Royal College of Music where her eldest brother Kenneth was an associate and teacher.