The Ballet Guild was an English ballet company, active from 1941 until 1946. It is closely associated with the dancer-choreographer partnership ofMolly Lake (1900–1986) andTravis Kemp (1914–1995).[1]
The Ballet Guild was formed on 10 May 1941 by Deryck Lynham,[2] the barristerChristmas Humphreys (who acted as chairman)[3] and others, and was based inSt John's Wood, London. The company was formed to encourage the development of ballet as an art, and to provide opportunities for young dancers and creative artists.
The Guild set up a ballet school, assembled a library of resources, and organised lectures, demonstrations and exhibitions.[4] The company was short-lived, and had disbanded by 1946. At that time there were a dozen or more small ballet groups touring the UK and vying for audiences, including the Arts Theatre Ballet, theLondon Ballet and theInternational Ballet.[5]
The Guild put on short experimental seasons and toured underENSA using ad-hoc companies assembled by the dancers and choreographers Molly Lake[6] and her husband Travis Kemp.[7] Lake and Kemp had both previously been in thePavlova andMarkova-Dolin companies, and Lake was an exponent of theCecchetti method.[4] A quintet, later an orchestra, was formed byLeighton Lucas to provide the music. Most of the London performances took place at theRudolf Steiner Hall near Baker Street, or theGarrick Theatre in Charing Cross Road.[3]
One of the company's earliest productions was the new balletSawdust, with music byMary Lucas, which was performed in London and Wolverhampton in May 1941 under the direction of Leighton Lucas.[8] Other ballets produced under the Guild includedVictorian Bouquet (choreographed by Lake, music by Rossini),Nymphenburg Gardens (Lake, Mozart),[9] andThe Last Curtain (Lake, Weber), all three of which were televised just after the war by the Embassy Ballet (later the Continental Ballet), an offshoot of the Ballet Guild.[10][11]
The Guild's library was used as the foundation for the Archives of the Dance, initially established under the chairmanship ofCyril Beaumont in 1946.[12] This later became the dance holdings of theTheatre Museum, London, and is now at theVictoria & Albert Museum.[13]
In 1954, Molly Lake and Travis Kemp took up an appointment to teach and direct theTurkish National Ballet School (which the Turkish Government had askedNinette de Valois to establish), where they worked for the next two decades.[7]