Maryon Lane

Maryon Lane (15 February 1931 – 13 June 2008) was a South African ballet dancer who became well known in Britain as a ballerina of the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet and as a soloist with the Royal Ballet. Early life and training Maryon Lane was born as Patricia Mills in Zululand, a district of Natal province (now KwaZulu-Natal) on the Indian Ocean coast of South Africa. When she was about 13 years old, in 1944, her family took her to Johannesburg, in the northern province of Transvaal (now Gauteng). There she studied with the best ballet teachers in the city, including Marjorie Sturman, a specialist in the Cecchetti method, and Reina Berman, who had been trained by the Cecchetti method before switching to the syllabus of the Royal Academy of Dancing (RAD). In 1946, soon after World War II had ended and peace had returned to Europe, Mills left South Africa and emigrated to the UK, having won an RAD scholarship to attend the Sadler's Wells Ballet School in London. After only a year's tuition there, she was taken into the corps of the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet. It was at this point that she adopted her professional name. The company then included a South African dancer named Patricia Miller, so a name change from Patricia Mills was essential: Maryon Lane, distinctively spelled, was her choice. Professional career The Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet was then a small, young troupe founded by Ninette de Valois to nurture dancers and choreographers after the parent company, the Sadler's Wells Ballet, became resident at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Owing to the need to replenish the depleted roster of leading dancers, Lane rose rapidly through the ranks. By 1948, at age 17, she had been named a principal dancer and was appearing in prominent roles in works by de Valois and Frederick Ashton, the chief choreographer of the company. Petite, with dark hair, a pretty, oval face, and ideal proportions, she possessed a vivid personality, a firm technique, and an innate musicality.