Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel briefly examines the heritage of ballet in Malta through the legacy of two pioneering women, Daphne Lungaro-Mifsud and Tanya Bayona, whose work inspired subsequent generations of ballet teachers on the island.
From Poutiatine’s art and pedagogy of ballet to a generation of local teachers, ballet in Malta began to flourish in the early part of the 20th century. In 1936, the Times of Malta reported that Chiswick House School of Dancing presented dance displays, including “ballet dancing”, for the Governor General’s wife. As an artistic and theatricalised form, ballet in Malta was brought to the stage by Russian émigré Princess Natalie Poutiatine (1904 – 1984) in 1929 as part of the Grand Patriotic Concert.
Poutiatine brought a unique approach to the teaching and staging of ballet through her training in Paris in the 1920s with compatriot émigré teachers, Lubov Egorova, Olga Preobrajenska and Anna Pavlova. From her earliest productions at the Royal Opera House in Valletta during the 1930s, through to the hugely respected productions and guest performances of her students in the 1950s and early 1960s, her work reflected the glorious work of the fin de siècle Imperial Ballet in the 1890s and the avant-garde heritage of the Ballets Russes.
Poutiatine’s students began to live through her knowledge of ballet and a generation of Maltese teachers, included Tanya Bayona, Myriam Muscat Manduca and Daphne Lungaro-Mifsud, emerged from the studio on Tigné Terrace in Sliema. In the summer of 1965, Lungaro-Mifsud and Bayona began their journey teaching dance on the island.
Daphne Lungaro-Mifsud
One of the youngest of the generation of dancers at Poutiatine’s school in the 1950s, Lungaro-Mifsud was the ‘baby ballerina’ of her era. Her exceptional talent was showcased in roles such as the Miniature Doll in 1955 and in Pas Seul (The Young Tersichorean Spirit) in 1957 at the Radio City Opera House in Ħamrun.
After a brief period of study with Poutiatine, she was offered a seven-year scholarship at the school of Irene Grandison Clark in London. As part of her studies, she performed at the Royal Albert Hall, the Palace Theatre and at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.
After a short contract at the Empire Theatre in Liverpool and having completed her studies, Lungaro-Mifsud returned to Malta to open The Ballet Studio in August 1965. Over the years, the school offered the entire spectrum of RAD children’s and vocational grades, classical and character levels and other awards, as well as ISTD Modern Theatre Dance.
The significant contributions of this generation of women allowed for the further embedding of dance in Malta as part of the local culture
Numerous productions were staged, including a memorable Divertissement at the Mediterranean Conference Centre in 1990. The programme was filled with a range of works that included the Polka Parisienne, Serenade and Valse Royale. These works were not only an ode to her ballet teacher in Malta during the 1950s, but also to the diversity that she encountered in London.
In 1975 she established The Daphne Lungaro Folkore Ensemble, a dance company whose repertoire focused on the artistic heritage of indigenous Maltese noble dances. The company toured Europe, North America and Asia, and Lungaro-Mifsud’s work is still seen today at major national and corporate events.
Throughout the three decades of The Ballet Studio, Lungaro-Mifsud’s contribution to ballet in Malta included the proliferation of ballet against its connections to the RAD, with several of her former students going on to establish their own schools.
Tanya Bayona
From a young age, Bayona listened to opera with her father and was subsequently enrolled at Poutiatine’s Russian Academy of Dancing in 1951. She studied with Poutiatine until 1962, learning ballet in the style of Egorova’s understanding of Enrico Cecchetti’s teachings at the Imperial Ballet School towards the end of the 19th century.
During the 1950s and early 1960s, Bayona featured in several of Poutiatine’s productions. From the 1953 Coronation celebration concert, through to the 1960 Malta Cultural Institute performance at the Knights Hall, Bayona performed several works created by Poutiatine, including A Polish Noble Dance (1956); Waltz Ensemble (1956) set to Carl Maria Weber’s Invitation to the Dance (1819); and Sentimental Lark Song (1957).
In later years, Poutiatine choreographed Bayona as the Turkish dancer in Carmelo Pace’s opera Caterina Desguanez, drawing attention to her sophisticated use of her upper body and arms. Like Lungaro-Mifsud, Bayona studied in London – first at the Vacani School and then more extensively at Nesta Brooking’s School of Ballet and General Education. At Brooking’s school, Bayona studied an advanced curriculum in choreography and the teaching of ballet, national dance as well as choreography in education.
On returning back to Malta in the summer of 1965, Bayona had completed her associated training in the Cecchetti ballet and National Dance branches of the ISTD.
Tanya Ballet Studio was established in 1965, offering Cecchetti Method classes in ballet as well as weekly classes in modern ballet, character (in the style of Maria Fay’s curriculum at the Royal Ballet School) and choreography for stage and television. Men’s classes were offered three times a week.
Bayona’s particular interest in the ISTD’s Cecchetti Syllabus was strategic to the emancipation of the diversity of ballet in Malta. In 1981, her school amalgamated with Poutiatine’s academy and was renamed the Tanya Bayona-Poutiatine Academy of Ballet.
The Tanya Bayona Dance Theatre, established in 1989, offered Bayona opportunities to work with the celebrated composer Charles Camilleri. Nevertheless, Bayona’s continued interest in the Cecchetti heritage over the decades led to the development of a group of students who later became teachers themselves.
Two remarkable women
What is remarkable about these two women is that, while both pursued their training and education in dance overseas, they returned to the island to proliferate dance in diverse ways and beyond Poutiatine’s pioneering endeavours.
Their connections to London-based dance teaching societies were central to their work but their successes weren’t simply defined by their affiliations.
In the lead up to the 1990s, these women led their schools to their outstanding reputation on the island. Both served the now-defunct Dance Council with Bayona as president and Lungaro-Mifsud as vice-president.
The significant contributions of this generation of women allowed for the further embedding of dance in Malta as part of the local culture; notably, through the enhancement of models of training (in private ballet studios as well as in schools), by furthering approaches to the study of two different styles of ballet and diversifying dance forms, including Spanish, modern theatre and jazz dance. Lungaro-Mifsud and Bayona were central to the enhancement of dance as art, as well as education and training on the island.
As young dancers and teachers return back to the studio this month, it is an opportune moment to celebrate these women and to consider their impact against the changes that came about in 1965.
Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel is a former student of Daphne Lungaro-Mifsud and a senior lecturer in Dance Studies at the Faculty of Education at the RAD in London. She is also a member of the executive board of the Society of Dance History Scholars in the US.