Tuesday 17 April 2007

PAS DE DEUX BESIDE THE COWSHED
Irish Times, 31st August 1989

Definitely not the Bolshoi. Kathy Sheridan visits the Shawbrook School of Ballet, in Co Westmeath, the only residential summer school in the country and certainly the only one on a dairy farm.
It was during the break between performances, as we sipped tea and wine in the shed beside the milking parlour, that I was seized by a powerful wave of nostalgia. It only began to dissipate when I had identified the cause of it: to wit a particular chemical used to clean the milking machines which, judging by the smell, cannot have changed in composition in 30 years.
We had just emerged from what was the culmination of Ireland’s only residential ballet summer school in what may well be Ireland’s only custom-built ballet training studio, located in a farmyard at the back end of Westmeath. As several dozen well-trained cows obligingly presented themselves for evening milking next door, 15 supple young bodies – average age 14 – danced their hearts out for the misty-eyed edification of parents and siblings, each of whom seemed to have borne along about half a dozen guests.
Anyone who has had any dealings with Anica and Philip Dawson are only too keen to confirm what the casual visitor has begun to suspect anyway; that this is no money-spinning racket for a couple of weeks in the summer to supplement the milk revenue. Appalled on her arrival here 11 years ago by the average Irish girl’s poor posture and lack of confidence, Anica embarked on a personal crusade to redress the balance. The Shawbrook School of Ballet is her annual answer for students around the country.
Among the adult there whose daughters have been trekking excitedly back to Shawbrook for the four years since its inception, the consensus was that the Dawson’s hardly break even financially. For the first year, recalled Mrs Pauline O’Brien, mother of Niamh, the fee was something ludicrous like £38; someone else thought that it might have been £20. This year, reflecting perhaps the high cost of the extraordinary development taking root around the farmyard, the cost is up to£80 for the week.
For that, the girls get to sleep on mattresses in a loft; eat food which they all agree is ‘brilliant’ and get to gaze for long intervals on Philip, spouse of Anica, a conservation-minded, dairy farmer, master builder, stained-glass artist, tuck-shop supplier and barbecue administrator. Philip is indubitably a hefty percentage of the annual treat – along with, of course, some highly intensive and deadly serious ballet practice.
An eating area has been carved out of what was a ‘building site’ last year and at the back, building work is in progress which impresses even those who have grown accustomed to Philip Dawson’s Grand Schemes. At this stage the half-built stone edifice could, in fact, be mistaken for an old ruin. But it was built only in the past month using the old stone from the crumbling workhouse in Ballymahon.
This –when completed promises to be a spectacular dining and living area for the students with a huge fireplace, wall-sized windows to one side and Dawson’s own stained-glass fitted into the slits for atmosphere.
So far, the 40-ft dance studio-cum-theatre is the piece de resistance of the whole. Built in a corn store dating from around 1850, it is convertible into a theatre by virtue of its ingenious winch-controlled tiered seating which rises majestically to the ceiling when no longer needed. The dance space boasts sprung maple flooring and a sophisticated light and sound system which Dawson describes as ‘just wiring.’ The labour is almost entirely his own.
In this environment, according to several sets of parents, the girls really blossom. From the first item on the 45-minute programme, entitled ‘invitation to dance,’ with music by Berliotz to the funky ‘sleaze alley’ number with music by Paul Hardcastle (in which sultry, pouting females play the stereotypical passive role to the ‘male’ hounds), they demonstrate astounding maturity and strength before an audience that included Martin Drury, education officer with the Arts Council.
Emotions were high, giggling voluble and relentless as they prepared to scatter from Wexford to Donegal. None of them labour under the illusion that a ballet dancer’s life is an easy one. They have only to turn to local girl Penny Wilson from Longford town, for reminders of the grind. With no residential ballet school in this country where a young girl may pursue her academic studies alongside her ballet training, Anica Dawson’s pupils are shepherded to Yorkshire where for the first few years they live with a ballet mistress whose tyrannical streak is legendary.
For Penny, though now into her third year and living outside of the ballet mistresses’ clutches, the daily grind is unchanged: the day being at 9.30 and goes on to 9.30pm with at two to three hour break in the afternoon. This goes on six days a week. Fees are £360 a term and living expenses go on top of that. But the magical precedents are there. Penny was Shawbrook girl from the age of seven; a previous Shawbrook graduate made it into the English National Ballet Company after only three years . . .
Like, a bush fire, word has spread through the country. In the first week of the summer school, tailored for children from 11 to 13, candidates had to be turned away for lack of places.
Philip Dawson might not have made a profit from the tuck shop but the man who met Anica Louw in the Karoo Desert where she was teaching in South Africa nearly 13 years ago and wanted to marry her there and then has managed to keep his feet on the ground. The ballet school project has developed its own momentum and though it threatens to swamp the cows, he is much too level-headed to jeopardize the family income.

Copyright Irish Times
(Accompaning photo of Anica Dawson with three of her pupils at the Shawbrook School of Dance in Co Westmeath, by William Farrell)

Irish Independent article on Shawbrook 1996

Pigs Make way for farmyard ballet School.
By Willie Dillon
Irish Independent, Monday, July 29, 1996.

Anica and Philip Dawson run a thriving ballet school - from a converted pig shed. Dance pupils – some from as far away as the US and Japan – learn their steps in a real working Irish farmyard. The Dawson’s ballet school at Lenamore, Legan, Co Longford is almost certainly Ireland’s most unusual alternative farm enterprise.
The pirouettes and pas de deux are practiced literally up the yard from the parlour where the family milks 35 cows every day.
Shawbrook Ballet School is the brainchild of South African-born Anica who came to this country 18 years ago. After initially teaching in local schools and halls, she decided the way forward was to establish a full-time school on the farm.
Since then, this unique venture has gone from strength to strength, attracting a £22,000 agri-tourism grant from the Department of Agriculture, sponsorship from the Arts Council and a prestigious rural enterprise award from the AIB.
The dance studio came into being after Philip – who was brought up on the 70-acre farm – converted an old pig shed and put in special seating and lighting to allow it to be used as a small theatre.
During the year, the school caters for around 60 young ballet pupils from the locality. Anica teaches a further 40 youngsters each week in Longford and Mullingar.
Shawbrook is currently hosting pupils in a series of five week-long residential summer schools teaching classical and contemporary ballet.
Pupils stay in a former barn which Philip converted into a dormitory with room for 20 people.
The Dawsons, who have one son, Kristo (15) are also planning a dance performance in Longford town next month. With Arts Council support, they are engaging a composer and choreographer and 10 semi-professional dancers, all past pupils, to create a new piece to be staged in the Backstage Theatre.
The ballet school facilities are also used from time to time by theatrical and drama groups.
Anica says that while the school is artistically a success, the dairy farm continues to be the family’s main income generator, contributing some 80% of earnings.
Copyright, Irish Independent.

Shawbrook, in European Dance News 2004

BALLET IN A BARN
It started with a dance school in a grain barn for local and regional students. Now Shawbrook is also a hideaway and retreat centre for dancers from around the world.
By Laura Peters

European DANCE news.com September 2004

Among the green fields, woods and old farms in rural southern central ireland lies in a hidden haven for dancers. Once a family-run dairy farm, Shawbrook is now a succesful dance institute where amateurs and professionals from around the world train, perform and experiment.
Dance educator Anica Louw founded Shawbrook with her husband, Philip Dawwson, in response to what she felt was a great need for serious dance training in Ireland. From its humble beginings in 1979, when the Shawbrook Ballet School operated along side the dairy farm, the institute has grown to include a summer school, retreat centre, weekend intensives, choreoghraphed-composer workshops and international dance exchange programmes that afford students the opportunity to study across Europe. ‘My first and foremost goal is supporting Ireland’s dancing - to help the programmes, to give them space to grow,’ says Louw. She achieves this, in part, by cultivating her extensive contacts in the European dance community. ‘It’s very important to know people. Especially for us, coming from Ireland where there is a lot to be done for the dancing. It’s all word of mouth; we don’t have a website, and it’s working very well so far.’’
Louw met Dawson in 1976 in her native South Africa. She had been teaching dance in a small town near Sutherland, South Africa, and when Dawson inherited his father’s 30-hectare mixed-livestock farm, the couple moved to ireland. While Dawson worked the 300-year-old farm, Louw began offering ballet lessons in the local primary school.
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As enrolment grew, the need for some more suitable dance space also increased. Since the couple felt the farm buildings weren’t being used to their full potential, they decided to start a ballet school there.
They began by converting the limestone barn into a dance studio-theatre. Dawson installed sprung-maple floor, barre, mirrors and fifty-seat structure that, at the touch of a button, could be hoisted to the ceiling when not in use. In 1979, the Shawbrook School of Dance opened and began building a strong reputation for innovation, creativity and high standards in dance education. Locally and regionally, more students flocked to the sc hool.
After a cuple of years, Dawson started converting the other farm buildings. One stable loft became a flat for visitors, teachers and artists, other a dormitory with bedding for twnty students. The cow pen became the student shower area, the calving house a costume storage area and sewing room. Dawson also built a catering and dining annex using salvaged materials, including the remnants of an old suburban train, a demolished churchand a shop in a local town. In 1984, after completing the renovation, Louw and Dawson launched the Shawbrook summer school. Today, this school is recognised as the foremost summer school in Ireland for pre-professional danced students. Each year, several hundred dance students come from across Ireland - as well as from the United States, Swedon, Switzerland, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Briton and Japan - to study with internationally renowned teachers and artists. Faculty members have included Sonya Rafferty of the Laban Centre in London, Stuart Beckett of the Royal Ballet and Berlin Ballet soloist (and former Shawbrook student) Marguerite Donlon.
In addition to the Summer School, Shawbrook offers weekend intensives and workshops during midterm breaks. These are geared primarily towards Irish students, whom Louw feels need special help breaking into the professional dance world.
‘Dance is not integrated in everyday life ór the Irish school system. There isn’t even a third-grade dance education,’ she says. ‘It’s a big step for students to travel. I want to support them in choosing a school and help them get in touch with teachers of the school. I regularily visit schools throughout Europe to see what they’re like. It’s important to find out where Irish students can go. We can’t just let them go to an audition blind.’
In 1997, Louw formed the LD Dance Trust, which receives funding from the Irish National Arts Council, and two years later, after almost 20 years of farming, Louw and Dawson shut down the farm and began operating Shawbrook solely as a dance institute. The cows were sold and the grounds where they grazed were turned into a forest of beech and oak trees.
Among Louw’s many dance programmes is the Irish National Youth Dance Company, a modern dance troupe that consists of two groups – the senior group (18-19 years old) and the junior associates (13-14 years old). The company , which perform at the Backstage Theatre in County Longford a couple of times a year, provides an opportunity for Irish students to gain performing and creative experience. Funding from the Irish National Arts Council allows the company to employ professional guest choreographers.
Although Low seems to be unstoppable, there was a time when frustrations slowed her down. ‘A couple of years ago I didn’t get excited about dance anymore,’ she says. ‘I felt I was constricted in my own little dance world in Ireland, and I didn’t like anything anymore. That was until I received invitations to come see some of my Shawbrook students who were now dancing with professional companies and doing great things. That’s whehn I got my enthusiasm back and knew that my contribution to dance (in Ireland) is important.’ This newfound enthusiasm also inspired the idea to start a retreat centre at Shawbrook. ‘Choreographers sometime run dry, thy need space, sometimes (they need to) get away from the city,’ she says. ‘In our retreat centre they can rest, get in touch with nature and relax. They don’t have to come up with anything. They can just dance and train at their own pace.’ The centre is open to both established companies and young choreographers, and in some case, the Irish National Arts Council provides funding. One of the companies that recently resided there is Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre, which won the Dublin Theatre Festival’s Special Judges Award and performed in Connecticut, US at the international Festival of Arts and Ideas at Yale University.
New initiatives are on their way. This year LD Dance organised the first Longford Dance Festival, where Ireland’s first dance awards were given. Dance companies from across the country performed at the event, which Louw plans to professionalise. She hopes it will help generate a dance audience in her adopted country. ‘There’s no good audience here in Ireland. People don’t grow up with dance. I try to motivate my students to go to as many performances as possible, because they’re the audience of the future.

For more information about Shawbrook Ballet School, Shawbrook Residential Summer School, weekend intensives, choreographic-composer workshops, international dance exchange programmes, retreat centres, etc, email: Anica Louw or Philip Dawson at shawbrook@tinet.ie

Longford Leader Article on Shawbrook 1989

Summer Ballet School closes with a flourish.
By Geraldine Grennan

Longford Leader, 25th August 1989
The Shawbrook School of Ballet in Legan brought their highly-popular Summer School to a close for another year on Saturday nnight last with a spectacular display of dancing by over sixty students from all parts of the country.
The summer Ballet School which is the only residential school of it’s kind in the country, is run by Anica Dawson, who has been teaching ballet in Legan for the past eleven years.
This year’s fourth Summer School got underway on Augst 6th last, with fifteen to twenty students per week. ‘The basic requirement of the Summer School is that students must be over fourteen years of age or have passed their pre-elementary ballet exams,’ says Anica Dawson.
Teachers for the school came from New York, Mexico and Liverpool, and students came from as far away as Cork, Donegal and Dublin with a number of Longford and Westmeath students among the young ballet hopefuls.
The ‘Grand Finale’ of the Summer School took place in the Shawbrook School theatre on Saturday night, which was attended by Martin Drury, Director of the Irish Dance Council and Gay Tanham, director of the Dance Council.\
One of the highlight of the evening was a ballet display with was choreographed by the students themselves, and Anica says the creativity displayed by the students was ‘exceptional.’
The leading dancer at the ‘Grand Finale’ of the Shawbrook Summer School was Penny Wilson from Longford , who is currently training in the world-famous Dorethy Stevens Ballet School in England. Penny had to stand in for one of the Summer School students who received an injury during rehearsals last week.
Copyright Longford Leader

Shawbrook Article, Westmeath Examiner, 1994

FROM SOUTH AFRICA TO LEGAN AND MULLINGAR
Westmeath Examiner, 3 Sept 1994

The Berlin Deutsche Opera’s solo dancer and choreographer Marguerite Donlan, from Longford, received her initial ballet training from South African, Anica Louw, who runs a ballet school at Legan, in Co Longford.
Anica who came to Ireland sixteen years ago when she married Philip Dawson from Legan, set up her school ‘Shawbrook’ back then, and today, at Legan, she has a studio and theatre where ballet classes and performances are held.
As well as atttracting local students, Anica has dancers coming from abroad for the annual Summer School, which is booked up to a year in advance.
In her native country, Anica began dancing at the age of three, and carried on until she was seventeen, when she went on to study theatre in Pretoria. She then taught Africans and drama and in South Afrucan secondary school, and when she met Irishman Philip Dawson who was travelling in Africa, the couple married and came back to Philip’s family farm at Legan.
Initially, Anica held classes in places such as Longford Rugby Club and Legan School, but she and Philip then decided to convert a barn into theatre studio, and to provide living accomadation for students.
Because of the interest among Westmeath dancers howeve, Anica has now decided to launch classes in Mullingar, and she will be accepting enrolements on . .. Anic a believes that even if a student doesn’t go on to the heights of success that Marguerite Donlon has attained, there are still immense benefits to be gained from studying ballet.
‘I will always feel that young girls should carry themselves well and to have grace and poise and I feel that ballet is a very good discipline,’ she says. She will take students as yong as four years old, and . .