Poul Gnatt Biography

The Royal New Zealand Ballet’s main studio is a lightfilled room that looks out over inner-city Wellington. It is here that the dancers not only spend hours each day taking class but it’s also where they tirelessly learn the steps to the Company’s next production. The room, witness to tears of joy and heartache, is named in honour of the man who started it all – a man who is not as recognised in New Zealand as he should be.

Poul Gnatt’s story is one of determination. A former principal dancer with the Royal Danish Ballet, he first visited New Zealand in 1952 as a guest star of the Borovansky Ballet. It immediately struck him that New Zealand did not have its own national ballet company and a year later he returned with his wife Rigmor and their young family to change that. For the next 10 years he would spend his waking hours immersed in all things ballet: building the repertoire and producing the works; finding and training the dancers, organising the tours and educating the public. It was a Number Eight wire-type beginning, but thanks to his determination, the company continued to grow. However, as the pioneer of one of New Zealand’s most loved arts companies, Gnatt remains something of an unsung hero.

This year, respected dance writer and lecturer Jennifer Shennan will continue her research towards a biography on Gnatt. Jennifer, who wrote A Time to Dance, has been awarded the Friends of the Turnbull Library Research Grant for 2008.

Jennifer Shennan will explore the extensive resources in the collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library, including the Royal New Zealand Ballet collection, the New Zealand Music Archive, the Drawings, Paintings and Prints collection, the Photographic Archive, and material from the family of Poul Gnatt.

The $10,000 grant will enable Jennifer to continue this research in the Alexander Turnbull Library and to plan further interviews and research in other New Zealand locations and overseas. A book of some 300 pages is planned, with up to 50 black and white photographic illustrations.

The Royal New Zealand Ballet was launched in 1953, just a month after Edmund Hillary climbed Mt Everest. To the question “Why Everest?” Hillary would quote the stock reply “Because it’s there”. If you’d asked Gnatt the question “Why a national ballet company?” he’d probably have answered “Because it isn’t there”.
Jennifer Shennan, A Time To Dance