Spotlight on RAD dance scholarship scheme scholars
Four original dance scholarship scholars: (L-R) Kathleen Pearce, Anna Vaughan, Margaret Turner and Sissie Smith, pictured in 1926.
We are celebrating the centenary of the RAD’s original Children’s Dance Scholarship scheme, launched in 1925.
This pioneering dance scholarship scheme ran for nearly 60 years and saw more than 2,000 young people benefit from two free ballet classes a week at centres around the UK and is reflected in many of the vocational ballet school associate programmes on offer today.
Although the original scheme is no longer available, the RAD offers a range of bursaries to help enter exams or cover programme tuition. In addition, all candidates competing in The Margot Fonteyn International Ballet Competition have the opportunity to be considered for a variety of tuition scholarships with some of the world’s leading dance companies and schools.
Offering these opportunities is fundamental to our promotion of the art of dance and ensuring its growth and development through exceptional dance education and training programmes everywhere.
Such was the scheme’s impact, its legacy lives on in today’s vocational ballet school associate programmes taught around the world.
RAD Vice President and scholar Wayne Sleep said: “With thanks to the RAD. The scheme gave me the chance to get a place at the Royal Ballet School when I was 12 years old, because I’d been trained rather well with the RAD syllabus. When I auditioned, it stood me in good stead, and I got a place out of 250 other kids!”
Past scholars
January 2025 – Sissie Smith (1914-1989)
Sissie Smith was one of the original scholars in the scheme. She was selected at the first audition in December 1925 and taught by Adeline Genée. In 1929, aged just 15 years old, she was asked to take part in the ballet Coppélia, produced by Alexander Genée, for the Association’s Special Matinée performance at the Gaiety Theatre. She was also one of five students chosen to go to Copenhagen in 1932 to dance with the English Ballet Company in front of the King and Queen of Denmark.
A pupil of Pauline and Noreen Bush in Nottingham, she opened her own school in 1929 entering pupils for auditions and becoming the first dance scholarship teacher in the Nottingham area in 1931. In 1945 she became a children’s examiner for the RAD and later the first chair of the RAD East Midlands region.
In 1979 she recreated the original Adeline Genée Port de Bras Adagio which was added to the Solo Seal syllabus in the autumn of that year and is still in use today. In 1984 she was awarded a Fellowship of the RAD.
February 2025 – Pamela May (1917 – 2005)
Pamela May (born Doris May) was one of the earliest Royal Academy of Dancing (RAD) scholars taking up her dance scholarship in 1929 aged 12 years. She held the dance scholarship for three years before Ninette de Valois invited her to join the Vic-Wells Ballet School, saying she was one of the best-trained children she had ever seen. In a later interview, May said, ‘I was pure RAD trained’ and ‘the RAD produced me’.
While still a scholar, aged 15, she was chosen to perform with the English Ballet Company on a tour to Copenhagen in 1932 initiated by Adeline Genee as a showcase for British Ballet abroad and performing in front of the King and Queen of Denmark. In 1934, aged 17, she made her debut with the Vic-Wells Ballet Company (later The Royal Ballet) adopting the stage name Pamela May in 1935. Numerous roles were created for her including the Red Queen in Checkmate (de Valois), Violet in Wedding Bouquet (Ashton), one of the Red Girls in Les Patineurs (Ashton) and in 1938 the role of The Moon in Horoscope (Ashton).
Alongside her success as a principal dancer with The Royal Ballet, May continued her involvement with the RAD and the dance scholarship scheme becoming both a member of the Executive Committee and President of the Old Scholars Club in 1947. In 1951 she joined the RAD’s technical committee later becoming a respected teacher for the Royal Ballet School and the RAD’s London scholars. In 1976 she received the RAD’s Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award for her outstanding contribution to the art of ballet and the following year was awarded an RAD Fellowship. May became a Vice-president for the Academy in 1982 and in 1998 she was honoured with an OBE for her considerable contribution to the dance world.
March – Celia Franca (1921 – 2007)
Celia Franca (born Franks) began her ballet training aged 5 years old at the Guildhall School of Music, before transferring to RAD teacher Lilian Oakshott at the age of 7. She was awarded a RAD scholarship when 12 years old in 1933 which she held for 3 years, achieving her Advanced certificate in 1935, under the tutelage of Judith Espinosa.
In 1936, aged 15, she appeared in the West End musical ‘Spread it Abroad’ before joining the Ballet Rambert as a member of the corps de ballet and later as soloist, gaining valuable experience from choreographers such as Anthony Tudor and Frederick Ashton. After a brief period with Les Ballets Trois Arts and Mona Inglesby’s International Ballet, she joined the Sadlers Wells Ballet in 1941, where she became one of the company’s most distinguished demi-character dancers creating roles in Robert Helpmann’s Hamlet and Miracle in the Gorbals, and Andrée Howard’s Le Festin d’Araignée. Subsequently she choreographed the ballets Khadra (1946) and Bailemos (1947) for Sadlers Wells Opera Ballet and joined the newly formed Metropolitan Ballet as soloist and ballet mistress in 1947. In 1951 she moved to Toronto, Canada where she founded and directed the National Ballet of Canada, co-established the Canadian National Ballet School in 1959, and remained Artistic Director of the company until 1974.
In 1972 the National Ballet of Canada embarked on their first European tour starting with a Royal Gala performance in London generously given in aid of the RAD and the Cecchetti branch of the ISTD. Throughout her career Franca received many honours including the Order of Canada in 1967, a Companion of the Order in 1985, Canada Dance Award in 1984 and the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award in 1994. Her early RAD training and professional experience were at the heart of her aim to make her dancers into a technically superb classical ballet company in the British ballet style.
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