DANZ QUARTERLY Issue 19
April, May, June 2010
Rigmor Gnatt - remembered by Jennifer Shennan
Rigmor Gnatt, nee Stroyberg
b. Aalborg, Denmark 1929
d. Otaki, New Zealand 2009
Rigmor Gnatt was the wife of Poul Gnatt, who founded The New Zealand Ballet. With two infant sons, the Gnatts had come to New Zealand in 1953, and Poul (who had toured the country the previous year with The Borovansky Ballet from Australia) set about forming a company and promoting its development here.
Initially this was in Auckland, though soon the company embarked on Community Arts Service tours of the rural regions, then wider provinces, until national touring became the norm. Poul held the company together through thick and thin, until 1963, then in a later term 1969-71. The international reputation and high production standards of the Royal New Zealand Ballet today is the proud and happy direct outcome of these early pioneering efforts by the Gnatt family.
Behind a successful artistic director of a surviving dance company typically lies a partner providing untold moral, emotional, practical and financial support that is the sine qua non of the whole affair. The record of Rigmor’s support of her beloved Poul, one of the truly outstanding dancers of his generation, and an infectiously enthusiastic personality, is legendary.
Rigmor remembered her own happy childhood with five siblings, and many opportunities for study and family holidays combined. Her mother was a wonderful organizer of large scale family events, and also gave courageous shelter to many whose lives were upended by the wartime experiences of World War Two, including the occupation of Denmark by Nazi forces.
Rigmor studied English whilst living for a time in Cambridge, England, and worked as a secretary until the time she and Poul met in Copenhagen in 1950. Poul already had a considerable reputation as a premier dancer with The Royal Danish Ballet, and Rigmor, although not herself a dancer, was a keen balletomane.
In New Zealand, Rigmor’s efforts involved not just rearing four sons, often at home alone for many, many weeks while Poul toured the length and breadth of the country. She also designed and made costumes, 400 in all, for the dancers in those early years.
Rigmor offered hospitality to many young dancers when the company was in Auckland, and she recalled with pleasure decades later the most devoted helpers in those times. Gloria Young heads that list.
On occasions Rigmor joined the company on tour, and was able to relieve Poul of driving the company truck between towns, as she had acquired her heavy traffic licence for the purpose. Rigmor told many a tale of the adventures encountered when away on these tours, although she always hated having to leave the boys behind with friends.
From 1963, Poul worked in Australia and also the Philippines. After the 1969–71 stint back in New Zealand, they then returned to Scandinavia where Rigmor had a
position of responsibility as the English-speaking secretary in the law office of Norsk Hydro, a large Norwegian firm specialising in oil and resources exploration. She enjoyed this work very much and stayed there until 1991, greatly esteemed by her colleagues.
After their retirement to New Zealand, there followed happy years amongst their New Zealand friends. Poul’s death in 1995 was a blow, but Rigmor faithfully continued in the following years to keep in touch with early friends and colleagues from the 1950s. She deposited generous amounts of professional and family records in the Alexander Turnbull Library where they now form the backbone of growing resources for New Zealand’s hitherto under-researched and under-written dance history.
Some years later there followed a serene decade with new partner, Ian Polglase, who continues to live in their home at Otaki. Rigmor’s photo is on the wall outside the Poul Gnatt Studio at the home of the Royal New Zealand Ballet in Wellington.
(Jennifer is continuing with researches towards the biography of Poul Gnatt.)
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