| History | Hettie Loman was born in Manchester in 1920. She began her career as an actress in 1939 when she joined the Theater Workshop directed by Joan Littlewood and Ewan MacColl. After leaving the Theater Workshop, she was inspireed to turn to dance after seeing a performance by Ballet Jooss. Loman immersed herslef in the teachings of Rudolf Laban and Lisa Ullmann at the Art of Movement Centre in Manchester, and after five years of study she received her diploma. Loman joined the teaching faculty and was subsequently offered choreographic assignments. She choreographed a number of ballets for students, using composers such as Grieg, Ellington, Schumann, Copland, Bach and Britten. One ballet, 'Streets Without End', was performed at the Library Theatre in Manchester in 1950. Her ballets often drew on her drama training and were often inspired by the works of William Shakespeare.
In 1950, Hettie Loman moved to London and founded the British Dance Theatre Company, based at Toynbee Hall. After four years she was appointed Co-Director of the Contemporary Dance Theatre Centre, which sponsored performances of modern dance from England and abroad.
In 1958 Loman formed the Hettie Loman Dance Theatre whose headquarters were in Balderton Street in Mayfair, London. The company toured with original works by Loman until 1970. During this time she also taught choreography courses at the City Literary Institute.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Hettie Loman was appointed as a principal choreographer and lecturer at Nonington College, a physical education institution in Kent. She produced several full-length ballets with the students at Nonington, including an adaption of Maeterlinck's 'Bleu Bird' to the music of Khacaturian, and 'The Hunchback of Notredame' to the music of Shostakovitch. Other ballets included 'Death of a Hero' with music by Britten, 'Stranger in the Night' with music by Copland, 'A Masked Ball' with music by Shostakovitch, 'Carmina Burana' with music by Orff, and the 'Divine Comedy' with music by Mahler..
in the 1980s Hettie Loman bought the Croydon Dance Theatre to central London for performances at the Bloomsbury Theatre, Shaw Theatre and Sadler's Wells Theatre. Her lifelong collaborator and friend, Sally Archbutt, appeared in many of Loman's works and also notated some of the ballets in Laban Kinetography. |