In the Auckland ballet world, Valerie Murray is well-known as the teacher who founded the South Auckland Ballet Academy (SABA) and trained premier dancers who went on to perform internationally in places such as Paris, London, Norway and the US.
Ballet teacher Valerie Murray, aged 88, at Edmund Hillary Retirement Village. Photo / Annaleise Shortland
She went to her first ballet class at the Sandringham Tennis Pavilion at the age of 5. It was more of a convenience for the parents, who could drop their kids off at ballet and then play tennis.
For Murray, it unlocked a deeper purpose and would lead to her lifelong dedication to ballet.
She thinks everyone, no matter what age or stage of life, should learn to dance.
At one point in her life, Murray was running seven studios while also looking after five sons. Their large and bustling family had to plan each day around a stream of endless ballet classes.
Valerie Murray, aged 14, says dancing has always been part of her life.
She has never stopped dancing, and now at 88, even after suffering a nasty fall earlier this year she continues to teach her weekly class.
At the Edmund Hillary Retirement Village in Remuera, Murray guides the class mostly sitting down, her body is much shakier since the fall, but she still gives short demonstrations at the front of the room to improve the students’ technique.
The expressions of the dancers are focused and peaceful as they lift and bend in time to Murray’s orders, their slippers scuffing on the wooden floors.
In the corner of the room, William Green plays soft music on the piano in time with Murray’s instructions. He has been playing piano since he was 7 and has been working with ballet dancers for decades.
“Come on, you’re here so you should be happy,” Murray tells the class.
There are occasional bursts of laughter, and the odd groan as Murray asks the group to perform another plié.
When asked how she enjoyed the class, 92-year-old Annette Wilson responds with a gentle smile, “can’t you tell?”
Murray taught both of Wilson’s daughters ballet as teenagers and now coaches their mother with the same keen eye.
“It really is wonderful, I feel so good afterwards. Aren’t we lucky to have her?” Wilson says.
Ballet is often thought of as only suitable for young people because of the strenuous demands on the body of professional dancers.
Ballerinas are incredible athletes, and their fine-tuned muscles are sculpted through rigorous and painful practice. The art form requires dancers to create a picture of flowing elegance and flawless execution without giving away the strain involved.
When asked if she thinks ballet could be intimidating for an older person, Murray dismisses the question.
“No,” she says, “I don’t think so at all.”
In fact, many of the elderly women, or “girls” as Murray calls them, in her class never took ballet lessons when they were younger.
In her classes, no one is asked to go en pointe or perform a difficult leap across the studio, but the principles of elegance and poise remain the same.
It’s a good way for the women to improve their flexibility and balance, as well as helping to slow down some of the progressive decline in muscle mass that happens with old age.
“That’s really my main objective, just to keep them standing in the right position so they’re not having falls and things,” Murray says.
Most of the students don’t come for these reasons, but because they find simple joy in Murray’s classes.
Eighty-two-year-old Alison Sutcliffe says the class is the highlight of her week.
“I feel uplifted,” she says. “All of the girls coming to ballet are in their 70s and 80s – it’s very brave of them.”
Over her 74 years of teaching, Murray has moulded thousands of young girls by showing them how to stand correctly and to hold themselves in a graceful manner.
In 2002, Murray received a Queen’s Service Medal for services to the dance community. Her career in ballet has recently been written about in the book Dancing through my life by Rochelle Sewell of Life Stories NZ.
In her younger years, Murray admits she was a strict teacher, but she has softened with time and is much gentler with her elderly students: “We have a lot of fun”.
As for hanging up her slippers, Murray doesn’t plan to stop until her body forces her to completely give it up.
“Why do I love it? Because it’s part of my life, that’s really what it is,” she says. “ I love it because it’s always been my life.”
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