Jacqueline Robinson, who died in Paris recently after courageously enduring a long illness which left her paralysed, played a pioneering role in the history of modern dance in Ireland.
She is, of course, better known as the founder of L'Atelier de la Danse in Paris, the first school in France to offer professional training in modern dance. She is also known as the author of many books on dance, of which at present only Modern Dance in France exists in the English language. She also translated the famous German dancer, choreographer and teacher Mary Wigman's Language of Dance into French. Indeed, she studied with Mary Wigman and was greatly influenced by her.
In her Modern Dance in Dublin in the 1940s, due for publication shortly, Robinson gives a fascinating account of her years in Ireland. She tells how her family left Paris in 1941 - she was partly Jewish on her father's side - and made their home in Dublin's Upper Leeson Street. An accomplished pianist, she became accompanist to the Irish School of Dance at 39 Harcourt Street (over the flat of the future film director and archivist Liam O'Leary).
The school had been founded by German-born (but half-Irish) Erina Brady, who had herself studied with both Rudolf von Laban and Wigman, and Robinson soon changed her role from that of accompanist to become one of Brady's two star pupils, along with June Fryer. The many performances of works choreographed by Brady and starring these two would astonish those who believe contemporary dance only arrived in Ireland with Terez Nelson in the 1970s.
Productions took place at both the Abbey and the Peacock, including several collaborations with the poet Austin Clarke and his Lyric Theatre Company. Apart from these, the most notable production was possibly The Voyage of Maeldune (1946), adapted from Tennyson, which subsequently transferred to the Rudolf Steiner Hall in London. Towards the end of 1946, however, having obtained a degree in History of Art at Trinity while at the same time pursuing her dancing career, Robinson returned to Paris, where she worked as dancer, choreographer and teacher and married the writer Octave Gelinier. In October 1999 she was made a Chevalier des Arts et Lettres.
She also wrote poetry, mainly in French. She became a close friend of the great French poet and dramatist Jean Cocteau, so it is fitting that she was laid to rest close to his tomb in the cemetery at Milly-laForet.
Modern Dance in Dublin in the 1940s by Jacqueline Robinson will appear in Choreography and Dance, an International Journal, due from Harwood Publishers in February.
