By Carolyn Webb
As a little girl, Anne-Marie Dowling loved to dance, going to weekly classes at Marjorie Clarke's ballet school in Church Street, Brighton.
It was bliss to dress up and perform The Sleeping Beauty and Les Sylphides in concert.
But she was one of five siblings, and so at age 12, the family finances didn't allow her to continue.
She never lost her passion for dance, however. And last year at age 74, she resumed ballet classes.
Anne-Marie Dowling in class with Queensland Ballet artistic director Li Cunxin as part of the Victorian Seniors Festival in Melbourne. Credit: Luis Ascui
A flyer appeared in her letterbox about a seniors' class at the Adult Ballet Centre, a ballet school near her house. It felt like a sign.
‘‘They said, 'no leotards are required, you can come in pyjamas if you want to'."
So now she is one of 15 older women, and a few men, who practise plies, tendus and arabesques in a Parkdale hall. They even do concerts: in August she starred as Myrtha, Queen of the Wilis, in a modified version of Giselle.
‘‘Once I started to remember the steps, it was so exciting,'' she said. "I was a bit sore. But it’s a good sore.’’
Ms Dowling was among 25 older dancers who marked the start of the month-long Victorian Seniors Festival on Sunday by taking a masterclass helmed by former international ballet star Li Cunxin, at the Immigration Museum.
Some admitted they came for a close up glimpse of the handsome and charming Cunxin, 57, who was plucked from poverty in China to train as a dancer, defected to the United States while with the Houston Ballet and then became a principal dancer with the Australian Ballet.
His life story was told in the 2009 movie Mao’s Last Dancer. He is now the artistic director of Queensland Ballet, which just finished a week-long season of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Melbourne and will next month tour China.
Cunxin said seniors’ ballet classes were growing in popularity. Ballet was as good for your brain as a crossword puzzle but it also taught body coordination, balance and strength.
‘‘You might get a bit of muscle soreness in the beginning, but I guarantee that if you persist, you will feel much better," he said.
He said to keep an active mind and body was ‘‘really the key to a healthy life’’.
Anne-Marie Dowling as a girl in Brighton.
Ms Dowling, a grandmother of four, said ballet was strengthening her bones, spine and posture and she had made friends. ‘‘You learn something every time, and it gives you a great feeling of wellbeing.’’
Margaret Green, 75, of Dromana, thanked Cunxin for ‘‘a wonderful experience’’.
She did ballet class as a child in Albury, ‘‘but even today, I remember all those positions’’.
She came to Cunxin’s class ‘‘because I just love ballet. And I’d read all about Li in the book and seen the movie.’’
She said with osteo-arthritis, ‘‘the muscles were a bit creaky’’. But she loved Cunxin’s ‘‘grace and his acceptance of everyone. ‘‘Once, he came and adjusted my fingers, and it was so gentle. It wasn’t condemnatory. I got the feeling, ‘you’re doing well, keep it up’.’’