10 Facts About Merle Park

Dame Merle Park was born on 8 October 1937 and is a British ballet dancer and teacher, now retired.

Merle Park transferred to the Sadler's Wells Ballet School in London in 1954, and, after only six months of study, was taken into the corps de ballet of the Sadler's Wells Ballet company, soon to be granted a royal charter and renamed The Royal Ballet.

Merle Park made her stage debut as a rat in the retinue of the wicked fairy Carabosse in The Sleeping Beauty, the ballet staged by Ninette de Valois for the reopening of the Royal Opera House in 1946, a year after the end of World War II in Europe.

Merle Park was greatly admired as Giselle, as Cinderella, and, particularly, as Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty.

Merle Park gave more performances of Giselle than any other artiste in the history of the company.

Merle Park gave highly dramatic performances in the title roles of Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet and Manon, set to scores by Serge Prokofiev and Jules Massenet, respectively.

Merle Park toured widely on the international ballet circuit with the Royal Ballet, often dancing with such dynamic partners as Nureyev, Anthony Dowell, and Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Merle Park was a director of the Royal Ballet School in London between 1983 and 1998.

In 1977, while still the senior ballerina of the Royal Ballet, Merle Park opened her own school in London and became a popular teacher, as she was able to imbue her students with the joy of dancing as well as instructing them in the basics and fine points of classical technique.

Merle Park was named Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in the 1974 Queen's Honours List.