Article September 24, 2007 Issue

TEACHING CHILDREN TO SOAR

T.L.

Shortly after Donald McAlpine arrived in Britain from New Zealand, a teenage ballet student from Dublin also made her way to London. Phyllida Porter came to study under Harcourt Algeranoff in Anna Pavlova's ballet company. A few years later, two dancing careers and two lives lived with a spiritual core would intersect, and become intertwined.

As a new student at the Festival Ballet, Phyllida found out that Don, a more senior dancer, was also a student of Christian Science. Phyllida liked Don's "very approachable" manner, and when he joined the new dancers for a post-performance snack, she let slip to him that she was boarding with a Christian Scientist. The rest, as they say, is 50 years of history — of marriage and music, dancing and domestic duties, of a family raised, and challenges faced and overcome together.

In her short career as a dancer, Phyllida performed at venues such as Glyndebourne and the London Palladium, as well as touring Latin America with the Alicia Alonso Ballet Company (now the Cuban National Ballet). Once when their dance company was deserted by their impresario and stranded without financial support in Buenos Aires, young Phyllida used the extra time to pray about God's protection and love for her and the others in the company. The situation was resolved when the President of Argentina requested the company to perform for a whole week in place of a scheduled opera, and then provided his own yacht to take them out of the country. The company went on to tour Chile, Uruguay, and Brazil before Phyllida returned to Britain.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Lessons from the Rwandan genocide