South Africa. 15 December 1937

CAPE Argus, Cape Town, South Africa

15 December 1937

Greek Dance Examination; Miss Hodson to Adjudicate

I am unclear as to whether Miss Lesley Hodson was born in England or in South Africa. It seems that she may have been born in England, and moved to South Africa as an adult. I am lead to believe this from the line in this newspaper article which states that she had been in South Africa for two years.

In any case, Lesley Hodson was returning from South Africa in order to adjudicate the grade examinations in Greek dancing. As well as being expert in Classical Greek Dance, Miss Hodson was also a Fellow of the Institute of Mime, and examined mime as well as Greek dance.

The newspaper article also says that Miss Hodson taught at (among other places) the Central School from 1933-1935.

I would guess that Lesley Hodson was also a Ginner-Mawer Old Girl. Either way, if she was a Fellow of the Institute of Mime, she would be well versed in the Irene Mawer Method of Mime – so it follows that when she taught mime at Central, she was presumably teaching the Irene Mawer Method, or something closely based on it.

Irene Mawer’s undoubted influence on the world of drama teaching is not well known, so please help others to find out about her by sharing this post.  Also, comments and likes help the algorithms to find her in Google searches.  Thank you.