Colleen Scott

Colleen Scott (1945 - 2021) was born in Durban, South Africa, and received her basic dance training with Eileen Keegan in Durban. After a first engagement with the PACT Ballet Company in Johannesburg, she completed two more years of study at the Royal Ballet School in London and then began her real career in 1967 with the Ballet of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf under Erich Walter. Here she also met her husband Ivan Liška, with whom she would later have two sons. It was under Erich Walter that she began to develop into one of the most distinguished and creative ballerinas of her generation. In 1974 Colleen Scott moved to Munich to dance for the Ballet of the Bavarian State Opera. In 1977 she started to work with John Neumeier in Hamburg. Neumeier created a whole series of roles for her that will remain associated with her name, including Dulcinea in his Don Quixote, Ginevra in the Arthurian Saga or Celia in As you like it. In addition, she danced the great classical leading roles in Swan Lake or Sleeping Beauty and was also convincing as a dramatic ballerina in the Cranko and Neumeier masterpieces from Onegin and The Taming of the Shrew to Lady of the Camellias, A Midsummer Night's Dream and A Streetcar Named Desire. Ivan Liška's appointment as director of the Bayerisches Staatsballett in Munich in 1996 opened up another career for her for two decades. As a training master with a very determined attitude grounded in the English school, she made a decisive contribution to the dance profile of the Bayerisches Staatsballett. As ballet master and coach, she was able to pass on her experience with the great dramatic roles as well as her imprint from working with legendary modern choreographers from Gerhard Bohner to Hans van Manen. Most recently, her experience benefited the Bayerisches Junior Ballett in Munich. Here she played a decisive role in the rehearsal of Gerhard Bohner's Triadic Ballet, which she co-created in 1977. Only a few days before her unexpected death, she had worked with the young dancers of the Bayerisches Junior Ballett on an example of Isadora Duncan's style.