American ballerina Jocelyn Vollmar has died in San Francisco at the age of 92. Born in San Francisco, Vollmar began her dance training aged 12 at San Francisco Ballet School under William Christensen and Gisella Caccialanza. As a student she danced in the first American Coppélia and the first American full-length Swan Lake in 1940. She joined San Francisco Ballet in 1943 and her roles in the following years included the Snow Queen in Nutcracker in 1944, and Myrthe in Giselle in 1947 with guests Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin. In the late 1940s she danced as a principal with New York City Ballet and Ballet Theatre and studied further in Paris with Lubov Egorova and Olga Preobrajenska. She also danced with the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas in the early 1950s.
Vollmar was invited by Edouard Borovansky to come to Australia as ballerina with his Borovansky Ballet for his season beginning in 1954. Her first role with the Borovansky company was the Street Dancer in Le beau Danube where critics praised her ‘talent for mime’ and her ‘spirited dancing.’ Over the course of a two year term with the Borovansky Ballet, Vollmar danced leading roles in all the company’s productions including the classics such as Giselle, Les Sylphides, Nutcracker in a new production by David Lichine, and Swan Lake Act II, and in the Borovansky Ballet’s stagings of the Ballets Russes repertoire including Petrouchka, Les Presages: Fifth Symphony, La Boutique fantasque, Scheherazade and Le beau Danube. Her partners with the Borovansky Ballet included Vassilie Trunoff and Royes Fernandez and fellow principal dancer, Peggy Sager, spoke of the great versatility she brought to the company during her brief time with them.
Vollmar returned to San Francisco when the Borovansky Ballet went into recess in 1956 and, although invited to return to Australia for the next Borovansky season, she decided to stay in her home city. She danced with San Francisco Ballet until 1972. On retirement from performing Vollmar took up teaching and when Helgi Tomasson took over San Francisco Ballet in 1985 he invited her to teach in the company school, where she taught and coached upper division classes until 2005.
Jocelyn Vollmar. Born San Francisco 25 November 1925; died San Francisco 13 July 2018.
Michelle Potter, 8 August 2018
Featured image: Jocelyn Vollmar in the Borovansky production of Symphonie fantastique, 1955. Photo: Walter Stringer
hi Michelle, sadly i can find no footage of Jocelyn Vollmar dancing. do you know if any exists? best, Alex
Thanks for your comment Alex. If you go to the website of the National Film and Sound Archive and key ‘Jocelyn Vollmar’ into the catalogue search box you will retrieve two items, both with the title ‘Borovansky Ballet’. Vollmar is listed as one of the dancers in both cases. I’m afraid I don’t know in which ballet she is performing, or if indeed she really is. There are access copies available for both catalogue entries, but she may just waft past briefly, or she may have a reasonable role. Sorry I can’t be more helpful but it is at least interesting to know that something may exist.