Obituary: Peggy Sager

Ballerina. Died aged 78.

New Zealand-born ballerina Peggy Sager is remembered for a technical ability that made her an idol of aspiring Australian dancers.

Sager's career flourished with the Borovansky Ballet, the precursor to the Australian Ballet, in the 1940s and 50s.

The National Library of Australia's curator of dance, Michelle Potter, said Sager's place in Australian dance history would be among the front rank of ballerinas.

"There were two leading dancers in the Borovansky Ballet, Peggy Sager and her friend Kathleen Gorham," she said. "They were the stars. They had wonderful techniques and huge followings."

Sager, who was born in Auckland, the youngest of five children, went to Australia in her early teens to continue her ballet training.

Just before crossing the Tasman, she had seen a performance of the acclaimed Covent Garden Russian Ballet on its tour of New Zealand in 1939.

Even though she was told by one of its leading dancers that she was "not a chocolate-box beauty", Sager knew what she wanted to do, and she and her mother got on a boat to Sydney.

Two years later, she joined Australia's first professional ballet company, the Kirsova Ballet, where she developed her technical ability.

From there, she went on to the Borovansky Ballet and toured New Zealand with the company.

Potter said Sager shone in full-length classical works such as Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty.

"It was there that she could use her unfaltering technique to generate a growing sense of excitement that would culminate in technical fireworks at the end of the ballet.

"For many young Australian dancers, Peggy Sager was the idol."

Sager also danced with the London-based Metropolitan Ballet and the Brussels Opera before rejoining the Borovansky.

She is survived by her two children, two grandchildren and a brother, Kenneth, in New Zealand.

- NZPA