Includes index. Dame Margaret (Peggy) van Praagh (1910–1990), ballet dancer, producer, director, teacher and administrator, was born on 1 September 1910 at Hampstead, London. In 1960 van Praagh received an invitation from Australia to act as artistic director of the Borovansky Ballet, following the death of its founder. After her one-year term with the company, she returned to Europe where she took up the post of professor of dance with the Grand Ballet de Marquis de Cuevas in Paris, and taught Rudolf Nureyev. In 1962, with the support of the Australian government, van Praagh became the founding artistic director of the Australian Ballet. The company opened its first season on 2 November 1962 with Swan Lake at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Sydney, starring the guest artists Erik Bruhn and Sonia Arova. The vibrant new company had as principals Marilyn Jones, Kathleen Gorham and Garth Welch, and it developed a repertoire quite different from Borovansky’s. From 1965 to 1974, until her retirement, van Praagh shared the artistic directorship with Helpmann. She returned in 1978 as sole artistic director for that year.