In early 2016, by way of a Victoria Foundation grant, Dance Victoria hired University of Victoria MA candidate, Elizabeth Bassett, to work on the SVIDA collection alongside the existing volunteer Archives Committee at Dance Victoria. Her primary focus was to interview several key women in South Vancouver Island’s dance history to make sure we preserved their stories. Elizabeth gained great insight from the ever-growing archives collection at SVIDA, and from the Archives Committee, which helped prepare her for her interviews with several local dance legends including: Velda Wille Scobie, Bebe de Roland Eversfield, and Vivian Briggs Love.
The interviews and Elizabeth’s writings were so impressive that Dance Victoria published a limited edition book, Dancing on the Island – Six Women Who Shaped Dance on South Vancouver Island, Canada.
All chapters are available in this online Community Dance Archives by clicking the ”related links” above.
Book cover for Dancing on the Island, 2016. Wynne Shaw student Anna-Marie Holmes dancing in Giselle. Photo: H. Rogers
Elizabeth Bassett. Photo: Jordanne Toews
Dorothy Wilson Forster c1913
Florence Clough (second from left) attending a Royal Academy of Dance workshop taught by Mara McBirney. Photographer unknown.
Wynne Shaw. Photo: Ken McAllister
Velda Wille
Bebe de Roland Eversfield in the musical Follow the Girls (Australia 1946). Photographer unknown.
Vivian Briggs Love, 1958
- Date of Submission: 2022-02-01
- Updated: 2024-01-16