In mid September 2023 I received information that contradicts a paragraph contained in the first and second editions of Cranko the Man and his Choreography (page 299). This information, regarding a letter from ten German dancers in the Stuttgart Ballet was drawn, with John Percival’s personal permission, from his 1983 biography of Cranko, Theatre in my Blood (pages 211-212).
I have now established that the wording of the letter quoted in the newspaper Stuttgarter Zeitung on 2 April 1971 (not 1969) was not written solely as a plea for the employment of more German dancers. It was, in fact, written in a spirit of solid support for the expansion of the Theatre’s ballet school (two years later to become the John Cranko School). I apologise for any hurt caused to the named dancers.
Ashley Killar, October 2023