Dr Anna Meadmore awarded The Royal Ballet Governors’ Gold Medal at Opera Holland Park
On Tuesday 7 July, Dr Anna Meadmore, Manager of Special Collections, was awarded with The Royal Ballet Governors’ Gold Medal on the Opera Holland Park stage. The medal was presented by Jeanetta Laurence OBE, Governor and Vice Chair of the Royal Ballet Companies, alongside Isabel McMeekan and Alexander Whitley, both Royal Ballet Governors, and Jackie Mistry, Honorary Secretary of The Royal Ballet Governors.
The annual awarding of the prestigious Gold Medal recognises the outstanding contribution of an unsung hero or heroine of the Royal Ballet companies. It has been awarded to a wide range of individuals for their work whether onstage, backstage, in the orchestra pit, in administration or otherwise.
In Jeanetta’s citation, she said, ‘Dr Anna Meadmore has dedicated her life to preserving, interpreting and sharing the heritage of ballet in Britain. As a dancer, teacher, historian, curator and archivist, she has made an indelible contribution to the nation’s cultural record and to the education of countless students at The Royal Ballet School.’
The award came as a complete surprise to Anna, who was sitting alongside her Royal Ballet School colleagues during the Summer Performance dress rehearsal interval. Following the evening, Anna shared in an email to the School, ‘Thank you to everyone who has been so kind and congratulatory. I am hugely honoured and very delighted – and still slightly disbelieving!’
Anna trained at Elmhurst Ballet School and The Royal Ballet School (Teachers’ Training Course 1988-91), later gaining an MA in Dance from the University of Surrey. In 1994, she joined the School’s staff as an academic teacher and curator-manager of the School’s Special Collections. Anna was a major contributor to Ninette de Valois: Adventurous Traditionalist (Cave & Worth. Dance Books, 2012); and co-edited with Prof. Richard Cave Robert Helpmann: the Many Faces of a Theatrical Dynamo (Dance Books, 2018). She has contributed chapters to Jennifer Jackson’s Ballet, the Essential Guide (Crowood Press, 2021), and to Jackson’s forthcoming volume on the ballet scores of Arthur Bliss (Unicorn, 2026).
In 2017, Anna was awarded an Arts and Humanities Research Council TECHNE Scholarship; her doctoral thesis examined how Ninette de Valois’s philosophical convictions and creative ambitions shaped an ethos for ballet in England, 1925-1934 (awarded by Royal Holloway, University of London, 2024). She is currently writing a book about the early life and work of Ninette de Valois.
Anna recently produced a series of Centenary Insight Days, exploring the past, present and future of the School and its place in the wider cultural landscape through performance, student demonstrations and varied presentations. The events included live repertoire performances by our Upper School students, featuring Anna’s recreation of Dame Ninette de Valois’ The Arts of the Theatre (1925).
Congratulations to Anna on this well-deserved award!
Photos by Aimee Tregunno
Catja Christensen is the Marketing and Communications Executive at The Royal Ballet School and joined the School in 2025. She enjoys interviewing students, staff and guest artists for news stories and crafting eye-catching newsletters.
