“Chancellor, Vice-chancellor, Your Worship, Members of the Council, Academic Staff,

Graduates, proud parents, and friends: I feel deeply honoured to accept this Doctorate of Literature, and wish to thank the University of Otago for its vision, and indeed its courage, in awarding this to one who represents Dance. 

I am frightfully proud to be standing today in front of you new graduates who have achieved so much and are about to achieve so much more. My whole message to you is : live fully. You have been given the means to do so, now seize every opportunity. I am not advocating setting fire to furniture in Hyde St, but by all means light bonfires ~ bonfires of the spirit, bonfires to light the way for others. Dance and her sister arts have been my gateway, leading me on a road of unceasing discovery. It is for you to seek out your own path. 

Now I know that there will be many among you who have taken little interest in moving the body except to improve your image or master a skill in a specific sport. The purpose for training the body has been to achieve that goal or win that race. I wonder if the body, mind and spirit ever fuse together in such activities? I would rather we followed what the Chinese call Chi, where the energy of the body is not built into muscle and aggression, but to a surrender of these things. Yet New Zealanders have for generations conformed to a public expectation of competitiveness and aggression in movement Sport, rather than art.

Although we live in a land ~ and city ~ of great opportunity, we retain a deadly conformity in the midst of our much-vaunted freedom and individualism. Each one of you here is unique ~ you are different from those seated next to you. There is only one of you in the whole world. Yet the desire for peer-approval often negates your singularity. You tend to stay with the crowd, emulate their speech, their fashion, and their passions. This rigid conformity breeds intolerance and distrust of those who are different. Let’s try for greater artistic and spiritual growth. This is not to forget the past, which we do need to inform the future, but we must not become slaves to accepted knowledge, carrying it about with us in little boxes ~ books or laptops, perhaps? 

I do not believe the truth lies in any fixed position, but in the quest for a wider vision of life, and in discovering fresh insights into the mystery of the universe. It is the Arts that foster the creative power to make this a real possibility. I think you graduates are most fortunate. You have earned university degrees, through hard work, discipline and possibly a measure of good luck! I was less fortunate. I did not achieve your academic successes because my education from the age of fourteen did not follow the usual channels. My father and grandfather, both professors at this university, might not have approved of my unorthodox education, because they were men of their time. They would have been amazed to see the Dance being recognised in this way. Indeed theologians (as they both were) once maintained that the Devil was the patron of Dance! 

Yet ours was an unconventional family. We did things differently. In 1926 my father owned the only steam-car in New Zealand. Can you imagine the embarrassment of a car that belched smoke and flames from its rear? Cyclists would speed alongside yelling, “Your car’s on fire!” and on one memorable occasion we were chased by a fire brigade and hosed without warning. The scene of Prof Frank Dunlop and family emerging from their car dripping wet inevitably became a stock item in the annual Capping Concert. My mother too was unusual – the daughter of a Dipton farmer, who when her husband died, decided to take both her younger children to the Continent to pursue their chosen subjects in some of Europe’s most cultured capitals. I suspect my workload was almost as heavy as yours ~ each day four hours of language study, three hours of music, and four to six hours of dancing, with any spare time devoted to history and art.

Later experiences in many lands as wife of a missionary furthered my enrichment and sense of cosmic wonder; and it was Music, Dance, Drama and Ritual that gave me the power to connect, to make whole the tapestry of life ~ the Arts not a fringe, but its very centre. And now I must admonish you to work hard and succeed in your chosen careers. That is of course what your families and teachers want for you, but too often success is measured in terms of wealth and material possessions. We know in our hearts they are not the answer. I have lived in many societies that trampled on human rights and idealism Hitler’s Europe, Mao’s China, and the South Africa of Apartheid. In such societies no one is successful, no one wins. It amuses me to recall that when, under apartheid, the blacks were forced out to far-flung ‘homelands’, Baas suddenly found himself without servants. The whites had to struggle in primitive kitchens, with few domestic appliances, to cook their own meals, and clean up afterwards. So even in terms of petty self-interest apartheid required rethinking! 

Naturally many of you here today will leave these shores to experience other cultures, or return to your own. Remember your origins, and the special qualities of your own land, but respect the values and tenets of other faiths you encounter. Such ventures into other cultures can only be enrichment to your own. To me the successful people are the ones with love in their hearts, appreciating the beauty of other cultures and fighting for the freedom of all. Like Nietzsche I would say, “I love the man (or woman!) who creates higher than himself, even perishing in this way”. I have danced in many countries and many strange venues. In bull arenas, hospitals, theatres, prisons, city squares, gypsy caves, vast cathedrals and tiny chapels, at prestigious conferences, with isolated tribal people, and on board ship.

I have danced at Thai Buddhist seances, by the shores of Galilee and the gates of Damascus. I have danced for celebration and I have danced for revolution. As a heroine of mine, the revolutionary expressive dancer Isadora Duncan, declared, “A free spirit can live only in a freed body!” I feel sorry for those who have never experienced the power Dance gives to stimulate the body and fire the mind in one act ~ to draw people of diverse cultures and backgrounds together and to give an insight into the mind of God. In the past, Dance has been undervalued, perhaps because of its ephemeral quality. Education today sees all the Arts as essential, which is truly exciting. Otago University should be proud of having been the first in the country to introduce Dance into the curriculum of the School of Physical Education, and later to incorporate Dance in the Performing Arts degree. This is enlightenment; this is vision! 

I feel passionate about Dance and I apologise for obliging you to listen to my passion, but I hope that as I sought the Tao or Way in my life, you too will trust your body, your senses, your instinct, your heart. All life is discovery. All depends on the way you perceive and then respond to life’s unexpected joys and sorrows. Even at my great age I find life wonderful. I am sure you too will revel in its challenges. As I tell my dancers: reach beyond yourself, and the movement will take on a life of its own. You are a bead in the necklace of life~ string it well ~ and sparkle when the sun shines!”

Dr Shona Dunlop MacTavish MBE

Shona’s Legacy Dances On

By Lyne Pringle

Article first published in Dance Aotearoa New Zealand magazine

Dec 2017