So many of us go through life with a sense of inevitability that there will come a day when we have to give up many of the things that we enjoy doing on a daily basis. Perhaps it’s this very attitude that often breeds a resentment toward the thought of growing older. But what would life look like if we were able to continue doing the things that we loved to do? If such a life is hard to imagine, allow me to introduce you to beautiful Madame Suzelle Poole, who at 79 years of age still finds herself teaching and performing ballet on a daily basis, just as she has done for decades.
Early Life
Born in 1940 in the midst of World War II, many of Madame Poole’s early memories were shaped by the events of the city around her. Her father worked as an architect for the Ministry of Works in the middle of London, and her mother, fluent in French and English, translated for the war effort. During the days, their nanny would walk young Suzelle and her brother to Kensington Park where they would sit and play in the same little spot every day. Madame Poole still recalls the day when they went on their daily outing, only to find a large crater in the ground where their play spot had once been. Yet despite the violence of the world around them, Madame Poole’s parents still made sure to expose their children to the beauty found in the worlds of art, music and ballet.
Suzelle Poole’s family remained in London until 1946, when they went to visit her paternal grandmother in Canada and ended up staying for ten years. While in Canada, Suzelle’s father designed sets for the opera and taught as a professor at the University of Toronto, and Madame Poole began her training in ballet at age 7.
Houston, Texas
One of the main themes that Madame Poole emphasized in our conversation together was the profound impact that her teachers made upon her. While in Canada, Suzelle Poole studied under Betty Oliphant and Celia Franca, wonderful English teachers who brought her up in the Cecchetti method of ballet. However, after her move to Houston at age 16 (her father was a professor of architecture at the University of Houston and helped design three buildings for NASA), she could no longer find a teacher of this method. It was during this time that she met and began training under Madame Tatiana Semenova, a Russian-born ballet dancer, teacher and founder of the Houston Ballet Academy. Trained by Prima ballerina Mathilde Kschessinska, Madame Semenova’s own dancing career came to an abrupt halt during World War II, when she was severely injured while on tour dancing for the troops throughout Europe.
Despite not being able to perform, Madame Semenova continued to teach. It was she who gave Madame Poole the part of Cupid in Mozart’s ‘Les Petit Riens’ and began training her to teach. She soon became Madame Semenova’s assistant, writing bills, interviewing pianists and teaching children ages 6-11, as well as a few teenagers and adult beginners. Debbie Allen of Fame became one of her early students during these years. During this period in Houston, she performed in Madame Tatiana Semenova’s world premier of Enigma with the Houston Ballet.
Teacher and Performer
A dancer’s performance career is typically rather short-lived. At age 26, when she thought her career with dance was nearly over, Suzelle Poole came to the realization that she did not want to give up her life of performance. Rather than hang up her pointe shoes, she resigned her job as head mistress at a Montessori school in London, and continued on her path as performer and teacher. In the years following this decision, she found herself cast as a fairy godmother alongside John Inman, who played one of the ugly stepsisters, and danced with Nigel Lythgoe in the national tour of ‘The Merry Widow.’
Madame Suzelle Poole met her husband in London, where they were married in 1973. Together, their teaching and performing obligations took them to Germany, Cape Town and eventually to Dallas in 1986, where Madame Poole remains to this day.
On an average day, you will still find Madame Poole hard at work, practicing ballet for one to three hours each day. She has found it important to keep her technique up, as she finds it most useful to be able to demonstrate the moves to her students. She still believes that ballet is the best exercise, helping to build the body and teach discipline in a supportive environment. Recently, Madame Poole took an upper level RAD exam with 13 year old children, taught by Angela Sham, director of the Royale Ballet Dance Academy. She is also currently taking French lessons under the tutelage of Serge Schragin from Paris to help fulfill her lifelong dream of learning to speak French as fluently as her mother. She often dances to her husband’s voice at local nursing homes, performs in recitals alongside her dance partner Daniel De Cordóba, and has published a series of beautiful poems which is available to purchase here (1, 2, 3):
Madame Poole has discovered recent fame, as her story has been featured by the BBC, Ted Talks, Washington Post, and Fox 4 News, among many other features. As an individual who has never stopped doing what she loves to do and teaching others to do the same, she is continuing to inspire future generations. While so many people find themselves giving up many things they love to do with age, she says she believes that “people should always go on with what they want to do.”
Thank you so much, Madame Poole, for sharing your story and for inspiring so many of us by the way you continue to daily go on doing what you love to do.
