Penney, Jennifer

Jennifer Penney Photos

Jennifer Penney Biography

Notable: Born 1946; Royal Ballet

Jennifer Penney was born in 1946 in Vancouver, Canada. She studied with Gweneth Lloyd and Betty Farrally in British Columbia and at the Royal Ballet School 1962-63. She joined the Royal Ballet in 1963 and became principal in 1970. She was a dancer with exquisite proportions and extraordinary fluidity. She danced all the classical ballerina roles and was the ideal MacMillan heroine shining as Manon, Mary Vetsera and Juliet. Much of the choreography for Manon was created on Penney since Antoinette Sibley was partly ill during the rehearsal period. She was much praised in Russia when the Royal Ballet tour there in 1987.

She created roles in MacMillans Seven Deadly Sins in 1973, Elite Syncopations in 1974, Four Seasons in 1975, La Fin du jour in 1979, Gloria in 1980, and Orpheus in 1982, van Manen’s Four Schumann Pieces in 1975, and Neumeier’s Fourth Symphony in 1977.

She retired from Covent Garden in 1988 and returned to her native British Columbia.