1970 At 19, I joined the Royal Ballet School under Eileen Ward. Since we weren’t being groomed for the Royal Ballet, we worked as extras at Covent Garden — a thrill to be on stage in Coppélia with Princess Margaret in the audience, or backstage during Norma with Joan Sutherland. My scholarship ended after two terms, so I joined an opera ballet company in Linz, Austria.

Earlier in London, I had met with Phil O’Reilly, and after Austria, we started making bespoke jeans just as denim as a fashion took off. I actually stopped dancing and spent five years making jeans and travelling the world.

So our Black Sheep Jeans was the first collaboration between Phil and I—our made-to-measure denim label. We started making jeans privately in London, then carried the concept to Tucson, Arizona in 1972.

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1973 / 74 After an epic overland journey through North Africa, Afghanistan, India and South East Asia, we returned to New Zealand.

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1974 we had a stall at Cook Street Market, where every Friday we sold out of the denim garments we’d designed and made throughout the week.

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1975  we sold Black Sheep Jeans to Hugh Lynn (music promoter) and hit the road again—this time through Mexico and the U.S., pausing in San Francisco where I studied Cunningham technique.

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1976 We returned to New Zealand, I started the Dance Spectrum studio and it didn’t take long before a group of dedicated dancers—who would later form Limbs—began attending classes. We also would all attend Russell Kerr’s ballet classes at his studio just behind the St James Theatre - where the Auckland Central Library now stands

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1976 / 77, the Porangahau Choreographic Workshop took place, initiated by Impulse Dance Company. Out of that, when we returned to Auckland, Limbs Dance Company was born.

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See Marianne Schultz’s book - 

Limbs Dance Company: Dance For All People, 1977-1989 ​

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1977 Limbs was like a comet—burning brightly across the sky from 1977 to 1989.
I was honored and delighted to be part of that journey for the first ten years (1977–86). What a time.

I loved dancing, and discovered I had a talent for choreographing. I was ready to give everything—the sweat, the late nights, the hard work—just for the chance to dance and perform.​

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We soared through incredible highs and pushed through some tough times. But always, the passion for the art of dance and our desire to share this with our audiences kept us going.

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1977 / 78  Performances at Nambassa and Sweetwater festivals and a Student Arts Council tour of NZ campuses cemented our popularity.​

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1979 The poster of us all is from our first sold out tour to Australia - Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide. We danced at the Sydney Opera House in a shared programme with Sydney Dance Company, ADT, and others. The Limbs part of the programme included premieres of my work Games and Busy by Chris Jannides. ​​