The McDonald College

Photo: Margaret Markham in the centre (1940)

In 1926 a young Scottish migrant named Ann McDonald began teaching dance in Sydney. The decision was both practical and quietly radical. She wanted to study opera singing and needed a way to pay for the lessons, so she opened a dance school. It was an act of determination that seems simple now but, in the context of the time, was extraordinary. Women did not easily establish businesses, manage finances, or build institutions in their own name. Many could not even open a bank account independently. Yet from that modest beginning the foundations of what would become The McDonald College were laid.

Ann McDonald arrived in Australia from Scotland in 1912 as a twelve-year-old, brought by her mother with several siblings in tow. It was a migration story shaped by resilience. The absence of a father figure meant that the family relied heavily on the resolve of women who were navigating a society that offered them few formal opportunities. That environment forged a kind of practical independence which later became embedded in the philosophy of the school she created. In 1926 she established the Ann McDonald College of Dancing, initially to generate income, yet it quickly grew into something larger, a centre where dance was organised, structured and treated as an educational pursuit rather than simply a recreational pastime.

Ann McDonald was not only a teacher but also a leader within the emerging dance community. She became the first president of the Federal Association of Teachers of Dancing, while her husband Jack Butt, a gentle physical education teacher, served as treasurer. The pairing reflected the dual nature of the enterprise, artistic passion supported by strong administrative structure. Even in those earliest years the emphasis was on discipline, education and respect for dance as a craft.

Her daughter Margaret Markham inherited both the passion and the drive. Born in 1935, Margaret grew up immersed in dance during wartime Australia, watching her mother maintain a thriving community through Friday night social dances that were strictly run, no alcohol, no smoking, and no wandering in and out once the evening had begun. The dances were lively but structured, reflecting the belief that dance could be both joyful and ordered.

When Ann and Jack retired in 1970, Margaret took over the school. The ballroom tradition remained part of its identity, but she saw that classical ballet was emerging as the area of greatest growth and possibility. Under her leadership the focus shifted toward serious ballet training. It was not an abandonment of the past but an evolution. Margaret herself had trained broadly across styles, including early modern work with the formidable Madame Gertrud Bodenwieser, and she understood that dance was constantly changing.

Into this world stepped Maxine Kohler. Arriving in Australia from New Zealand as a teenager, she initially resisted returning to ballet. Jazz dance at school seemed far more appealing. Yet that decision ultimately brought her into contact with Ann Butt, Margaret’s sister, who recognised the ballet training beneath the surface and directed her to the Croydon studios where Margaret was teaching. That introduction set in motion a partnership that would shape the future of the college.

In 1973 Maxine Kohler and former Australian Ballet Soloist, Ann Fraser joined Margaret Markham as partners in the Ann McDonald College of Dancing. It was an extraordinary alliance of three women determined to build something that did not yet exist in Australia, a school where high-level dance training could coexist with a full academic education. Their collaboration was forged in a period when women in business were still treated as anomalies. The legislation allowing women to open a bank account without a male guarantor would not arrive until the mid-nineteen seventies. Yet here were three women establishing a professional enterprise in a male dominated world.

The idea that ultimately defined the college emerged in the early nineteen eighties. Margaret Markham had a vision inspired by schools such as Elmhurst Ballet School, where students could pursue intensive daily dance training without abandoning academic studies. At the time many young dancers were withdrawing from school at twelve or thirteen to train full time. Margaret believed that was a dangerous compromise. Adolescents, she argued, could not sustain six or eight hours of physical work every day while their bodies were still growing. More importantly, they needed intellectual development alongside artistic discipline.

The school that opened in 1984 embodied that philosophy. Ballet classes ran from eight thirty in the morning until recess. Then the studio floors were transformed. Tables and chairs appeared and the dance studios became classrooms for Mathematics, English and Science. The arrangement was improvised but effective. Children could pursue their artistic ambition while remaining connected to a broader education and social world.

Those early years demanded extraordinary ingenuity. The original base was at Enfield, but the academic expansion soon outgrew the available spaces. Classes spilled into nearby buildings. The calisthenics room at the Enfield swimming pool became one classroom. A room in the local RSL became another. Even the Electrolux building down the road hosted students. It was a patchwork campus held together by determination.

Maxine Kohler (pictured above) was everywhere during this period. She taught classes, managed accounts, paid salaries, wrote invoices and juggled administration while caring for a newborn baby. Her son Terry was born in January 1984 and attended the very first school assembly nine days later. It was an era when the lines between personal life and professional commitment simply disappeared.

Property became the key to the school’s stability. Leasing studios was never enough. Ownership meant security, permanence and the ability to shape the environment around the students. In 1985 the opportunity arose to purchase a property at Beresford Road in Strathfield, once the home of the Arnott family. The move was far from straightforward. The school was briefly evicted the day after moving in, forced to return to Enfield before negotiations were resolved. Eventually the purchase went through, and the students were bused between locations for dance and academic classes, teachers following the bus while watching the students hurriedly fixing their hair into ballet buns on the journey.

One of the most beloved buildings in the college’s history was the old train shed at number one Beresford Road. It was a vast industrial structure beside the railway line that seemed perfect for studios. The trains roared past so closely that classes sometimes paused while the walls rattled. The roof leaked whenever it rained heavily. Downpipes carried torrents of water across the floor. And at night, during performances, the audience occasionally noticed another group of spectators.

The rats lived in the roof beams.

They rarely appeared during the day, but during evening shows the dancers would glance up and see them watching from the rafters as though attending the performance. Their presence became part of the folklore of the school. The building had character, Maxine Kohler recalls, the sort of character that students remember decades later with affection.

Photo: Ballet rehearsal (1987)

Growth continued. Adjacent buildings were acquired, including a small residential apartment block fronting on to Homebush Road that was converted into classrooms. Students could walk through back entrances between properties as the school slowly assembled its own campus across multiple sites. The guiding principle was always the same, the wellbeing of the students came first. If that meant purchasing another building to make the journey between academic and dance classes easier, then that was the decision.

Behind the scenes Margaret Markham was negotiating constantly with councils, banks and politicians. It was work that demanded both persistence and courage. On one occasion when a bank attempted to close the school, she and the chairman simply sat in the bank office and refused to leave until they were granted a meeting with senior executives. The strategy worked. Tenacity was not optional when building a performing arts institution run entirely by women in a male dominated financial system.

Photo: Margaret Markham backstage (1980)

By 1997 the collection of properties had become too fragmented. The train shed leaked, the campuses were scattered, and the college needed a permanent home under one roof. Through a chance connection with a property manager at Telstra, the partners discovered a potential site in North Strathfield. Although Telstra had no immediate intention to sell, Margaret Markham convinced them otherwise. The purchase went ahead and in 1999 the college moved into the buildings that still houses it today.

For the students the change was transformative. For the first time the entire school operated as a unified campus. Dance studios, classrooms and rehearsal spaces existed side by side. “Now we are a real school,” one student remarked at the time.

While ballet remained central to the college’s identity, the philosophy of nurturing talent across disciplines soon expanded the curriculum. A broader dance stream developed in the mid nineteen eighties, followed by acting, music and later musical theatre. In 2014 tennis was added as another high-performance pathway, recognising that elite athletes face the same challenge as dancers, balancing daily training with academic demands.
Yet the core philosophy has remained remarkably consistent. The McDonald College exists to nurture young people whose talents may set them apart from their peers. They arrive with ambitions and anxieties, often unsure where they belong. Within the school they find a community that understands their discipline and supports their intellectual growth alongside their artistic development.

Photo: Sienna Micallef and Oriel Santoso (2023)

Maxine Kohler often describes those students as special in the most generous sense of the word. They are children with strong passions, unusual commitments and extraordinary potential. Watching them discover their tribe is the reward that has sustained the college for decades.

The legacy of the women who built the institution is unmistakable. Ann McDonald’s bold decision in 1926 created the spark. Margaret Markham’s vision transformed a dance school into a pioneering educational model. Ann Fraser embodied the quiet discipline of the ballet tradition. Maxine Kohler brought organisational precision and financial acumen that kept the enterprise functioning through its most precarious years.

Together they built something that few would have imagined possible at the time, a performing arts college led by women whose authority was earned through determination, intellect and relentless belief in the value of education.

Photo: Coppelia (2025)

Looking back across the decades, Maxine Kohler sometimes laughs at the memory of train sheds, leaking roofs and nocturnal audiences of rats watching performances from the rafters. Yet those stories carry the spirit of the college’s beginnings. It was never polished or effortless. It was built through hard work, stubborn belief and the quiet power of women who refused to accept the limits placed upon them.

Today the campus at Strathfield stands as the physical expression of that legacy. Within its studios young dancers still practise their pliés, actors rehearse scenes, musicians prepare for performances and students move between rehearsals and academic classes just as Margaret Markham once envisioned.

Photo: Head of Dance BJ Rorke (2026)

The difference is that what began as a daring idea held together by determination has become one of Australia’s most distinctive educational institutions, proof that formidable female leadership can reshape both the arts and the lives of the young people who pass through its doors.