Renowned local dance teacher of internationally famed performers Tessa Maunder OAM will be farewelled this week after her death at age 98.
The beloved tutor and choreographer died earlier this month, after a career which spanned four generations.
She tutored a host of performers who went on to global success such as Marilyn Jones OBE, Marilyn Rowe OBE, Robert Curran, Lisa Pavane and Olivia Bell.
She began teaching at her mother's studio in her teens and carried on beyond her 90th birthday. She closed her studio in 1996, but guest taught until her retirement.
Ms Maunder spent much of her life in New Lambton, where her mother's studio was established in 1930, but most recently lived in Merewether's Scenic Lodge.
She didn't have children, but niece Kerrie Ladner said she spoiled her nieces and nephews with extravagant gifts from her global travels.
Those travels took her to London where she learned the Royal Academy of Dance classical ballet syllabus to bring back to her students, New York which added jazz to her repertoire, Russia and much of Europe.
There wasn't a style she didn't try nor a time she wasn't around the performing arts, Ms Ladner said.
Ms Maunder also established a £500 scholarship to the Royal Ballet School in London, first won by Marilyn Jones who went on to become a principal artist with the Borovansky Ballet and later a founding principal of its successor, The Australian Ballet.
"So many of her students have joined The Australian Ballet," Ms Ladner said.
"She has had students all over the world in ballet companies. A lot of them went on to start their own companies.
"Her students were second to none. She was very, very tough and made them tough too."
Her impact on the dance world has been fondly remembered through social media tributes from former students and schools.
"A talented woman whose dedication to the art form set the precedent for dance training in Australia and beyond, she has had profound influence on hundreds of lives," the Royal Academy of Dance Australia shared.
Ms Maunder will be farewelled at St Therese's Church, New Lambton at 10am Friday with a wake to follow at the Duke of Wellington.
