We were delighted to welcome Ms Jan Bolwell ONZM and Ms Terry MacTavish MNZM to assembly on Monday to present the 2020 Distinguished Alumnae Awards after the presentation had to be delayed last year.

Both women have led distinguished careers in the arts and they inspired students with their messages around creating their own pathways. There were plenty of laughs as anecdotes of their time at the College were shared. Thank you, Jan and Terry, for taking the time to visit us.

Ms Jan Bolwell

Ms Jan Bolwell is a playwright, performer, choreographer, and dance theatre leader/educator. She established the dance programme at Dunedin College of Education and was senior lecturer, later holding the role of head of performing arts at Wellington College of Education (1987 – 97). Ms Bolwell has also been a board member of various dance advisory committees, including NZQA and the Arts Council.

In 1998, she started writing plays and in 1999 she founded, and still directs, Crows Feet Dance Collective for mature women. Ms Bolwell produces her own plays via her own theatre company that she established in 2001. This was to have brought her 7th play to Dunedin for Fringe Festival in March 2020 (Welcome to the Death Café) but unfortunately that could not go ahead due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In November 2015, Ms Bolwell was awarded the writer’s residency at the Robert Lord Writer’s Cottage in Dunedin to write a play about Freda du Faur, the first woman to climb Mount Cook Aoraki in 1910 and Lydia Bradley, the first woman to scale Mount Everest solo and without oxygen. 'Taking the High Ground’ premiered at Bats Theatre Wellington in 2017.

Ms Bolwell was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to dance and theatre in the 2020 New Year Honours.

Ms Terry MacTavish

Ms Terry MacTavish studied dance with her mother, Shona Dunlop MacTavish, and started her professional acting career with the Southern Players and later the Fortune Theatre. Each year, as well as directing theatre, she has played lead roles in plays by NZ writers like Renee, as well as in classics by Shakespeare, Sheridan, Chekhov, Ibsen, Shaw, Euripides, Wilde, Coward, Pinter and many others. Ms MacTavish was honoured with the NZ Theatre Industry’s Silver Award for 50+ Professional Productions.

Ms MacTavish gained her Masters in Theatre Studies at Lancaster University, was guest lecturer at Victoria and Otago Universities, and taught Drama and English at Queen’s High School for 47 years, where at various times she was Head of Drama, English and Aesthetics. She was Drama Advisor to the Ministry of Education and a member of the national panels that rewrote the Arts Curriculum and created the NCEA Drama Curriculum.

Ms MacTavish represented New Zealand in London at the Shakespeare Globe Centre for ‘Teachers Go Global 2013’ and since then her students have regularly formed part of NZ’s Young Shakespeare Company to act at London’s Globe Theatre. She has performed and reviewed for television, film, radio, and the Theatreview website. She is a founding member of the Dunedin Reviewers Collective and co-sponsor of the Dunedin Theatre Awards.

Ms MacTavish was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to theatre and education in the 2019 New Year Honours.

We congratulate Ms Bolwell and Ms MacTavish on being appointed Distinguished Alumnae of Columba College.

We are grateful to Maia Robertson, Year 13, for capturing the day in these photographs.