Mary Emma Skeaping MBE (15 December 1902 – 9 February 1984) was an English ballerina who is better known as a ballet teacher, director, choreographer, and producer.

"[20] When Skeaping was born the family lived at Kersal Villa, Malmsbury Road, South Woodford, Essex, quite close to Epping Forest, where the children went daily for walks with their father.

[20] When Skeaping attended at a local dance class with her brother John and sister Sally, the instructor said that their mother should take them up to London for instruction.

[20] Skeaping was still in Woodford in 1905, but had moved to Cliftonville, Warren Road, Bexleyheath, London, by the time of the 1911 census, and stayed there until at least 1918.

By 1929 the electoral register shows Skeaping, living with her parents and eldest brother Kenneth at 2 Eton College Road[note 9], in Camden, London.

[20] While Skeaping's initial ballet training was with Francesca Zanfretta, she also studied with most of the great teachers of the era including Laurent Novikov, Leonide Massine, Seraphina Astafieva, Stanislas Idzikowski, Lubov Egorova, Vera Trefilova and Margaret Craske.

[33]: 1299  Browse said that Skeaping's "approach to her dancing was matter-of-fact and workmanlike but tinged with a wry bump of humour.

"[35]: 35 While her obituary in The Times states that Skeaping worked in South Africa during the Second World War,[29][note 15] she returned from there in September 1939,[26] and spend the next three years touring the UK with Anna Ivanova of the Ballets Russes and performances as far afield as Perth, Scotland[40] and St. Ives, Cornwall.

They then extended this to tours of the armed forces, and had performed in ships, in air-raid shelters, and in barracks and billets.

[42] [note 16] Skeaping was still was still working in England up to November 1942, when she performed in a concert at Cambridge in aid of the Civilian Nurses Air Raid Victims' Fund.

[43] Her obituary in The Stage states that she went to teach in South Africa during the Second World War, as does the Encyclopedia of Ballet.

[44][31][note 17] Skeaping was definitely back in England in January 1946 as she gave a lecture at the Chichester Ballet Club in West Sussex then.

[29] She was, together with Anna Ivanova, a technical advisors for the film The Little Ballerina by Mary Field Productions.

In 1951 she was responsible for The Sleeping Beauty for the BBC, the first live transmission of a full-length classical ballet on television.

[1] She used her knowledge of late sixteenth-century dance to choreograph a long and striking sequence for the film Anne of the Thousand Days (1970) in which Richard Burton played Henry VIII.