Jocelyn Terrell Allen

Jocelyn Terell Allen became a dancer with the National Ballet Company in 1956 at the age of sixteen. She danced for the first time, as a member of the corps de ballet, in the Carter-Baron Amphitheatre in Washington, DC., studied dance in New York and London as a member of the Company, and became a principal dancer in the fall of 1963. She danced for half her life and then a series of injuries forced her to have to adjust to life without dance. She enrolled in York University as a “mature” student and subsequently completed a Master’s degree in English at the University of Toronto. In later years, she was privileged to sit on the boards of the Dancer Transition Resource Centre, or DTRC, and Peggy Baker Dance Projects. She married Peter Allen, had three sons and now has six grandchildren. She continues to enjoy attending ballet, theatre and the arts, and she loves to write.