Francesca Margaret Highfield

Francesca Margaret Highfield (87), beloved mother, died peacefully at her Woodland Hills home, with her daughter Stella at her bedside, and her son Stephen by phone from Cambridge, England, on Thursday, February 24th, 2011, after a long battle with A.L.S. Francesca was born October 24th, 1923 in London England, and moved to California in 1987. She is survived by her two children, Stella Croxon of Woodland Hills, and Stephen Highfield of Cambridge, England. Her husband, Alan died in England in 1980, and she never remarried. A seven year resident of Woodland Hills, California, Francesca (or Miss Francesca as she was known to her students) was a ballet teacher and choreographer. She founded her first ballet school in London, England in 1947. In 2003 she founded the Classical Ballet School in Woodland Hills. Her parents shared with her their love of classical music and theatre, and they took her to see a musical when she was a child, where she saw children her age singing and dancing, and from that day she was hooked. She continued to love the theatre, the arts, and classical music, and she developed a passion for ballet. While living in London she would attend every performance she could - at that time enjoying performances by such esteemed dancers as Margot Fonteyn and Rudolph Nureyev. She studied ballet with world class teachers, and became a Fellow of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (Cecchetti) and a Life Member of the Royal Academy of Dance. In the U.S. her qualifications were adjudicated as the equivalent of a Masters Degree in Dance. She trained thousands of students over the years, with successful students becoming professional dancers and ballerinas. As a choreographer she created beautiful works and her ballets were recognized for their delightful musicality. Her teaching took her all over the world to France, Canada and to Russia, and finally to the United States. During her more than 60 years of studying the different methods of ballet training, and teaching ballet, she developed her own method of teaching - the Francesca Method. In the last few years of her life, even while severely disabled, she continued to work on fine-tuning her method, and was in the final stages of producing the Francesca Method for DVD. Her daughter, Stella is devoted to continuing her life's work and is ensuring that the Francesca Method is taught at the Classical Ballet School, which remains open today in her honor. She continued dancing into her 80's and always did her "ballet barre" and the splits every day. In November 2007 she was diagnosed with A.L.S. and eventually was unable to dance anymore. But even while in a wheelchair, and with limited speech ability, she continued to teach. She was truly happy when she was teaching, and her students adored her. Her determination never ceased and she never gave up even when faced with such unbearable adversity - and she has become an inspiration to many. Francesca adored animals, particularly cats - domestic or wild - and had a deep admiration for the awesome beauty of tigers. All animals loved her, and the family dog, our sweet little Papillon, Toby, was cuddled up with her with his paw in her hand, when she passed. She was fearless, and loved heights - and always wished she could fly. She used to sing a song about "wishing she had wings like a bird." She always lived life to the fullest and took a tandem Hang Gliding ride for her 82nd birthday, and loved it so much that she went again for her 83rd birthday. She had planned to do that every year, but sadly her A.L.S. made that impossible. But for those two flights she truly experienced her dream of flying like a bird, stepping, with no fear off Kagel Mountain in Sylmar, at a height of 3500 feet! Mum - now you are free and you are truly flying and dancing with the wind beneath your pointed feet. A "Celebration of her Life" will be held at her dance studio: Studio 9, 5920 Shoup Avenue, Woodland Hills, CA 91364 at 6.00 p.m. on Saturday, March 19th. In lieu of flowers, donations to Defenders of Wildlife would be appreciated. We would like to thank the many students, friends and neighbors for the outpouring of love and support you have showed during this time. It has truly given us strength to know how deeply she was loved. We will continue her legacy and her amazing spirit and strength will never be forgotten.