Our History Makers - Graeme Hudson

By Rose Mulready

Perth in the 1950s was generally not a place where boy meets ballet and falls in love. Graeme Hudson got his first taste of dance at the age of nine, when his grandmother asked him to take his three-year-old cousin to her classes. At first he would hang around on his bike outside until she was ready to go home, but as boy students were “like hen’s teeth”, the teacher, Evelyn Hutchings, soon invited him to join in. Hutchings taught musical comedy, a watered-down form of ballet and acrobatics (Graeme would later perform a series of backflips in Roland Petit’s Carmen). Her truck-driver brother helped teach the kids tap-dancing.

Graeme’s father, Ted, was against his son taking dance classes. Ostensibly, the reason was that he couldn’t afford it – he and his wife Norma, had five children – but Graeme wonders if it had something to do with his own thwarted ambition. “My father had wanted to learn dancing when he was a kid, but his stepmother told him, ‘You have to have a pair of black shorts to go to dance classes, and I’m not buying you a pair of black shorts.’ Graeme’s grandmother came to the rescue and paid for his lessons.��



Ted and my Norma loved to dance. Twice a week they’d go to ‘50/50’ dancing, which was old-time ballroom dancing, barn dancing, a bit of modern waltz. They went even after Dad went blind, right up until he died. They were beautiful dancers. Mum taught me to do all the ballroom dances when I was a kid. I could always get up and dance with any of the single women, sometimes with the embarrassment of having my nose at the height of their bosom. But, on a dance floor, I was always in my element.”��

He moved on to a second teacher, Gail Chipper and was soon winning scholarships and even the State Cup, which had never been won by a boy. But now he started splitting his after-school time and weekends between sport – swimming, football, tennis – and dancing. He also passed his Junior Certificate and got a job with the National Bank. At 17, through Chipper, he also got a job with the inaugural troupe of Perth Channel 7 Dancers. While he worked away at the bank, his feet under the desk would be practicing the routines.

At this point, he had still never seen a ballet performance, but the film of West Side Story was a revelation – he went to see it over and over again, and tried to incorporate the style of the dancers into his own work. Then he saw Black Tights, a film of Roland Petit ballets starring Zizi Jeanmaire, it was the first time he’d ever seen real classical ballet, or pointe shoes.

Bill Pepper, one of the Channel Seven Dancers, told him, “Graeme, you know, you’re never going to be a proper dancer until you do ballet.” Pepper took him to do classes with Kira Bousloff, the Ballets Russes dancer who founded the West Australian Ballet, and Diana Waldron, who founded Perth City Ballet. After only a couple of months of studying with them, Ray Powell came to Perth to hold auditions for �������. For Graeme, it was a terrifying experience. “Ray Powell setting all these twiddly steps – I’d never seen anything like it before. I couldn’t do a pirouette. I couldn’t jump properly!” Nevertheless, he was offered a place, and given a bursary to boot. (Graeme would go on to spend “every last shekel” in his bank account and, if not from the support of the School bursary, he could not have started his dream).

Now came one of the biggest decisions in his life to date.�� He had begun doing some ‘Exhibition Ballroom’ with his teacher Gail Chipper, who was only a few years older than him and already a professional State and National Title-winning dancer. Her partner was not strong enough to dance ‘exhibition’, so The Wrightson Dance Studio asked him to partner her, as a professional team. He loved all styles of ballroom dance but it didn’t take long for him to decide that he loved stage dance and ballet more.

Then came the sealer for the offer. Mrs Roberts, who was the student counsellor, student accommodation officer, etc, etc, she took on lots of roles and was a wonderful woman, had been offered by Garth Welch and Marilyn Jones, the ground floor of their home in Carlton.�� It would accommodate 4 students.�� The rental was set to suit those “very poor” students. He accepted the very timely and generous offer and made preparations to travel to Melbourne.

Along with three other WA boys; William ‘Billy’ Pepper, Ron (Erceg) Bekker and Arthur (Smirk) Raymond, who had been accepted by the School, Graeme crossed the Nullarbor in Ron’s old station wagon. (The other Perth boy accepted that year was Neville Burns, who travelled separately). Their first class was with the School’s director, Margaret Scott. “Without Maggie, I wouldn’t have had a career. She taught me about weight, about movement, about jumping, about balance – things that had never even been suggested to me. I credit her with making me a dancer. We were in fear of her, but at the same time, we just adored her. The fear was of not being able to do what she wanted of us. And she wanted us to be good because she loved us.”

Each of his teachers at the School had a different approach to their craft. “Maggie kept technique in her classes really tight and developmental. Paul Gnatt gave us stamina and strength: from his Bournonville training, he worked us really hard: 64 grand battement, then turn around and do it on the other side! Leon Kellaway always had a lot of wonderful tips for us, but he would also have the pianist play something different, and call out, ‘Come on, duckies, let’s all dance today!’ – he gave us that freedom.”

Madame Berezowsky taught them character dance, “such a different musicality and style, which we needed as soon as we stepped into the ballet company, because we had to do ��DZ��é������ and Raymonda. Madame’s classes were an absolute delight. She’d give us Russian steps to do, and she’d say, ‘Come on, my boys, come on – let’s really do this! It is hard!’ We would try and do it, and she’d stand up the front, and she’d laugh, and we would laugh, but by the second year, we were doing all these things that we’d thought were way out of our league. She did it all with humour.”

The School was only a two year course at that stage.�� At the end of his second year, Graeme still thought a professional career in ballet was out of his league. Betty Pounder, who had taught him at the School, was staging the musical Sweet Charity; he auditioned and got in, starting rehearsals a couple of days before his graduation (“Maggie was furious!”) On the second day of rehearsals, Sue Musitz (now Davidson), an alumnus-dancer who now worked on projects at The Australian Ballet, pulled him out of rehearsals to offer him a contract with Athletes and Dancers, a newly formed group that would visit schools, putting on small performances and introducing kids to the art form. (This troupe would later become the Dance Company of NSW, which ultimately became Sydney Dance Company.) Graeme was torn – he had always wanted to do a musical comedy – but when Musitz sweetened the deal by telling him the contract could lead to a place in The Australian Ballet, he couldn’t refuse. Pounder kindly released him from his contract and he embarked on seven months with Athletes and Dancers, along with three other dancers, including Janet Vernon, who would later run Sydney Dance Company with Graeme Murphy, Arthur Raymond and Sonia Humphrey, who later became a journalist and host for ABC art and ballet telecasts. In 1967, when The Australian Ballet returned from its South American tour, he and Vernon were invited to join.

Graeme stayed with the ballet for seven years. He toured to Southeast Asia, Japan, England and Soviet Russia; he was part of the 1970/71 American tour headed by Rudolf Nureyev and Lucette Aldous, and was a dancer in Nureyev’s film of Don Quixote. That notorious shoot was a nightmare for the dancers. Nureyev insisted on real candles lighting the scenes, which created a beautiful ambiance but took ages to light and then we had to get the scenes finished before they burned down too much; and real fruit and vegetables and meat in the peasants’ barrows which, given the Summer heat inside that aircraft hangar, both of these market stands became environmental hazards to sensitive nostrils. “He went and got stallholders from the Victoria Market – they looked fabulous and really knew how to present a fish!” The dancers, driven by the perfectionist Nureyev, had to repeat their performances over and over on concrete floors in the extreme heat. “It was such a hard slog. But we produced a film that was world class. I admired Rudy for what he went through to become a dancer, and his skill, and he made men in dance ‘pop’ – but, as a person … leave me with the image of him as a dancer, but don’t ask me to like him!”

By 1973, Graeme realised that he was never going to get the opportunities he’d dreamed of at The Australian Ballet. He decided to take a training grant from the Australian Council that would qualify him as an administrator. Laurel Martyn and Garth Welch had invited him to work at Ballet Victoria, where they had become co-directors. When he told Peggy van Praagh, the director of The Australian Ballet, she tried to tempt him with a coryphée contract; he was also invited to join stage management, but his mind was made up …he needed to get a ‘proper job’. A ballet dancer’s occupation was not seen as a ‘proper job’ in those days.

Ballet Victoria had two good years (that continued on from its’ many, many successful years under the guidance of Laurel Martyn in its’ previous life as the Victorian Ballet Guild) – including supporting one tour, produced by Michael Edgeley, with guests Mikhail Baryshnikov and Natalia Makarova, and another, under BV’s own auspices, with the Kirov exiles Valery and Galina Panov – until it was laid low in 1975 by a financially disastrous visit to New Zealand and embezzlement of funds by two of its employees. Everyone was abruptly laid off, and Graeme decided to embark on study for a Degree in Social Work. (Interestingly, it was the time of The Whitlam Era, when university study was free and because of the circumstances of becoming unemployed, I was eligible for a Government training grant which helped finance me through study. But essentially, for the second time in my adult life, I was penniless again).�� With a brand new degree under his arm, he found great success, as a Graduate Social Worker, at the Department of Immigration, introducing humanising strategies to improve detention facilities and building bridges between isolated refugees and local communities. Most of his time was spent in Sydney but he also took short postings in Melbourne and Port Hedland. When immigration policies became more hardline in the 1980s, he decided to retire. “I couldn’t agree with those policies. I’m a social worker at heart, I’m not a detention officer.”

While he’d been working for the Department, Graeme had also been studying horticulture. After his retirement he set up a gardening business in the Blue Mountains, where he and his partner David had built a house. They’ve spent almost 40 years in their “paradise”, with a 2-acre garden visited by wallabies and lyrebirds.

Graeme and David like to travel. One trip, while in New York, they were at a performance of A Chorus Line when they spotted Janet Vernon and Graeme Murphy sitting two rows in front of them. After the show, the four spent hours reminiscing over Scotch and cups of tea.

In 1992, Murphy had made a contemporary version of The Nutcracker (Nutcracker – The Story of Clara) for The Australian Ballet, based around a (fantasy) Ballets Russes dancer called Clara, who on the eve of her death looks back at her long life. Clara the Elder, a role made on Margaret Scott, has a group of friends (Russian Émigrés) over on Christmas Eve, and those roles were played by age-appropriate dancers.������

“I said to Graeme, ‘If you ever do Nutcracker again, I want to be in it.’ And he said, ‘Grace, you’ve got it.’ A couple of years later, I got a call from him. The Australian Ballet were putting on a season of his Nutcracker.” The Émigrés in that season included Colin Peasley and Audrey Nicholls, who were both 82. Graeme, at 72, was relatively a baby. The experience was glorious. “All my time in retirement, I’d been thinking, if I could just get on that stage one more time – one more time!”

These days, Graeme involves himself in the history of The Australian Ballet, running a Facebook alumni group, putting together an upcoming book of dancer-interviews, and running events for ex-dancers. He is still in contact with ������� and looks back with gratitude on his time there.��

“It gave me a real work ethic. I didn’t know what work was before I came to the Ballet School. It was more intense than anything I had ever attempted in my prior dancing, sporting or academic years. But there was a fulfillment in the accomplishment of that learning, and feedback from lecturers that lead us on to harder tasks.�� When I was dancing, I’ve had people say to me at functions, after performances, ‘Oh, you must be so dedicated to be able to dance like that.’ I didn’t see myself like that, I just liked to dance. But now I realise that we really did have to be dedicated to be at the Ballet School. Many of us were away from the home for the first time; we put yourself into the hands of these people who were going to train us. Now I tell my little granddaughter and goddaughter, ‘Doing ballet is setting you up for life. It teaches you discipline, it teaches you how to multi-task, it teaches you so much about respect for people who have more knowledge than you.’ Dancers are always looking upwards. That was what it was like at the Ballet School. We not only had those wonderful teachers, we had the Company training and rehearsing in the same building … Now, when I’m at the gym, and I see people giving up, I always think, I can do two more. Because as dancers, we always did two more.”

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Our History Makers – Lynette Wills

By Rose Mulready

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Lynette Wills was born to be a ballerina – but not in the way you might think. She emerged into the world with a club foot and hip dysplasia, and as a baby spent five months in plaster. The doctors recommended ballet classes to help her realign and strengthen. At first, Lynette didn’t much like them. “There was no dream to start with; it was a necessity.”

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Her family moved to Canberra when she was seven, and when Lynette started taking classes with the renowned teacher Betsy Sawers, ballet came alive for her – once she’d got over the shock of everyone being so much better than she was. In her first class, she panicked and ran out of the room. But she was soon lured back. Sawers had been a nurse, and “her anatomical understanding was deep. That was clear in her teaching. And the atmosphere of her classes was so enticing, passionate and creative.” Canberra, in the 1970s, was not on the touring schedules of the major ballet companies, but Sawers showed her students videos of the superstars: Nureyev, Baryshnikov, Makarova. Lynette was inspired, and eventually auditioned for �������. She didn’t get in.

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Every dancer must have determination. “I thought, ‘I would like that no to be a yes!’ My parents were very against me missing any more school, but I begged and begged to have another year, dug my heels in, worked terribly hard, and got in.”

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Lynette, herself a forthright personality, was immediately struck by the school’s “lively and fiery” founding director, Margaret Scott, who took the first-year students for class once a week. “She had a great respect for the technical base – if you don’t get the small things right, you can’t get the big things right. She was always urging us to keep exploring our technique: to learn more, learn more, stand in first position and learn some more! She was very clear on certain muscular engagements – she was constantly slapping her thighs and calling, “Up here, girls, up here!”

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The Russian dancer Ai-Gul Gaisina, who embodied the Vaganova technique with its expressive use of the upper body, neck and head, was another favourite. “The way she would speak, her posture – she commanded the room. She always wore a shawl, it was a prop for her to demonstrate the styles and poses.”

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Most unusually, in an era when girls still vastly outnumbered boys in ballet classes, the intake in Lynette’s year was a perfect split: 20 of each. Pas de deux class was evenly balanced, and further enhanced by the great star Kelvin Coe as the second-year teacher. “The boys loved him – he was a wonderful partner, so he had some great tips and tricks to impart.” Lynette learnt the fine art of building an understanding without words, without even eye contact. “You both have to be constantly listening to each other through touch. It’s like having a conversation through his hands on your waist. You can’t do it for him, you have to trust him and give the control to him.” These days, in pas de deux classes at the School, the teachers have the girls hold the boys up and try and walk them in a circle once or twice, so that they’ll realise the difficulty of finding someone else’s centre of balance, and be patient with their partners.����

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Lynette and her fellow students took every opportunity to press their noses to the windows where the company dancers were rehearsing, idolising their heroes and dreaming of their futures. Lynette had her favourites: “Lisa Pavane – immaculate, so technically clean, in a class apart. Always Steven Heathcote – I could watch him every day. Miranda Coney – she just embodied characters, lost herself in the stories, abandoned herself to them.”

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Lynette joined The Australian Ballet in 1991. Her first years with the company were spent under the directorship of Maina Gielgud, who was known for giving big opportunities to young dancers. In her second year, Lynette was cast as Kitri, the lead in Don Quixote – “just one show, but it kept me going for a year.” With her huge almond eyes, high cheekbones, dark hair and long limbs, she became known for fiery roles, villainess roles. She was promoted to senior artist, the rank just under principal artist, but when Gielgud was replaced by Ross Stretton, her career stalled. Even when Stretton was succeeded by David McAllister, Lynette’s peer and friend, he warned her she might not ever reach the principal rank.��

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Enter a return season of Graeme Murphy’s Swan Lake, a bold modern remake of the ballet that had become a sensation. Lynette was eyeing off the role of the Baroness von Rothbart, Prince Siegfried’s ruthless mistress, drawn to its emotional depth and texture. By this time, she had been with the company for a decade. “I finally knew the kind of artist I wanted to be. I had the confidence.” She had to ask twice to be listed as an understudy, but eventually, when all the other Baronesses were injured or sick, she had her chance. In a studio rehearsal, Murphy told her, “Have a go if you like,” and was taken aback to see that she had mastered the solo. “I know it all, Graeme,” Lynette told him. “I know every step. I know the whole ballet.” He gave her a show, and she shone. After her performance in the opening night of the Sydney season, McAllister made her a principal artist.��

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Good years followed. Lynette danced the Baroness on opening night of The Australian Ballet’s legendary 2005 tour of London. She danced with cherished partners: Robert Curran, Geon van der Wyst, Steven Heathcote. She danced Hanna in The Merry Widow, Princess Aurora in Stanton Welch’s new production of The Sleeping Beauty, and ballets by her favourite contemporary choreographer, Jiří Kylián – “his works take me to another place.” She returned to the stage after her first baby, but after her second, she decided that she’d done enough. “I’d had my time. You can’t do it forever: young people need chances as well.”

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Despite her enviable career, some of Lynette’s most memorable moments are the ones behind the scenes. “The camaraderie, the silly jokes, the lying around together exhausted in the common room, the high jinks in the dressing room. You make lifelong friends.”

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For many dancers, the obvious next step after retirement is teaching, but Lynette had always sworn she would never teach. “I was obnoxious about it.” However, she couldn’t resist an invitation to join The Australian Ballet’s Dancing the Dream program, journeying to far-flung regional locations to give the children there a ballet class. “Some of these people had never done ballet, had never seen ballet. It was joyful.” Once again, Lynette had found her dream where she least expected it. She returned to ������� and began learning her trade, sharing a class with Madame Tang Shu, who had studied at the Beijing Dance Academy and had “incredible knowledge – a tiny little person, but unrelenting. Not mean at all – just ‘This is how we do it. Again!’”

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“I always thought that when I stopped dancing, I’d be sick of ballet, that I’d have to get far away from it. But ballet is really different when it’s not about you. You understand it more, you see it in a different light. Being a teacher is nice, it’s generous, you get to give back. I love nurturing someone’s confidence so they can be their own best teacher. They need to understand what we’re telling them, not just do it because ‘I told you so’. You have to be a thinker. I often ask them, ‘If you were going to teach it, how would you give the correction?’ You have to get them to trust and respect you, and then you can push each other – hard!”

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These days, ������� is a different place from the school Lynette knew. For one thing, instead of leaving school at 16, the students are kept in an academic stream, and as well as dance learn English, psychology, health, human development and drama. They leave with a graduate diploma that they can, after their dance careers, parlay into further study. Former students have become everything from lawyers to physiotherapists to news presenters. The drive and discipline it takes to become a ballet dancer are highly transferrable skills.

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As well as technique and artistry, Lynette tries to give her students what they will need to navigate the challenging career of a professional dancer. “Mentally, it’s all about resilience, and about being kind and respectful to yourself when you’re working. We focus on the whole person. The students’ health and wellbeing and happiness is our foremost duty of care. We see a person who dances, not a just a dancer. Whether they make it or they don’t – we try to make the journey a positive one.”

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Departing Melbourne��early��January, these young dancers will embark on a transformative journey, immersing themselves in the training, culture, and creative spirit of one of the world’s leading ballet schools. This unique program allows our students to not only refine their technique but also expand their horizons, build lifelong friendships, and gain fresh inspiration to bring back to their studies here at �������.

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This cherished partnership between ������� and Canada’s National Ballet School is a testament to the shared vision of nurturing the next generation of dancers. It’s an exchange of ideas, artistry, and ambition, and we’re so proud to see our students representing the School on this international stage.

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As we bid them bon voyage, we eagerly await their return in late January, where they’ll rejoin us with new insights and experiences to enrich our own ballet community. We’re also excited to welcome students from NBS to Melbourne later in 2025, continuing this wonderful cycle of learning and cultural exchange.

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We couldn’t be prouder of William, Samuel, Lilly, and Eloise as they take this bold step toward broadening their perspectives and elevating their craft. This program truly embodies the spirit of connection and opportunity that defines �������.

Here’s to a journey filled with growth, discovery, and unforgettable memories and good luck to our Level 6 students as they dance their way across borders!

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A standing ovation is well deserved for our incredible 2024 Level 8 Graduates. Their hard work, resilience, and talent have inspired us all. This year, we are thrilled to celebrate Matthew Paten as the 2024 Dux of �������, an exceptional achievement that highlights his commitment to excellence in both performance and leadership.

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As these graduates take their first steps into the professional dance world, we can’t wait to see the incredible paths they will carve. Their futures are as bright as the stage lights they’ve danced under, and we know they’ll continue to inspire wherever their dance journey leads to.

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We’re also excited to announce our 2025 student leaders. Congratulations to our newly appointed School Captains, Lottie Booth and Lukas Maher, and our Vice-Captains, Natalie Henry and Lucelle Davis. Their immense passion for dance and leadership qualities will undoubtedly guide the School into another exciting year ahead.

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Here’s to the close of a monumental 60th anniversary year and to the bright futures of our talented students. We look forward to seeing what the next chapter holds.

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2024 Level 7 Students

Photography by Gavin Andrew

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Written by F. Mutswagiwa

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The��Australian Ballet��~ Corps de Ballet: Olivia Harris and Matthew Paten

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2024/2025 season contracts:
(From left) Grace Campbell, Maddie Flood, Lucas McLean, Molly Bell, Zoe Horn, and Eliza Hickey.

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Royal New Zealand Ballet ~ Corps de Ballet: Jordan Sawtell and Emma Gavan

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Queensland Ballet ~ Jette Parker Young Artists:
(From left) Levi Miller, Francesca Poi, Declan Daines, Annie Chen and Jai Fauchon.

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To our graduates pursuing auditions abroad, we send our heartfelt support and encouragement. We are thinking of you as you embark on these thrilling next steps in your dance journey.

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Photography by F. Mutswagiwa

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Written by F. Mutswagiwa

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who joined us in the theatre and those who tuned in to our live stream. Your presence and support made this special season even more memorable as we wrapped up our monumental 60th anniversary year in style.

Relive the magic and enjoy a short recap of the enchanting season below or

Here's to many more years of creativity and community!

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As a dancer, Michela Kirkaldie was ahead of her time. In an era when dance training and even professional coaching was often a matter of direction – “Now you put your arm here, now you turn on the diagonal” – she was always seeking more depth, searching for the structure of ballet technique. Today, it’s widely recognised that a detailed anatomical knowledge is the necessary foundation of a dancer’s art. As a teacher of teachers and a coach to �������’s students, Michela is still sounding the depths of that knowledge.

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Our History Makers – Michela Kirkaldie

By Rose Mulready

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Ballet had Michela’s heart from the beginning. At the age of three, she was jumping around the house and over the furniture. “My mother thought, ‘I’ll send her to ballet – that will fix her!’” The school she chose was run by Edouard Borovansky (who also ran the company that would later become The Australian Ballet), and his wife. “Madame Borovansky used to go round the class with a stick and tap you on the bottom!”

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The taps did nothing to deter Michela. “What captivated me was the music. I’d sit down at home and put on ballet record after ballet record, that beautiful Tchaikovsky. From my earliest recollection, I just wanted to do ballet. There was no other plan. I wanted to be a ballerina, and I wanted to dance Swan Lake. And I did!”

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Michela had her first experiences of performance when she went to study with Laurel Martyn, who ran the Victorian Ballet Guild. Martyn had a little ballet company, and would give the students small parts in her productions. Michela tasted the adrenaline of the stage, and found it addictive. At the age of 13, she went to study with Paul Hammond. “He was an inspiration, he knew so much about ballet, and would tell us the history of each step. He showed us film of Russian dancers – Galina Ulanova, Yuri Soloviev. They had so much passion, so much gusto, they threw themselves into it – just ate up the stage with their jumps and leaps.”

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Even though she’d been dancing since she was three, Michela got a shock when she was accepted into �������. “The first year was hard – I hadn’t done full-time ballet before. Suddenly I was doing ballet all day long, as well as character, contemporary, music … it was a very formal environment, you had a timetable, a school uniform. It was mentally challenging, too, suddenly being in a class with the cream of the country.” Of her teachers at the School, Michela best remembers Douglas Gilchrist and Leon Kellaway, who by that time was very old. “He would sit in a chair with his hands on his stick, and sort of wiggle his fingers, and you’d have to understand what steps he wanted you to do. You got to know the language! He always had a lot to tell us about the art of ballet.”

Although the teachers of the 1970s had much to impart about stagecraft, musicality and emotional depth, they didn’t have today’s understanding of biomechanics. “In those days, we didn’t know what we know now about technique, about the body. We didn’t know about deep abdominals or deep rotators. Our teachers would just say, ‘Spot with your head … point your feet … turn out!’ Yes, but how do I turn out? These days we can tell our students how, and so precisely. For instance, with a pirouette, you’ll teach them how to get onto their axis, how to hold their rotation, how to go into their deep core, how to hold their back, how their back will support their arms, how to whip their head around. We have access to a whole lot more information, a lot of it taken from sports medicine, and it’s wonderful. But in those days we were taught so much about the art of ballet, and what it should feel like to do it.”

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Michela’s second year was easier. At last, she was learning the choreography for the corps in her beloved Swan Lake, as well as for the wilis in Giselle. She bloomed, and at the age of 18, she was offered a place in The Australian Ballet, along with only one other girl and three boys (an illustrious trio: John Meehan, David Burch and Leigh Warren). What happened to those who weren’t accepted into the company?

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“O�ܰ� kids these days are taught how to write CVs, how to reach out to companies, they get a portfolio of photographs and footage. In our day, you’d just sit down with Dame Peggy and she’d say ‘Yes, I want you in the company!’ or ‘No, I don’t want you.’ If you didn’t get in, you had to completely restart your life, all by yourself, often with nothing more than a Year 10 education. Now, we’re a global community, and there are so many other ballet companies to try. But for us, it was The Australian Ballet or nothing. The idea of travelling by yourself, at that age, to Europe and trying to make it there – people just didn’t do it.”

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As one of the lucky ones, Michela started adjusting to professional life. “Everyone would smoke. The rehearsal rooms were full of smoke! The dancers would carry a matchbox to use as an ashtray. The ballet masters would smoke.” (This wasn’t completely new to Michela – the director of �������, Margaret Scott, used to smoke while she was teaching.)

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Peggy van Praagh had lately been joined by Robert Helpmann as co-artistic director, and neither of these huge personalities were best pleased about the arrangement. There was tension in the studio. “Bobby would remember a step being done a certain way at The Royal Ballet, and Peggy would disagree and say it was never done like that.” Company class was crowded. “I’d be in the back and hope that no one noticed me. There was a definite pecking order, and you had to know your place – you would never step in front of a principal.” Nor was there much attention from the ballet staff. “They would deliver the class, and you either picked it up or you didn’t. Once a year or so you might get a correction! I remember Dame Peggy said something to me in class one day and I was so upset – I could feel the tears coming, so I left the room. Kathleen Geldard, one of the principals, came out into the corridor and said, ‘Don’t let her see that you’re upset. Take it on the chin!’ She was so sweet to me.”

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The performance schedule was another huge adjustment. In 1970, Michela’s first year with the company, The Australian Ballet were performing with Rudolf Nureyev, dancing his Don Quixote at the Adelaide Festival, then embarking on a three-month American tour with him. To the normal rigours of professional life – late nights of performance followed by morning class and hours of rehearsal – was added a relentless touring schedule of six-day weeks with two performances on Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. But when the dancers felt exhausted, they only had to look to their stars, Nureyev and Lucette Aldous, who danced the principal roles in every performance. “I thought, if they can do that, I can dance in the corps! Rudy pushed himself and he pushed us. He never expected more of us than he asked of himself – and that was five hundred per cent. I remember in Don Quixote, we would be dancing in the Dryad scene. It was the only scene that Rudy wasn’t in, and he could have been in his dressing room, resting, but instead he would be walking up and down in the wings, saying, ‘Turn out supporting foot! Hold backs!’ That’s how he kept the standard up through all those performances.”��

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Nureyev’s film of Don Quixote was filmed in an aeroplane hangar with a concrete floor, at the height of summer, and the set was sweltering. “He went over his solos again, and again, and again, because they weren’t perfect. He’d run to the camera and look at the film, and say ‘No – not good enough,’ and run back to the set to repeat the whole thing.” As well as his work ethic, Nureyev brought new excitement and inspiration to the company, elevating the men’s virtuosity. Aldous was a match for him: “He and Lucette were like fire together – constantly daring each other, bouncing off each other. She really knew what she was doing, and she coached some of us. They were eye-opening, and things really changed during that time.”

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Michela got more comfortable in the company, learning little tricks like lining up her foot with the heel of the corps de ballet girl in front of her, so that she could be stay in the right position without moving her head. And still, she searched for the roots of technique. The company dancers mainly worked through problems with steps on their own, sometimes helped along by more senior dancers. “Sometimes dancers would practice endlessly, and just cement the fault, and maybe injure themselves … these days we would deconstruct the step, and build it up again.”

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The dancers bonded on a tour of Soviet states in 1976. Marilyn Rowe and Kelvin Coe had put The Australian Ballet on the Russian radar when they won silver at the Moscow International Ballet Competition in 1973. The company was invited to dance in St Petersburg and Odessa, as well as in Romania, Yugoslavia and Poland. The audiences loved them, but the dancers’ every move was policed, and they would wait for hours to be served grim, watery meals. When they emerged from behind the Iron Curtain, they binged on Coca Cola and Kit-Kats.��

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The next year, Michela realised her dream: she was cast as Odette/Odile in Swan Lake. Anne Woolliams, by then The Australian Ballet’s artistic director, had created a new production for the company. The Marilyns – Jones and Rowe – were first and second cast; Michela was third. But on the night of the dress rehearsal, in front of a full audience, Jones leapt onto stage for her first entrance and promptly snapped her Achilles tendon. Michela and her partner Ross Stretton, who were sitting in the audience, were rushed into their costumes and danced the performance. Both were promoted to principal artist that season.

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Although she’d reached the pinnacle she’d always dreamed of, Michela was still on a mission to find out more about technique. “I still felt that I didn’t understand how to do things well. I wanted to know how to be consistent and strong.” When Eileen Ward came out from London for a six-week stint of teaching at The Australian Ballet, Michela found the approach she’d been looking for. Ward, a former dancer with Ballet Rambert, had a strong emphasis on the body and was sought out by the likes of the Russian star Natalia Makarova. Michela went to study with her for three months in New York, and followed her to London. Eventually, she joined the London Festival Ballet (now English National Ballet).

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Michela found herself adjusting to another punishing schedule. The company, which constantly toured to regional centres, would leave London on an early-morning train, travel for several hours to cities like Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds, and perform a matinee before travelling home the same day. “It was grim, it was cold, there was very little sunshine. Britain had just joined the common market and all the shelves in the shops were empty, you couldn’t get a fresh apple to save your life. In your ‘digs’, as they called them, you’d need to put money in the gas meter to get hot water, and it would run out before you could fill a bath. I was homesick and miserable.”

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It was time to return to The Australian Ballet. Michela found that other dancers had returned too – Kelvin Coe, who partnered her in Nureyev’s full-length Raymonda; Simon Dow and Jonathan Kelly, who both danced Swan Lake with her; her old classmate John Meehan, who partnered her in The Lady and the Fool. She worked with Woolliams on Romeo and Juliet and Onegin, two of her dream ballets. But she was troubled by a persistent foot injury that, even after surgery, wouldn’t heal. “I thought – I’m 33. I need to just stop and have a family.”

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When Michela’s two daughters were old enough, she went back to work as a teacher. She was at the Victorian College of the Arts when Gailene Stock, the director of �������, invited her to join the staff in 1991.��

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After years of deep-diving into the minutiae of technique, teaching felt like a natural progression. Michela loved the Vaganova method taught by the school: “It’s such an expressive style, it’s generous and expansive, it’s all about the upper back, the total integration of legs, arms, head, everything.”�� She loved feeling out “the different ways in” to each student, assessing the approach that would best help them to learn. “With some it’s questioning. With others you deliver some information then give them time to practise it slowly. With others you don’t say a lot, just look, see what you’ve got, and give the odd targeted comment. Some people really love imagery. Others are more kinesthetic – they concentrate on the sensation in their bodies. Our aim for the students is for them to become self-directed, so they understand how their bodies work and are motivated to explore on their own, and to keep on trying. That’s what you have to do in professional life.”

These days, Michela teaches the teachers in the School’s Graduate Diploma of Elite Ballet Instruction, as well as giving one-on-one coaching to students who are working on particular technical problems. “You need to be able to diagnose, then sometimes deconstruct and rebuild. I love it.”

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Even after three decades of teaching, she is still learning. “You’ve got to be open, you’ve got to be flexible, and you’ve got to love the art of ballet. Because if you don’t love it, you won’t have the persistence to teach. Ballet is a really slow process. It’s like water dripping on a rock. You have to have resilience. You have to have patience.”��

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Experience Hush and Grandma Poss jump from page to stage with all the magic associated with the beloved children’s book. Presented with exciting short works showcasing �������’s talented full-time students.

Showcase with Possum Magic
Arts Centre Melbourne,��Playhouse
1-3 November 2024
Theatre bookings:

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Showcase with Possum Magic program:

Possum Magic the ballet choreographed by Loughlan Prior
Serenata choreographed by Stephen Baynes
Youthful Grace��choreographed by Irina Konstantinova
Waltz from Birthday Celebration choreographed by Mark Annear, restaged by Lynette Wills and Sergey Konstantinov
No. 5 choreographed by Dani Rowe
Otherwhere choreographed by Kevin Jackson
Gracias a la vida choreographed by Jai Fauchon

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Photo by Sergey Konstantinov

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Our History Makers – Ty King-Wall

By Rose Mulready

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Many young boys fall into ballet by accident, and that’s exactly what happened to Ty King-Wall. Growing up in Tauranga, a rural town on the North Island of New Zealand, Ty didn’t know the first thing about ballet. But when he was seven, a friend from his local primary school started classes, and discovered he would be the only boy there. “He was after some moral support, so he asked me to come along with him. After a few weeks he decided it wasn’t for him – but I took to it from the get-go.”��

Initially, Ty was just enjoying the freedom of movement, but then his mother took him to see a Royal New Zealand Ballet (RNZB) performance of Cinderella. “We were in the cheap seats, right up the back, but I absolutely loved it – being taken to another world, the magic of it all. My mum could see how much I enjoyed it, so she kept taking me to RNZB shows. In that first year, I saw Russell Kerr’s Swan Lake, and I can distinctly remember watching Ou Lu dance Prince Siegfried and thinking, ‘That’s what I want to do when I grow up.’ I couldn’t believe the turns, the jumps, the ballon, but also the storytelling. Both Swan Lake and Royal New Zealand Ballet have a special place in my heart, because from then on I was sold.” It was an hour’s trek to get to the theatre from their country home, but after that night Ty’s mother took him to see all of RNZB’s productions.

As a home-schooled child, Ty managed to avoid most of the abuse that young male dancers often endure from their peers. In his adolescence, he took up field hockey and gymnastics as well as ballet. At the Dance Education Centre in Tauranga, he met a crucially important teacher – Scott Milham – who rekindled his love for the art form. “At the time I had zero technique – I didn’t know how to turn out my feet or stretch my knees. But the great part of working with Scott was that he kept the fire burning for the art form for me – I learnt about virtuosity, and he showed me videos of the greats: Nureyev, Baryshnikov, Bujones, Schaufuss.” With this inspiration, Ty gradually dropped his other pastimes and homed in on ballet.

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When he was 16, Ty went to Melbourne to audition for �������. “I got to watch a Level 6 class, and I had never seen so many gents together in one studio – it was a big intake that year. My audition was very intense: I was so green and naïve. I thought I knew what I was doing, but I was such a novice, it was eye-opening! They obviously saw something in me, though.”

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Like many dancers in their first year (especially boys, who have often been the only male dancer in their school), Ty found his first year at the School something of a shock. Technically, he felt far behind his peers. “My strength was that I was fearless – way before I was ready to do the big turns and jumps technically, I would have a crack. What I didn’t have was the precision or accuracy. I felt like I had a lot of catching up to do. I was also quite inflexible, which I struggled to overcome.”

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However, the adversity only strengthened Ty’s resolve. “As a family we didn’t have a lot of money growing up, and ballet isn’t cheap. My parents had to make quite a few sacrifices for me to study in Melbourne, even though the School was very supportive through scholarships. It was a big driver for me: I knew I was lucky to be there. I was also competitive, so those factors really brought out the hunger to succeed in me.”��

When Ty began at the School, Marilyn Rowe, the director, had just introduced the eight-year Vaganova curriculum. “It was a very different way of moving for me, and the technical rigour was very high. Vaganova starts with the fundamentals - you repeat and repeat until you master those basics before you move on. Everything is progressively built – there’s no skipping ahead – and that gives you the muscle memory and the instincts for later in your career, when you have to execute in full flight.”

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Joanne Michel, Irina Konstantinova, Sergey��Konstantinov, Michela Kirkaldie, Leigh Rowles, Oleg Timursin and Mark Annear were all memorable teachers for Ty, but perhaps his most formative influence was Dale Baker. “He was very philosophical in the way he taught. Everything had to have a reason: otherwise why do it? You’re just moving in space with no intention. There was a clarity and simplicity in the way he delivered information that made it really easy to understand. And as a pas de deux teacher he was second to none.

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“One of his catchphrases was ‘Ballet’s simple, but it’s not easy’. Another was ‘Ballet’s like golf’, which I never understood until I started playing golf myself. In ballet, with pirouettes for example, it’s like a golf swing: you’ll come in and analyse it, you’ll break it down, and you’ll feel like you’ve cracked the code; then you come back the next day and do what feels like the exact same thing, and it doesn’t work at all. It’s infuriating! Ballet is very technical, and it’s easy to over-analyse, but you do need to remember that ultimately it’s about dancing, and that’s about freedom. Don’t over-complicate things!”

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His years at the School gave Ty an awareness of what it takes to be a professional dancer. He watched The Australian Ballet’s rehearsals, and also performed as an extra in Graeme Murphy’s Swan Lake (he remembers being knocked off balance in a jump by the dancer behind him and falling over on centre stage, much to his embarrassment). Every chance he got, Ty took up opportunities to watch the company dance at the State Theatre, seeing four or five different casts for each production. “You were constantly reminded of where you were going and what it was going to take to get there. I would watch, and watch, and watch, and that’s so valuable. These days, with the amount of stimulation in our digital world, our attention spans have really contracted. We want everything now, but there are no shortcuts in ballet – it takes time and patience to do it well.”��

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In 2006, when he was offered a contract by the company, Ty realised that all his years at the School were only the beginning of his watching and learning. “I went from performing grand pas de deux to holding a spear up the back – which is all part of it, as a first-year corps dancer. I was always quite a shy kid, and when I first joined the Company I was pretty quiet, I tried not to get in anyone’s way! I learnt so much in that first year though – we didn’t have smart phones back then, there were no mobiles in the studio, so in those long rehearsals when I wasn’t dancing, I’d just spend the time watching the action up front. I was fortunate to have an amazing generation of male dancers as role models in the company at the time: Steven Heathcote, Robert Curran, Matthew Lawrence, Damien Welch, Tim Harbour, Marc Cassidy – it was a master class not only in dancing, but in partnering and character development.

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“As a young dancer I hadn’t been interested in partnering, I was obsessed with virtuosity. I didn’t have the maturity to know what it took to build a character and be a strong, reliable, supportive partner, or to realise how rewarding that could be. In my first year the penny dropped, and I realised that becoming a confident partner would open up all the doors.”

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��Ty’s first big opportunity as a company dancer was with the School. He was invited back by Marilyn Rowe to partner a promising graduating student, Stephanie Williams (who would go on to dance with The Australian Ballet and American Ballet Theatre), in an adaptation of Anne Woolliams’ Swan Lake. It was his first full-length ballet. The performance was danced outdoors at the Myer Music Bowl in 40-degree heat, and dancers were fainting on stage; he and Stephanie managed to keep their feet. The next year, in The Australian Ballet’s gala program, Ty danced the pyrotechnic Diana and Acteon pas de deux with Miwako Kubota. “As a young dancer, I was fortunate to work with a number of principal artists – Kirsty Martin, Rachel Rawlins, Danielle Rowe. My first principal role with the company was partnering Dani in Stanton Welch’s The Sleeping Beauty. Drawing on their experience was so formative in my early years as a professional.” Ty also made a splash dancing with Lucinda Dunn in the first-night cast of Graeme Murphy’s The Silver Rose. “It was definitely intimidating – Luci is such a legend of the company. But she was so supportive and encouraging.”

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The dramatic increase in workload and travel was “a shock” for Ty’s body. He tore the meniscus in his knee in his early years with the company, and later found himself with a herniated disc in his lumbar spine. “Genetically, I think my body was predisposed to that injury, and I probably took on too much work, too early. I was hungry for it, but I think I was too keen for my own good: I didn’t know my limits. And there were a few technical deficiencies in the way I was working that I hadn’t addressed. The combination of all of these things was a perfect storm that led to my back injury, which was almost career-ending. The first time, I was off for six months; then, two years later, it went again and I was off for eight months. That was very confronting. Your whole career, your identity is bound up in your body. It’s all you’ve ever known. But going through that experience makes you truly understand how much the art form means to you.”

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With the help of the medical team, Ty worked back to full strength. He particularly credits working with sports psychologists, who helped him identify the mental components of pain and develop strategies to improve pain management. He returned to the stage in 2014 in the lead role of George Balanchine’s Ballet Imperial.

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Other career highlights include being promoted to principal in 2013, after a performance of Don Quixote with Leanne Stojmenov, and partnering illustrious international guest artists like Marianela Núñez, Stella Abrera and Gillian Murphy. “Building a rapport and chemistry with your partners – there’s nothing like it, and it’s the thing I miss the most about dancing.” When the American Ballet Theatre star Ethan Steifel was directing RNZB, he invited Ty to guest with the company in Russell Kerr’s Swan Lake, the ballet that had first captured his imagination. “It was such a surreal experience – it was like I could see and feel my younger self up in the Gods watching – it was a real full-circle moment.”

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After having two daughters with his wife Amber Scott, a fellow principal artist, Ty started thinking about winding down his career. “The Australian Ballet is very supportive of parents and it is such a family-friendly environment now: introducing the parental leave policy was a game-changer and allowed parents to continue their professional careers. But it is tremendously difficult, being in a touring company, and sustaining the constant movement between Melbourne and Sydney, with a young family.” He retired in 2022, dancing his last role with Valerie Tereschenko in Yuri Possokhov’s Anna Karenina.

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Rather than take a breath, Ty was eager “to keep my feet moving, to have something to do. I was really happy to get the call from Lisa Pavane asking me to teach at the School, and so lucky that the opportunity to return arose.” Ty worked alongside some of his former teachers, absorbing their wisdom, and learning not only the art of instruction but the importance of managing the students’ personal ups and downs. “That can be a real emotional rollercoaster, and it’s exhausting to go on that ride – you learn to be that constant, a solid rock for them, every day.”

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Returning to his alma mater as a teacher was a precious experience. “The opportunity to close the circle was amazing, I wish I could have done it for longer.” But after nine months, Ty was offered the artistic directorship of RNZB – and leapt at it. “As that seven-year-old in the Gods … if you told me then I’d one day I’d be artistic director of the company, I would never have believed it. Starting out in the role, I felt that responsibility on my shoulders immediately – not in a bad way, that’s exactly where it should be. You’ve got a company of dancers and staff, you want to look after them and get the best outcomes for them. But also, you’re a custodian, you have a responsibility to look after the history of the company, everything that’s been built by the previous generations, and carry that forward into the future.”

Level 8 students of ������� performing Gracias a la vida

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A Night to Remember!��The Regent Theatre was alive with energy as students and alumni guest artists graced the stage for �������’s momentous 60th Anniversary Gala Performance. Artistic Director & Head of School Megan Connelly welcomed the audience before the curtain went up and the dazzling performances commenced. The evening began with the stunning Four Seasons, setting the tone for what was to be a marvellous celebration of sixty years of excellence in dance education.

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No. 5 cast with Guest Musicians Adam Chalabi (Violin) and Matthew Garvie (Piano) (ANAM)

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One of the many highlights was the performance of “No. 5”, a dynamic and powerful piece choreographed by alumna of the School, and internationally renowned choreographer and Artistic Director of Oregon Ballet Theatre, Dani Rowe. Performed by Level 8 students Annie Chen, Francesca Poi, Fumina Kikkawa, Grace Campbell and Zoe Horn with stunning live accompaniment by Adam Chalabi (Violin) and Matthew Garvie (Piano) from ANAM, this work thrilled audiences.

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Level 8 students of �������

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We extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who joined us for this magical night, both in person and via live stream. Your support and enthusiasm made this celebration even more special, and we are deeply grateful for the overwhelming love and encouragement from the extended dance community.

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Congratulations to our incredible students, alumni guest artists, and dedicated staff on a successful and magical night celebrating 60 years of the past, present and the future of dance. It was truly a night to remember, celebrating the rich history and bright future of �������. Here’s to many more years of inspiring performances and exceptional dance education!

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Faculty, Students and Guests of �������

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Leading up to the dazzling performance, a beautiful Gala Dinner was held at the iconic Plaza Ballroom on 3 October. ������� extends its sincerest gratitude to all who attended this special evening. Your presence and support are invaluable to us and to the current and future students we nurture.

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Faculty and esteemed guests of �������

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Performance photography by Sergey Konstantinov
Gala Dinner photograph by Gavin D. Andrew

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��Our Level 8 students (From Left): Matthew Paten, Emma Gavan, Grace Campbell & Declan Daines

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(Left) Canada's National Ballet School student Alexandra in Level 7 Classical class

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We cherish the longstanding bond between our two schools, and we’re excited to share this wonderful journey of dance and learning, along with sharing culture and creative inspiration, through every student exchange.

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Photography by F. Mutswagiwa

Article by F. Mutswagiwa

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This year's artistic prompt was "FUTURE LIGHT," a theme that inspired and challenged all participants to explore and innovate.

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Lucas Jervies beautifully articulated the spirit of the experience, expressing “The collaborative weekend with the Arts8 was a powerful testament to the interdisciplinary nature of performing arts. Each workshop delivered by the Arts8 schools beautifully demonstrated the shared language of circus, music, theatre, film, and dance, and we witnessed students moving and creating with confidence, raw energy, and unpredictability. The generous exchange of skills and inspirations across disciplines culminated in a safe, judgment-free space that fostered profound connections and innovative artistry. These partnerships are essential to ensure a promising future for the performing arts.”

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The School is a proud member of the Arts8 and we look forward to many more collaborations in the future.

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The Arts8 is the group of eight national arts workforce-training organisations convened by the Australian Government to nurture excellence and creative talent across the country. The Arts8 provide the creative talent necessary to sustain Australia’s performing and screen arts industries.

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Photography by

Article by F. Mutswagiwa

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From 29 September to 3 October 2024, The Royal Ballet School will deliver Inspire, a comprehensive teacher training programme designed to empower all teachers to deliver exceptional training, whether in the vocational or recreational sector. It explores classical ballet technique, advanced elements of technique and artistry, and good teaching practice.

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Our Artistic Director & Head of School Megan Connelly will lead a dynamic session on ballet student wellbeing, with input from �������’s expert artistic and health teams.

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“������� is a world-class organisation, and we are very excited to initiate this collaboration. We share similar values in educating dance teachers and empowering all teachers to deliver exceptional training. �������’s support will ensure we can continue to bring our renowned teaching training to as many dance teachers as possible, advancing the standards of dance training worldwide.” – Mark Annear, Royal Ballet School’s Director of Training & Access.

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Our History Makers - Simon Dow

By Rose Mulready

As a child, his great love was movement. Simon’s parents were British, and spent their teens in London, going to the theatre, the opera and the ballet. Like the students in The Red Shoes, they used to run up the stairs at Covent Garden to compete for the front-row seats of the Gods. “I’m an adopted child. If you feel that adopted children make choices – I chose well. They were the perfect pair of people to see the artist in me and support it.” Simon’s mother often listened to classical music on the radio. “The kitchen was filled with light, and we had a big table. I would move around the table, and under the table, and sometimes over the table. When I was about five, my parents asked me if I’d like to go and take a dance class. We went to this funny little local school in Chelsea, on the bay in Melbourne – jazz, tap and hula, singing – and I was the only boy, which was very common then. There I was, with all these girls, and this lively, energised, inspiring teacher. We tapped, we did ballet, we sang. I loved it, immediately. I’d found a place where they spoke my language. I was very quiet, verbally – deeply shy and introspective. Being physical was my way of interacting with the world.”

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Simon was a sensitive soul, and his dance career nearly came to an unfortunate end when his teacher forgot to cue his entrance during a recital. He missed the performance, and was so inconsolable that his parents had to stop taking him to lessons. “Now I look back on it, it’s hilarious.”

Fortunately, fate intervened in the form of a Dutch couple who moved in next door. Their daughter was serious about ballet; she and Simon became great friends, and he went with her to classes at the National Ballet School in St Kilda. “That’s where I met some really formative teachers. A lot of them had been with the Borovansky Ballet and other professional companies. They just had this incredible knowledge of character and narrative. They were amazing to be around. I was eight, with all these adults. We did lots of performing. That was important for me. I’m not what is commonly called a classroom dancer: I really like being in rehearsal or on stage, losing myself.”

At that time, The Australian Ballet offered classes for boys. At twelve, Simon was at the barre with the likes of Garth Welch, Gary Norman, Colin Peasley and Brian Lawrence – a necessary antidote to his life outside the studio. “For boys to dance is still an anomaly. It still carries a stigma, to this day. I was mercilessly bullied. I kept it secret for as long as possible, and then, at the age of ten, I won a medal, and it made it into the paper, into the Age. I was outed. I knew I was alien and unusual, but then they knew it. It was just hell. There was hardly anywhere where I could turn where I didn’t encounter taunting, name-calling, physical bullying – and for no good reason, other than my difference. I had a couple of teachers who were wonderful, they were my refuge. One was a music teacher, one was an art teacher. I felt like I could go to them, I felt safe when I was in their room.”

Home was Simon’s other refuge. “I used to perform every weekend. I’d choreograph some big piece in my bedroom, and I’d decorate my room, I’d make costumes. And then I’d let my parents in and sit them down, and they were imprisoned for the next hour! I’d put on what I called ‘pantomimes’ in the back yard. I’d rope in my friends and kids from the neighbourhood. I’d produce it, I’d rehearse them and tell them what to say. And I was such a shy kid!”

At 13, Simon won a Cecchetti Medal; one of the judges on the panel was Margaret Scott, the director of �������, famed for her ability to see potential in young dancers. At 14, Simon auditioned for the School, which didn’t officially take students who were under 15. The panel made an exception. When he opened the letter telling him he’d been accepted, “it was like the whole world tilted.”

Simon had been one of three boys in his ballet school. “Suddenly, there were boys everywhere. I had found my tribe. And the freedom! To walk into an educational institution and know that you wouldn’t be bullied, to feel joy, to wonder what you were going to do that day. It was transformative. I had found my place. It kind of saved my life.”

The School was at that time in a converted tire factory in Flemington, which was freezing cold in the winter, with unreliable heaters that warmed you only when you stood right under them. With limited room, the School and the company saw a lot of each other. Simon’s idols wandered the hallways. “You could peek into the studios, and you would see them working on things, and being fallible, so you learnt that dancing was a process.”

Margaret Scott was one of his teachers. “Talk about a passionate, fiery human! She had moments of being incredibly gentle and kind, but there was a wildness in her. She could come across as being very demanding, because she felt so strongly about things. I was terrified, sometimes, by the magnitude of her wildness, but I loved it – it was riveting, and so inspiring. I like to think I have a little of that about me when I’m interacting with my students. One thing Maggie had in spades was curiosity, which has always been a big driver for me as well. She would often ask you for completely different things, every day for a week. At one time she had this thing about the pelvis. ‘Darlings, we’ve got to learn how to lock it in the pubis.’ Of course, we were teenage boys, so we lost it.”

Jurgen Schneider, a celebrated teacher born in East Berlin, taught his boys the Vaganova method. “He was unrelenting, a detail person. He would come over and take your head and yank it into the right position. A real taskmaster, but boy, did we improve, and get stronger and faster.” Bruce Morrow was “a beautiful human, a gentle, kind, supportive man. He and his wife and their three children were all dancers. He always had a lot of keys in his pockets, and I remember them jingling as he’d demonstrate steps.” Leon Kellaway, who taught ballet and mime, “had a very particular nose – he looked a bit like a koala. He was wonderful: funny and eccentric. He walked with a cane, which he’d bang on the floor, and he’d tell us, ‘You have to make them believe!’ He had very bad arthritis, his fingers were twisted, so if he pointed at you, you were never sure that he was actually pointing at you. He smoked a lot, always a cigarette in those gnarled fingers.”

Another heavy smoker (there were ashtrays on the wall by the barre) was the Russian teacher Marina Berezowsky – Madame – who taught character dancing. “Always a cigarette, always a glint in her eye, and she loved teaching the boys.” Jack Manuel, the contemporary teacher, had a background in television, and choreographed a special duet for Simon and Roslyn Watson, the School’s first Indigenous student.

Over one summer, Simon grew four inches, and was partnered with Natasha, a tall Russian girl. They both had long limbs, but Simon hadn’t grown into his. In a presage lift, “she started to tilt backwards and just fell out of my hands. It was awful! But she wasn’t hurt, and she was very nice about it.”

At the end of the two-year course, Simon was still only 16. Maggie told him, “Darling, you’re like a soft, floppy puppy, frolicking through the fields. You’re so young – I think you need another year. I see something special in you, but you need more time.”

At that time, the School would teach its students the corps de ballet parts from the repertoire that The Australian Ballet was doing. That way, if there were an injury, the senior students were ready to step in. Simon stepped in to some amazing opportunities – he was a courtier in Peggy van Praagh’s production of The Sleeping Beauty when it opened the Sydney Opera House in 1973 – and was soon offered a contract with the company. Shortly after he joined, Anne Woolliams came out from Stuttgart Ballet to stage John Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet.

“Anne, for me, was an absolute magician. She brought so much out of people, and she saw who you were. She had eyes that just went right in. She was very demanding, like Maggie was, like Peggy, like Helpmann, like Nureyev – he had it in spades! – they were lit. They were on fire. Anne pulled me out of the corps to do Carnival King – I was 17, and I’d only been in the company for three months. She saw something in me, some craziness, and chose me to dance first cast.”

Watching Anne work with the principals – Marilyn Roe, Kelvin Coe, Lucette Aldous, Marilyn Jones, John Meehan, Gary Norman – was a revelation. “I remember thinking, I want that: I want someone to work with me that way. Then Stuttgart Ballet came out on tour, and I saw Cranko’s Onegin, and that was it for me – I thought, I have to go to Stuttgart. Those dancers were inhabiting roles with a depth that I’d always known was possible. That’s not to say that our dancers weren’t extraordinary. Marilyn Rowe – I saw her do things on stage that were so wild and uninhibited – she would make sounds, sometimes. It was so beautiful to see. I wanted more of that.”

Simon had only been at The Australian Ballet for two years. Robert Helpmann, one of the co-directors, had been a mentor. “Bobby saw himself in me. He’d grown up in Mt Gambier in the 1930s, as a stranger in his environment. He took me under his wing. Seeing him perform as Don Quixote at the Princess Theatre, seeing him do Cinderella with Frederick Ashton, had been formative for me. When I went to tell him I was leaving, he tried really hard to convince me not to go. He offered to promote me, and talked about casting me as the lead in a revival of his Hamlet. (I was 19!) But I had to go.” He bought a one-way ticket to Germany. “I knew I wasn’t coming back.” He was accepted by Stuttgart Ballet, and stayed there for four years.��

“I was very lucky. I worked with such deeply committed artists. Anne was there for first two years. People loved her, and feared her. Like Maggie, she was this strong, powerful force, and she insisted that you leave ‘blood on the floor’. She would be your mother, and then she would be the dragon, and then she would be your psychologist, and then the clown – whatever it took to get what she knew was inside you.” Simon also watched, “glued to the wings”, as the company’s artistic director, the Brazilian ballerina Marcia Haydée, danced with the deep emotional truth that had made her the ultimate interpreter of Cranko’s works. He befriended William Forsythe, “a crazy genius” who would become one of the seminal reinventors of the art form, and danced in his first ballets. He toured all over the world. However, although he has since come to love and appreciate Germany, as a young man he found Stuttgart a stifling place to live. It seemed full of restrictions, and many of its inhabitants regarded Ausländers – foreigners – with suspicion: it was difficult to find an apartment. On tour in America, he fell in love with the energy, the “can-do optimism, the vibrant physicality of their dancers.” He made the choice to leave Stuttgart for Washington Ballet, a much smaller company with a resident choreographer, Choo San Goh.

In 1981, Simon and his dancing partner Amanda McKerrow, who had just turned 18, went to the Moscow International Ballet Competition. The Cold War was at its height; the woman assigned to be their guide turned out to be a KGB agent. Simon, who found that dance competitions made him uncomfortable, didn’t compete, but danced pas de deux with Amanda. She won the gold medal, and Simon was given a specially created award for the Best Partner of the Competition. The story of two Americans (Simon was assumed to be from the US) who had won the huge and prestigious Russian competition, art transcending politics, captured imaginations back home. Simon and Amanda appeared on the Today Show and Good Morning America. A couple of months later, Simon got a call from Marilyn Rowe, who was directing The Australian Ballet. She had heard from Margaret Scott, who had been one of the judges in Moscow, how well Simon was dancing, and she asked him to rejoin The Australian Ballet as a principal. His first role would be Romeo in Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet. It was an offer too perfect to refuse.

There were two good years at The Australian Ballet before a back injury he’d suffered in Washington flamed up again, and Simon was told to stop dancing. Needing a complete change, he went to New York and studied method acting with Lee Strasberg, then hit the boards in off-Broadway productions and summer stock. A couple of years later, a friend directed him to a teacher who rehabilitated injured dancers, and Simon was able to return to his first love. He danced as a principal with San Francisco Ballet and Boston Ballet; in 1991 he moved to New York and began freelancing. He danced until he was 46.

His teaching career began in New York, at the fabled Steps studio. He quickly built a devoted following, with up to 100 students in each class. “I had so many characters: there was a wonderful woman in her 60s who used to paint her pointe shoes.” There were dancers from both classical and contemporary companies, including Allegra Kent, one of Balanchine’s most famous ballerinas, who “just used to do her own thing.” Simon began to teach abroad; he studied butoh and photography, he choreographed. Then the 14-year-old who’d staged neighbourhood pantomimes emerged in him as an urge to direct a ballet company. He spent three years as artistic director of Milwaukee Ballet, and another three directing West Australian Ballet. Finally, Marilyn Rowe, who had taken on the directorship of �������, asked him – for the fourth time – to come and teach there. Somewhat perversely, as he’d just moved from a house a short bike ride away from the School to one in the country, he said yes. “It just felt like the right time.”

For Simon, teaching ballet to teenagers is about far more than technique. ‘I would call what I do as a teacher ‘helping people recognise their own beauty’.” Like Maggie, like Peggy, like Anne, he has “X-ray eyes” for the possibilities in his students, and a passionate belief that performing artists must ‘leave blood on the floor’ as they explore the deepest and truest parts of themselves.����

One of the greatest pleasures he finds in teaching is the openness of young people to exploring who they are. “As you become an adult, the mind has a way of hooking into your early life conditioning and locking in who you are. I don’t think an artist can afford to do that – I don’t think any human can afford to do that. I like to encourage risk-taking. I often say to my students, ‘There are no rules.’”

Simon Dow will perform as special Guest Artist in �������’s 60th Anniversary Gala at The Regent Theatre.

Megan is currently working through a momentous handover with Lisa Pavane, and engaging with staff and students, in preparation to fully step into the role of Artistic Director & Head of School in July.����

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Photography by F. Mutswagiwa

Audiences will remember Lisa Pavane as an esteemed prima ballerina in the 1980s and 1990s. After graduating from ������� in 1978, Lisa swiftly rose through The Australian Ballet ranks to become a Principal Artist before moving to London to become a Senior Principal at the English National Ballet. Her stellar international career also included many guest artist roles in the USA and Europe. Lisa retired from the stage in 1999 and joined ������� faculty in 2007, where she held leadership positions and was awarded a Churchill Fellowship. Building upon the legacy of founding director Dame Margaret Scott AC DBE, Gailene Stock CBE AM and Marilyn Rowe AM OBE, Lisa commenced as Director of ������� in 2015. Lisa concludes her distinguished tenure at the end of June 2024 and is succeeded by Megan Connelly.

Our History Maker - Lisa Pavane

By Rose Mulready

The fourth director of ������� has an origin story straight out of a novel. Lisa Pavane’s mother fell over in the bath in her 28^th week of pregnancy. The premature baby weighed only two pounds. With her life hovering in the balance, she was baptised straight after her birth. Her mother chose to give her the name of a stately Renaissance dance. “I’m going to baptise her Lisa-Pavane, she’s going to live, and she’s going to be a ballet dancer.”

The baby did live. But her future as a ballet dancer must have been hard to envisage. She spent nine months in hospital, and for the first years of her life was plagued with chronic asthma. Doctors advised her mother to try swimming or ballet to increase her lung capacity.

Lisa took her first dance steps in a little local hall at the end of her road, with Judith Ravenscroft. At around five, she started classes with Tessa Maunder – a renowned Newcastle teacher who trained several principals of The Australian Ballet, including Marilyn Rowe, Marilyn Jones, Robert Curran and Olivia Bell. At first, Lisa had no thought of joining these illustrious ranks. “Really, I absolutely hated it. Physical exercise was not a joyous thing to me, I did it because it was medicine. And Tessa was tough! You had to be strong to survive.” However, as she grew out of her asthma and began to do well in competitions, her appetite for dance grew, and was fed by frequent trips with her ballet school to Sydney, where she saw “the Marilyns” (Jones and Rowe) perform. “They were my idols. The Australian Ballet was always in my sights.”

At 15, Lisa went to Sydney with Elizabeth Toohey, whom she’d met at Maunder’s, to audition for the �������. Its director, Margaret Scott, was there with The Australian Ballet’s director, Peggy van Praagh, and the choreographer Ray Powell. “Luminaries!” She was accepted, and she and Toohey moved into a homestay in Maribyrnong to be close to the converted tyre factory in Flemington that housed the School. “It was exciting. Maggie was a hard disciplinarian, but she was loving and nurturing.” Lucette Aldous, who had danced in the film of Don Quixote with Rudolf Nureyev, was one of Lisa’s first-year teachers. And there was the novelty of male students – there had been no boys at Maunder’s school. Lisa studied pas de deux, “understanding how to hold your body with your partner’s and work together in a relationship – giving your trust to him to hold you up and make you look good.” She was an inaugural member of The Dancers Company, which performs on a pre-professional regional tour with The Australian Ballet. But one of her most enduring memories is learning to ride a bike in the School’s car park, because she had to ride one on stage in the Robert Ray ballet Poems. Maunder had forbidden bike-riding or horse-riding or sports of any kind, in case an injury interfered with training.��

When Lisa graduated and joined The Australian Ballet, she walked into a minefield. The dancers were embroiled in a strike over poor pay and working conditions and had refused to perform the opening night of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. “I was like a deer in the headlights – all I wanted was to dance.” Marilyn Jones, one of Lisa’s childhood idols, was replaced as director by another, Marilyn Rowe, who took over the company in a caretaker capacity. “She had always been a sort of mentor. I’d been her understudy in the After Eden pas de deux, and I’d got to know her quite well. I feel like our lives have always been intertwined, in a funny way.”

Rowe quickly promoted Lisa to soloist, and she was soon dancing principal roles with well-established stars like Kelvin Coe, Jonathan Kelly, Paul de Masson, Gary Norman and John Meehan. “What a privilege that was, what an education, with that experience and knowledge and safety behind you – that really helped propel me forward. I learnt so much from those men.” Sometimes, her lack of experience showed. Rehearsing the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet with Kelvin Coe and the famously passionate coach Anne Woolliams, Lisa found herself pulled up. “Anne came in and said, ‘Stop, stop, stop! Lisa – have you ever been kissed before?’ I think I probably blushed hot pink!”

In 1983, the English dancer Maina Gielgud took over the reins of The Australian Ballet. That year, at the age of 22, Lisa understudied Marilyn Rowe in the lead role of Spartacus. Clearly, the new director thought well of her. But then, after a prolonged period of nagging tendonitis, Lisa sustained her “one and only real injury” – which made the medical textbooks. After tearing her perineal tendon, she was left unable to plié, and in the process of treatment discovered that she only had one of the tendons, where most people have two – a curiosity that may have been due to her premature birth.��

Recovering from the injury, Lisa spent six weeks in plaster and had a revelation. Although she had been focused to the point of tunnel vision on her career, she now realised, in the face of losing it, that she truly loved to dance. She returned to debut as Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, and shortly afterwards Gielgud made her a principal artist.

Under Gielgud’s directorship, Lisa danced lead roles in Checkmate, Études, Symphony in C, The Leaves are Fading and Suite en blanc, establishing herself as a ballerina of pristine classical technique. Cast as Odette/Odile in Woolliams’ Swan Lake, she was partnered with Greg Horsman, her future husband. “I was a little bit too tall for him, so we had to really work to get the partnering right, but we were both very classical dancers, our styles married very well. We used to fight like cat and dog! We were both stubborn and determined, and what we wanted didn’t always align.”

It was with Horsman that Lisa had perhaps the richest experience of her dance career. The Soviet prima ballerina Galina Ulanova, then in her late 70s, came to The Australian Ballet to coach Giselle. “She would only work with one set of principals, and Maina chose us. I don’t think we quite realised her legendary status. She hobbled into the room, an old lady, but when she started to demonstrate the first entrance, she suddenly looked like she was 16 years old. Her vibrancy, her delicacy, her voice, her knowledge about Giselle, the history, the artistry, the tradition, the secrets – unbelievable.”

At the Kirov Ballet (now returned to its original name, the Mariinsky Ballet), it’s a tradition that mentors nurture their pupils. Ulanova stayed in the wings to watch their performances. “Here is this legendary woman handing me tissues, handing me my towel. She stitched the flowers on my costume. She would have my shawl ready for me when I came off stage.” In 1989, Lisa and Greg were invited to guest with the Kirov, dancing Giselle and La Sylphide. Ulanova had them over to her house for a vodka party. “It was amazing, being in Russia, being treated with such respect. It made you aware of the honour it is to be a dancer.”

Giselle is a motif in Lisa’s favourite memories of her career. The shoes she wore on opening night of The Australian Ballet’s 1988 season at the Metropolitan Theatre in New York are the only ones she’s ever kept.

As the 80s turned into the 90s, Lisa and Greg felt that such triumphant moments were becoming rare. Gielgud had a passion for casting very young dancers in principal roles, and the couple were hungry for more performances. They began exploring opportunities overseas. English National Ballet was looking for principals; the company had a busy schedule, and they liked the repertoire. Living in London appealed. They packed up their two-year-old daughter, gave their dogs to Robert Ray, and were soon doing three performances of Swan Lake a week at ENB, where they would stay for the better part of a decade.

At first, the English critics looked askance at dancers from Australia, but they slowly came around. One incident in particular won their respect. Lisa and Greg had returned to Australia to take a summer school and had just arrived back in London. It was opening night of the ENB’s Swan Lake, and the ballerina dancing Odette/Odile injured her foot in Act II. Lisa and Greg were just falling into bed, flattened by jet lag, when they got the call. While the company held the curtain, they rushed to the theatre, putting on their tights and make-up in the back of the cab. They went out and did the last two acts, including the gruelling Black Swan Pas de deux, without even a warm-up. The next day, they made the front page of the papers.

Towards the end of their decade in England, Greg and Lisa separated, then retired. Lisa did a secretarial course and moved into an admin role at ENB, seeing the workings of the company from another perspective. Eventually she moved back to Australia, remarried, had another baby, and stepped away from ballet. However, when her daughter was accepted into the music program at the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School, the family moved back to Melbourne, and Lisa began thinking about teaching ballet. Marilyn Rowe was now director of �������, and Lisa got in touch with her. “Later, she told me, ‘I was waiting for that call.’ She said she would make a place for me at the School.”

Lisa shadowed Michela Kirkaldie for a year, learning the Vaganova curriculum, then went through the pilot of a teacher training course created by Mark Annear. “I loved teaching, once I felt I’d learnt enough. Just because you’re a good dancer, it doesn’t mean you’re going to be a good teacher. You have to learn how to impart knowledge. You have to be able to work with the strengths and weaknesses of the individuals in your class.” Rowe was a guide and mentor, and eventually confided in her hope that Lisa would succeed her as director. Lisa secured a Churchill Fellowship, travelling to visit ballet schools around the world, and then did a graduate certificate in educational training. Having left school after Year 10, she found it a shock to be writing academic essays, but with the customary discipline and drive of a ballet dancer, she mastered the workload. In 2015, Rowe retired and Lisa became the School’s director.

It was a proud moment, and an emotional one. “What greater reward can you have than to give back to something that’s given you everything? This school, this company – they gave me my life. And I’m forever grateful for that.” However, Lisa acknowledges that her position can be challenging. “It’s a tough job. It can sometimes be lonely. The decisions stop with you and that’s a big responsibility. You have to put a team together that’s shaping the future of dance.” Rowe had faith in her. She told Lisa, “You are going to be strong enough for this.”��

Almost ten years later, Lisa has amply justified Rowe’s trust. Today, at �������, the dancers don’t have to sacrifice their schooling for ballet, as she did: they study psychology, anatomy, music, human health and development, nutrition. “We make sure that our people, when they graduate, have everything they need for their next step.” A health team prepares the dancers for the heightened demands of modern technique, preventing injury and setting them up for a long career. And Lisa is looking forward, readying the School for cultural change. ��In 2023 she attended the Assemblée��Internationale, run by Canada’s National Ballet School, a meeting of 27 ballet schools from around the world. The directors compared notes on what they were doing to welcome and train students who are gender-fluid, or neurodiverse, or from ethnicities that are under-represented in the ballet world. The students were invited to join the conversation, which Lisa sees as absolutely necessary. “They are our future, and their voices are so strong. We need to learn from them.”

The ballet studio is traditionally a place of rigid hierarchy. Lisa has changed that. “You need to allow the voice of the student, to break down the barrier of power, so that they feel safe and can take risks. It’s a learning journey together.” Even though the demands of her job have meant that she’s largely moved away from teaching, Lisa has never lost her passion for it. “When I go back to the studio, I love it. To step away from the desk, the paperwork – it’s my happy place. It takes me back: it reminds me of the joy and gift it is to be in my position.”

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Header Image:��Lisa Pavane in La Sylphide

Autumn choreographed by Alumna Serena Graham

The Four Seasons cast with Guest Artist Simon Dow��

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Camino Flamenco choreographed by Areti Boyaci��

We extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who joined us for this unforgettable evening of dance and artistry. Your support and enthusiasm mean the world to us and fuel our commitment to excellence in dance training.

�� Degas Dances choreographed by Paul Knobloch

Photography by Sergey Konstantinov��

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Photography by Sergey Konstantinov

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The Artistic Director & Head of School is a strategic and creative leadership role responsible for artistic and educational excellence and student wellbeing. This key role requires deep experience within the art form, an understanding of ballet trends, strong national and international networks, and expertise in elite ballet instruction and performance.

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Megan Connelly is an internationally recognised expert in vocational training and education, dancer rehabilitation and classical ballet pedagogy, with more than 30 years’ experience in Australia and abroad.

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The Chair of the Board Sarah Matheson AM said:

“This significant appointment was made following a global search that attracted outstanding candidates from Australia and abroad. The depth and breadth of Megan’s industry knowledge will be an incredible asset to the School. She has a remarkable record of artistic leadership, a passionate commitment to vocational training at the highest level, and a drive to pioneer diversity and best practice. We know that Megan will build upon the ‘School for Life’ philosophy embedded in this iconic institution by Lisa Pavane. With her empathy, drive, and leadership skills developed throughout her career, Megan is perfectly positioned to take the School to the next phase in its development.”��

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The selection committee was comprised of Australian Ballet School Board Directors and sector experts, including ballet luminaries David McAllister AC and Artistic Director of The Australian Ballet, David Hallberg.

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Describing her as “one of the best ballet specialists in this country,” Artistic Director of The Australian Ballet David Hallberg said:

“Megan’s deep knowledge and unwavering commitment to ballet make her poised to propel ������� into its bright and ambitious future. It is without doubt that with our history together, the relationship between our two institutions will be a partnership�� backed by a genuine commitment to the future of dance here in Australia. I am thrilled to realise and strengthen even further the pathway between The Australian Ballet and �������.”

Megan Connelly said:

“I am deeply honoured to be appointed Artistic Director & Head of School of �������. My profound respect and gratitude go to outgoing director Lisa Pavane and the previous directors who have each influenced my journey in their roles as teachers, dancers, mentors and changemakers. It is thrilling to be entrusted with continuing the proud legacy of Australia’s national ballet school, particularly in its 60^th anniversary year. I am so excited to begin working with the talented students and staff of the School as we embark on the next 60 years of educating, shaping, sharing, and enriching our artists and artform in Australia.”

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Megan will commence at the end of May 2024, working alongside Lisa to ensure a smooth transition.

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The Board of ������� Board is grateful to our specialist cultural search partner, REà Consulting, and thanks them for their expert management of the recruitment process.

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About Megan Connelly

Having received her early training in Melbourne, Megan was taught by luminaries including Anne Woolliams at VCASS and Gailene Stock CBE AM at The National Ballet School. Her most influential training was at the Princess Grace Classical Dance Academy in Monte Carlo where she studied the Vaganova and French systems under the Academy’s founder and world-renowned teacher, Marika Besobrasova.

Megan joined The Australian Ballet in 1991 before following her passion for teaching. This significant appointment marks a return to ������� for Megan. From 2010 to 2020, while also working at The Australian Ballet, she was a member of the School’s teaching faculty—first under the directorship of Marilyn Rowe AM OBE and, subsequently, outgoing Director Lisa Pavane. During her time at ������� Megan auditioned, taught, and assessed students across the full-time and part-time training programs and contributed to the development of the School’s curriculum.

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Since 2010 Megan has been a Repetiteur and the Rehabilitation Specialist at The Australian Ballet. She has taught and rehearsed works for main stage performances and is responsible for the technical and artistic development and well-being of company dancers. Megan was part of the team that rehabilitated David Hallberg to return to the stage after a complex injury that almost ended his career as a Principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre and the Bolshoi Ballet.

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to research dance training, coaching and rehabilitation methods at major international ballet schools and companies, which enabled her to benchmark both the School and The Australian Ballet against the best in the world. Her global networks range from local dance studios and national companies such as Queensland Ballet, Sydney Dance Company and Bangarra Dance Theatre to the School of American Ballet, New York City Ballet, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, American Ballet Theatre, Royal Ballet School, Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, Mariinsky Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet School and Paris Opera Ballet.

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David McAllister AC is well known to you as an alumnus of the School with a career history spanning Artistic Director of The Australian Ballet (2001-2020), after rising through the ranks to Principal Artist. Today, he is a freelance choreographer, teacher and coach. He recently finished a year as interim Artistic Director of Royal New Zealand Ballet before taking up a 2024 guest Artistic Director role at WA Ballet. David is also a founding director of an international ballet consultancy and has a Graduate Diploma in Arts and Entertainment Management. David’s contribution to the artform has been recognised with numerous awards including appointment as a Member of the Order of Australia for services to ballet (2004), promoted to Companion of the Order of Australia in 2021, and the Queen Elizbeth II Coronation Award awarded by the Royal Academy of Dance in the same year. We look forward to the rich contribution David brings to the School’s governance.

Lynda McAlary-Smith is an accomplished public purpose senior executive. Currently the Victorian Small Business Commissioner, Lynda is a lawyer with management qualifications and a wealth of experience in leadership roles with the Commonwealth and Victorian State governments in areas including business, workplace relations and building and construction. Her corporate leadership responsibilities have included audit, governance, regulation, human resources, occupational health and safety, and technology. A longstanding ballet devotee and Ambassador to the Australian Cervical Cancer Foundation, Lynda’s comprehensive skills and experience align seamlessly with the School’s organisational values.

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Gerlinde Scholz is a not-for-profit sector leader with experience in both senior executive and director roles and a track record of success in leading transformational growth in for-purpose organisations. Most recently, she served as the Executive Officer of Community Foundations Australia, the national peak body for community owned and managed philanthropic foundations. Her executive experience includes Chief Operating Officer and other management roles with a medical research institute and as Director of Development at the University of Melbourne. Gerlinde has served on boards for organisations engaged in banking, sustainability, women’s health, and family counselling. Her experience in governance and management in values-based organisations and skills in resource mobilisation and capacity building bring important strategic and leadership perspectives to the Board.

Please join me in welcoming and congratulating David McAllister AC, Lynda McAlary-Smith and Gerlinde Scholz.

At the end of last year, we farewelled Robin Campbell after a distinguished tenure marked by a dedication reflecting her passion for the School and the art form. Robin joined the Board in 2015 (January) before becoming Deputy Chair in 2017 (May). We are deeply grateful for her strategic acumen and commitment to excellence that have helped steer the School through stages of change and growth, including the pivotal role she played in the establishment of the School’s boarding facility, Marilyn Rowe House (MRH). Her governance skills, advocacy and support have contributed significantly to the School's standing as a beacon of artistic and educational excellence.

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We have the deepest gratitude for Robin, and welcome existing Board member, Adrian Burnett, to the role of Deputy Chair.

We look forward to the School building on its success and achieving new heights in this exciting 60^th Anniversary year, and well beyond. We look forward to you being part of that journey. ��

With warm regards

Sarah Matheson

Chair, �������.