Limelight: David Hallberg to Lead the Australian Ballet

By Jo Litson

3 March 2020

David Hallberg has been appointed as the next Artistic Director of The Australian Ballet. The American-born superstar dancer, who is a Principal with both American Ballet Theatre and The Bolshoi Ballet, as well as a Principal Guest Artist with The Royal Ballet, knows The Australian Ballet well. He is currently a Resident Guest Artist with the Company, and in 2015/16 undertook an intense 14-month rehabilitation program with TAB’s medical team, who helped him recover from a debilitating ankle injury.

It will be the first time that Hallberg has run a ballet company as Artistic Director. Speaking to Limelight last year, prior to performing at the Sydney Opera House in Pure Dance with Natalia Osipova, he said that he would like to run a company one day. “[It] certainly feels like that’s the direction I’m headed in. I do feel a very inspired inclination to nurture the younger generation, and to really nurture audiences as well from the repertoire that I’ve witnessed throughout the world. I do feel like I’ve been fortunate to gain a lot of experience in Russia, in England, in New York, Japan and all over the world,” he said. “There’s going to come a time where the spotlight goes off me and goes on to other dancers, and I really would like to reward them with the experience that I’ve garnered.”

He agrees that more needs to be done to increase the number of women choreographers in ballet.

That is definitely important, but what else is important is the conversation that The Australian Ballet has with this age, and being relevant in the community, and really trying to ask the question of what is the greater responsibility to the greater community by The Australian Ballet. Right now, the focus is definitely female choreographers but the focus is also in diversity, it’s in inclusivity, it’s in being a relevant and active cultural institution in modern day Australian society.

Read the full article on Limelight.