THE Australian Ballet is now the largest it has ever been. This year for the first time the company has grown to include 79 full-time dancers, up from sixty-eight.
Nine of those new dancers are graduates of the Australian Ballet School: Isobelle Dashwood, Evie Ferris, Sean Kiley, Mason Lovegrove, Montana Rubin, Georgia Scott-Hunter, Edward Smith, Aya Watanabe and Lucien Xu. In addition, Jake Mangahakia, the Telstra People’s choice award winner in 2012, rejoined the company after a two-year break to do missionary work in Canada.
Coryphée Jaqueline Clark returned to the company in July 2015, having spent time in the UK dancing with the Royal Ballet. Jessica Wood and Melody Martin also joined the company in 2015. Nathan Brook, a graduate of the Australian Ballet School who danced for two…