Christine Walsh’s THE NUTCRACKER

“Breathtaking!”
“Great evening of theatre, dance and music!”
- Herald-Sun

“The performance was absolutely wonderful! I enjoyed every single moment of it!”             - Dame Margaret Scott AC, DBE Founder Director - The Australian Ballet School

My 5-year-old niece loved it, my 82 year-old mother loved it and I loved it – so you scored a hat trick!”     - Sandy Graham

International Ballet Gala

Arts Centre Melbourne, State Theatre 15th July 2017

Luca Acri - Soloist, The Royal Ballet; Matthew Ball - First Soloist, The Royal Ballet; Oksana Bondareva - Second Soloist, Mariinsky Theatre; Benjamin Ella - Soloist, The Royal Ballet; Anton Korsakov - First Soloist, Mariinsky Theatre; Tomas Mock - First Artist, The Royal Ballet; Vadim Muntagirov - Principal Artist, The Royal Ballet; Luciana Paris - Soloist, American Ballet Theatre; Denise Parungao - Junior Principal Artist, Ballet Philippines; Joseph Phillips - Principal Artist, State Primorsky Opera and Ballet Theater; Calvin Richardson - First Artist, The Royal Ballet; Akane Takada - Principal Artist, The Royal Ballet; Joy Womack - Principal Artist, Kremlin Ballet and dancers of The Australian Conservatoire of Ballet.

Ballet Gala 2017 cast.jpg
 
 

“We were treated to some of the best couple duets, divertissements, solos, and company corps de ballet works in the canon of classical ballet, to rapturous applause!”
“…a night to remember!”…                                          The Plus One – July 2017

 
 

Coppélia

Choreographed by Maina Gielgud for the Australian Conservatoire of Ballet, Arts Centre Melbourne, December 2015

There was quite a lot of new choreography and loads of rearranging but basically Gielgud’s production was a staging rather than a new work. But what a beauty. It was hard to believe this was a student production, so high were its standards. The young dancers were not just technically assured, they gave terrifically engaged and engaging performances, working seamlessly with the delightful guest artists from Tokyo Ballet, Maria Kawatani and Arata Miyagawa. Christine Walsh designed the many costumes, all of them splendid.  

                                                                                                                                                                  Reviewed by Deborah Jones

“Impressive... the students were simply evidence of the school's position as training ground for excellent ballet.”

The Sunday Age December 2008

"…here was a Melbourne ballet school on an admirable pedagogic mission: to expose its students and local audiences to diverse examples of international excellence."

- The Australian, August 2009.


About our productions

The Australian Conservatoire of Ballet has a well established reputation and is invited regularly to perform its large repertoire of dance works and ballets.

ACB INVITATIONS 

ACB dance students have participated in the Port Fairy and Castlemaine Arts Festival, the Sans Souci Arts Festival in Germany, taken part in the inaugural performances of the Queensland Youth Ballet, participated in the "Pacific Brands" corporate events and have assisted in restaging ballet for Royal Ballet of Flanders.

ONE ACT BALLETS

One act ballets performed by the school are Christine Walsh's Paquita, A Midsummer Night's Dream, La Leçon, La Vivandiere, Kingdom of the Shades from La Bayadere, Le Corsaire Act 2, Octet for 9, Marc Bogaert's Ritualism and Framing and William Forsythe's Frankfurt Dances.

FULL-LENGTH BALLETS

In December 2002 & 2004, ACB staged a new spectacular production of the full-length Swan Lake with 100 musicians of the Melbourne Youth Orchestra at the Melbourne Town Hall and the Hamer Hall of the Arts Centre. This was followed in 2005 by an even more ambitious collaboration with the Melbourne Youth Orchestra in a production of Romeo & Juliet at the Melbourne Town Hall. 

Since 2006, the ACB has performed its full-length productions at the State Theatre and Hamer Hall of the Arts Centre Melbourne featuring international guest artists and with its own orchestra on an annual basis to capacity audiences.

THE AUSTRALIAN CONSERVATOIRE OF BALLET’S DISTINGUISHED PRINCIPAL GUEST ARTISTS

Luca Acri - Royal Ballet

Samuel Akins - Los Angeles Ballet

Chinara Alizade - Bolshoi Ballet

Martin Arroyos - Paris Opera Ballet School

Matthew Ball - Royal Ballet

Katherine Barkman - Washington Ballet

Kimbrian Bergh - PACT Ballet

Lisa Bolte - Australian Ballet

Oksana Bondareva - Mariinsky Theatre

Alexey Borzov - Russian Chamber Ballet Theatre

Andrew Bowman - Australian Ballet

Michael Braun - Royal New Zealand Ballet

Stanislav Bukharaev - Stanislavsky Ballet Theatre

Nigel Burley - Australian Ballet

Daniel Convery - Freelance Guest Artist

Nathan Coppen - Australian Ballet

David Cranson - West Australian Ballet

Simon Crowther - PACT Ballet

Gabrielle Davidson - Australian Ballet

Liudmilla Doksomova - Russian Chamber Ballet Theatre

Paul De Masson - Australian Ballet

Simon Dow - Australian Ballet

Jia Yin Du - Australian Ballet

Benjamin Ella - Royal Ballet

Chinara Elizade - Bolshoi Ballet

Steven Eitienne - Dutch National Ballet

Elena Evseeva - Mariinsky Theatre

Martyn Fleming - Bejart Ballet

Mathilde Froustey - Paris Opera Ballet

Mara Galeazzi - Royal Ballet

Anna Germizeeva - Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre

Simone Goldsmith - Australian Ballet

Marina Guizien - Paris Opera Ballet School

Nicole Graniero - American Ballet Theatre

Margarita Grechanaia - Bayerisches Staatsballett

Belinda Hernandez - Australian Ballet

Amber Hobson - Freelance Guest Artist

Katie Hurst-Saxton - Royal New Zealand Ballet

Filip Janda - Freelance Guest Artist

Rina Kambe - K Ballet

Maria Kawatani - Tokyo Ballet

Beatrice Knop - Staatsballett Berlin

Anton Korsakov - Mariinskly Theatre

Roberta Marquez - Royal Ballet

Kirsty Martin - Australian Ballet

Campbell McKenzie - Australian Ballet

Steven McRae - Royal Ballet

Arata Miyagawa - Tokyo Ballet

Tomáš Mock - Royal Ballet

Scott Mullen - Freelance Guest Artist

Vadim Muntagirov - Royal Ballet

Mikhail Nedelsky - Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre

Ana Ol - Dutch National Ballet

Luciana Paris - American Ballet Theatre

Denise Parungao - Ballet Philippines

Joseph Phillips - American Ballet Theatre

Sergie Polunin - Royal Ballet

Calvin Richardson - Royal Ballet

Irina Sapozhnikova - Primorsky State Ballet

Dmitry Semionov - Staatsballett Berlin

Kenta Shimizu - Los Angeles Ballet

Akane Takada - Royal Ballet

Semyon Velicho - Dutch National Ballet

Venus Villa - English National Ballet

Dmitry Vyskubenko - Bayerisches Staatsballett

Natalia Vyskubenko - Bolshoi Ballet

Yuri Vyskubenko - Bolshoi Ballet

Sacha Wakelin - West Australian Ballet

Joy Womack - Kremlin Ballet

Kirill Zaretskiy - Moscow Ballet Company

Philippa Ziegenhardt - Hamburg Ballet

Maxim Zyuzin - Mariinsky Theatre

ACB regularly performs fully staged productions of Christine Walsh's Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hansel & Gretel and Maina Gielgud's Coppelia and Harry Haythorne's La Sylphide. ACB has its own 65 piece orchestra performing for all its productions.