Leanne Benjamin

Leanne Benjamin OBE AM is Queensland Ballet’s Artistic Director.
Returning to Australia, after a celebrated international career, she
commenced in the role late January 2024 and is the company’s first
female artistic director. Hailing from Rockhampton, Leanne started her
professional ballet career at the age of 18 and retired from the stage
at the age of 49, after being a principal with the Royal Ballet for 20
years.

Prior to that, Leanne was a principal ballerina with
Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, and Deutsche Opera
Berlin.

Leanne has extensive on-stage experience working with
ballet lighthouses such as Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, Kenneth
MacMillan, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Darcey Bussell and Carlos Acosta. She’s a
formidable force and truly talented artist – having received the
Critic’s Circle Dance Awards for Best Female Dancer (2004, 2009) and the
De Valois Award for Outstanding achievement in Dance (2013).

In
2005 she received an OBE (Order of the British Empire) in recognition
of her services to dance. In 2015 she was appointed an AM (Member of the
Order of Australia) and in 2014, she received an Honorary Doctorate of
Performing Arts by Central Queensland University. In 2019, Leanne was
the recipient of the inaugural Agent-General Queensland Day Award, and
in 2023 received the Australian of the Year Award.

Leanne is in
high demand as an international judge and motivational guest speaker and
in October 2021, Leanne released her autobiography, Built for Ballet
published by Melbourne Books.

She was Named Australian of the Year in the UK 2023.

Now
at the helm of Queensland Ballet, Leanne promises to bring new
choreographic voices to the Queensland stage, giving the company and its
dancers an elevated global profile, whilst delighting local audiences
with some of the world’s leading ballet productions.