David McAllister: Ballet Confidential

Born in Perth, David McAllister joined The Australian Ballet in 1983 and was promoted to principal artist in 1989. During his time with the company, he danced many principal roles, including those in The Sleeping Beauty, Don Quixote, Coppélia, Manon, La Sylphide, John Cranko's Onegin and Romeo and Juliet. In 1985 he won Bronze at the Fifth International Ballet Competition in Moscow. Throughout his career, David made numerous guest appearances worldwide, dancing with Bolshoi Ballet, the Kirov Ballet, the State Ballet of Georgia, The National Ballet of Canada, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Singapore Dance Theatre and, in 1992, as part of a Royal Gala performance in London in the presence of the Princess of Wales. In 2000, he completed a Graduate Diploma in Arts and Entertainment Management and in 2001, took his final bow as a dancer. In July of that year, David became artistic director of The Australian Ballet. He was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2004 Australia Day Honours List and was invited to become a Vice President of the Royal Academy of Dance. In 2015, David premiered a new production of The Sleeping Beauty for The Australian Ballet. After two decades at the head of The Australian Ballet, at the end of 2020 David embarked on a new freelance career, co-authoring a memoir with Amanda Dunn titled Soar and creating a new production of Swan Lake for the Finnish National Ballet. In 2021 he was awarded a Companion of the Order of Australia in the Queen's Birthday's Honours list. He has also received the Queen's Coronation Medal from the Royal Academy of Dance and the J.C. Williamson Award from Live Performance Australia.

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.