New leader, new perspective

The new Artistic Director of the Australian Ballet School talks about her goals to Karen van Ulzen.

Megan Connelly had only been in her new role for four weeks at the time of our interview. Her spacious office at the Australian Ballet School headquarters in Melbourne was neat and uncluttered, though the view not so – just below was the clamorous building site that is to be the city's grand new arts precinct. The noise, however, did not diminish her excitement and energy. She positively radiated enthusiasm – but also calm.

During the course of our discussion she mentioned two life highlights amid a career that has boasted many. One is the Churchill Fellowship she received in 2014, a seven-week tour of the top international ballet schools and companies.

“It was life-changing,” she enthused. “It was one of the best things I’ve had the fortune to experience. “It filled me with so much confidence. Australians often think that everything overseas is better – the Tall Poppy syndrome is alive and well – but we are fantastic, we don’t have to be Russian, French, American, we should just be who we are.”

The other highlight she mentioned was her role in the rehabilitation of the injured international ballet star, David Hallberg. “That was another life changing experience for me. That taught me so much about myself. It taught me so much more about rehab, technique and generally teaching. It taught me so much about the artform. It was a really difficult time for him, and I had never done such an in-depth and long rehab as that one was, with the pressure of someone like David, at the height of their career, and such a massive international reputation . . . it was really sobering to see another beautiful human who just wants to get back and dance again. We’re all the same."

She wasn’t to know then that Hallberg would, just a few years later, become the Artistic Director of the Australian Ballet, making them both now virtually partners at the helm of ballet in this country – Hallberg leading the national company, Connelly leading the national school.

Little wonder Hallberg endorsed her appointment. She is “one of the best ballet specialists in this country,” he pronounced. “… It is without doubt that with our history together, the relationship between our two institutions will be a partnership backed by a genuine commitment to the future of dance here in Australia.”

Like her two most recent predecessors, Marilyn Rowe and Lisa Pavane, Connelly is an alumna of the company, having joined as a dancer in 1991, before following her passion for teaching. Since then she has been connected to both institutions "all my life", as she says, in a variety of roles and feels she knows their “every corner”. She was assistant to the artistic director, David McAllister, and ballet coach for the company and teacher for the school. She has also been repetiteur and rehabilitation specialist for the company.

Where she is slightly different from her two predecessors is that she did not receive her own training through the ABS. Instead, she studied at a private school under Karen Stephens in Melbourne as well as the VCASS before finding herself in a foreign country, boarding at the famed Princess Grace Classical Dance Academy in Monte Carlo at the age of fifteen.

It was another life-changing experience, but not what she would describe as a highlight. She was desperately homesick and lonely. “I think what I decided to do with my life is because I knew things could be done better and differently . . . My contemporary teacher was the first teacher to really learn my name and actually see me. It’s always stayed with me that people need to be acknowledged and seen. In a competitive world, often that can just be the best in the room. But it’s the people with the greatest passion and grit that get there.”

On her return to Australia she finished her training at the National Theatre Ballet School which was led at that time by Gailene Stock (who went on to be the ABS director the year before Connelly joined the company).

Connelly has also had extensive experience teaching outside the ABS at different schools, including the Australian Conservatoire of Ballet in Melbourne.

I asked if she thinks that coming to her position without having been a student at the school herself might give her a different perspective to her predecessors. “Anyone coming to the role will have a different perspective,” she replied. My perspective is shaped by a lifelong dedication to dance and nurturing dancers. Every teaching, rehabbing and repetiteur role I’ve performed throughout my career is an expression of my passion for dancer development, lifelong learning, and excellence. Most international ballet schools are led by expert teachers who are experienced in developing dancers. It’s less about where they trained or danced.” She added that she had been told her teaching experience might make her “more relatable” to the studio teacher, which she embraces. One of her goals is to “continue the school’s existing efforts to develop connections with the studio teachers around the country, so we’re all on the same page. I want them to know what the ABS is looking for and understand our system of training. I want to get to know the studio teachers, and for them to feel seen and heard."

The why

Connelly said her "biggest driving force in her teaching" is  the “why”. It is an approach that she discovered and honed through her extensive experience in rehabbing dancers. Everything, from her approach to teaching, to technique, to the school’s curriculum and the decision on performance repertoire, should have a reason and serve the ultimate goal.  “In dance rehabilitation we set a goal and move backwards, the goal can shift, that’s fine, but the point is that what we do should make sense and be logical and be connected to the ultimate goals as much as it can be."

The goal is to not just produce the most brilliant technicians, but graduates who are work ready – able to spring readily into any company anywhere in the world and take on the immense variety of choreography being performed today. 

To that end, Connelly plans to have more collaborations with overseas schools (such as the recent one with the Royal Ballet School) and teacher exchanges to ensure that the school is up to date with international trends and developments. “Our strength is in training classical dancers, and that’s our core mission. While that won’t change, we know we need to evolve and adapt. To maintain our high standard of ballet education, we have to keep up with what companies are programming. And their repertoire includes both classical and contemporary works.” Already the school is adapting its contemporary curriculum (with contemporary teacher Lucas Jervies) to include such necessary skills as improv and tasking.

"We are the feeder school for all these companies that do a lot of work, new work, a lot of contemporary ballet, cutting edge work, so our students have to be foundationally strong in their technique, strong enough to be adaptable, and mature enough to make choices about what they are artistically being asked to do." 

She would also like the students to perform more, to enhance their stagecraft and confidence: it is a long held dream of the school to tour more often to regional centres and interstate, while acknowledging that “it takes a lot of time and resources to tour, and our current training schedule is packed”. Another important aim, which the school is already developing, is a greater inclusion and awareness of diversity and Indigenous culture. "We really have a lot more work to do in that area and we are committed to doing that.”

Serving it all, she said, must be the quality of the teaching. "I don’t think one teaching system's better than the other," she said, "it comes down to having the best teachers". 

"Teaching is about bringing all your experience and knowledge and for that being an ongoing goal throughout your life. You are continuously learning and evolving. If you’re teaching today the way you were teaching five years ago, then stop teaching, because teachers need to be evolving.”

The ABS has 88 full-time students honed from thousands of pupils during exhaustive, country-wide auditions. But when I referred to the school as an artistic “hot house”, she objected, disliking the term's implication of a narrow, enclosed style of institution. 

"I don’t think this is a hot house. The school's philosophy is a 'school for life' and the focus is on the human being, not just the dancer. That’s why the academic program is so important to us."

“Most will go through the school and dance in some way or another but some may not and we work really hard to support alternative career paths or to support what they might do next. We need to take responsibility for producing educated people, not just dancers.” 

The ABS curriculum is government accredited and woven into the VCE. Academic subjects are held at the neighbouring Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School. Students are encouraged to take part in other cultural activities such as gallery visits and circus, theatre and music performances.

"It's really important to step outside your world to inform the world you’re in. The school has evolved into taking on the responsibility of educating young people, and that means in a holistic sense. We want our dancers to feel like global citizens. So while it might look from the outside that we have a lot of talented people coming in and just dancing most of the day, there’s actually intellectually a lot of breadth to their education. Ensuring there are all sorts of activities, we take that very seriously."

I asked if she has any mantras by which she lives.

"That's an interesting question," she replied, "because at this early stage in my tenure I’m having to remind myself that I am enough. This is an affirmation that I’ve often shared to empower the dancers and students I work with.”

“As dancers with our perfectionistic tendencies, it’s important to remember that what you're doing right now is actually all you can do, if you are honestly bringing all of yourself to it and being present. It’s a good mantra for me as I progress in this exciting new role, just as it’s a good mantra for dancers in the studio. Go home, go to bed, come back and do it again. Eat the elephant one bite at a time.”

A healthy attitude to bring to a school bursting with talent students all impatient to be dancers.