Robert Curran has recently retired as a principal artist with the Australian Ballet.
Where did you grow up?
I was born and lived in Canberra until I was about six, moved to rural NSW and lived in a town called Denman until I was 13, then moved away from home to combine school and ballet in Sydney until moving to Melbourne to attend the Australian Ballet School at seventeen.
Any siblings?
I have three younger brothers, Joel, Alexander and Paul. All three of them really cool guys.
What did your parents do?
My Dad can and does do everything. Currently he grows grapes in the Hunter wine region but his working career ranges from the Bureau of Statistics in Canberra to the Fire Brigade in Denman. My Mum is my Mum, a full time job in itself, but she is now retired from her work as an accounts clerk for TAFE.
What sort of a childhood did you have?
Loving, focused, safe and family centred.
What first attracted you to learning to dance?
I can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t dancing so that question actually predates my memories. Dancing is part of my life in many ways as my parents tell me I was always dancing around the house. My Dad’s sisters are ballroom dancers and my Grandmother tells me that the
main reason she married my Grandfather was that he had “rubber legs” on the dance floor.
Where did you train and what do you remember about your first lesson?
Betsy Sawyers in Canberra, Tessa Maunder in Newcastle, Alan Cross and Josephine Jason in Sydney and at the Australian Ballet School in Melbourne. I remember loving to dance but battling with the confidence to be proud of what I was doing, as a boy in a class full of girls, in rural Australia.
What was your first public performance?
Probably the moment I could stand on my own. Maybe even before.
Do you have memory of a favourite audience?
Any audience that supports ballet in Australia is my favourite audience, whether I am on stage or not.
What are your favourite types of ballets?
All of them are great to have a go at and expand your experience.
What do you enjoy most about being on stage?
Working with beautiful and talented people on stage, in the orchestra pit and in the wings. The amount of talent I get to see and work with on stage in the Australian Ballet is very rewarding and inspiring.
What is the hardest role you have had to perform?
There are so many ways to define hard. Divergence by Stanton Welch made me feel unparalleled exhaustion on stage, Etudes by Harald Lander was a technical challenge and The Concert by Jerome Robbins was a comic challenge. Overall though the hardest roles to perform are the ones that you don’t understand or believe, because if I don’t believe it, the audience certainly won’t believe me.
What has been your most satisfying role or performance to date?
Again there are so many ways to define satisfying. Recently, having the opportunity to perform Graeme Murphy’s Swan Lake on opening night in Melbourne, where the work was premiered nearly six years ago, was rewarding. Before then, dancing with Lucinda Dunn at a gala for the
Queensland Orchestra in Brisbane doing Black Swan Pas de Deux, and before then, Forgotten Land with Rachel Rawlins, before then, Giselle with
Miranda Coney in China, before then, before then, before then . . . I really do have a great job, don’t I!?
What do you least like about being a dancer?
Nervousness, anxiety, paranoia, insecurity. I don’t like it in other people and I loathe it in myself.
Is there a role you would like to dance but haven’t?
Onegin for sure, but there is sooooooo much out there that I would like to have a go at before my body starts to say no.
What do you always bring to a performance?
100% commitment.
Do you have a pet hate?
Wasted time – a dancer’s career is too short, life is too short.
What word would you use to describe your feet?
Ready.
