The secret life of ballerinas: Inside the Australian Ballet headquarters

Claire Spencer is standing in front of shelves filled with hundreds of rolls of fabric sorted by colour and texture. The executive director of the Australian Ballet is deep in the costume department at the company’s Southbank headquarters, which will be open to the public for the first time as part of Open House Melbourne next month. “We want to start showing people a little bit of what it takes to be a dancer in the Australian Ballet, and that’s an enormous amount of grit and hard work,” Spencer says.

The company has about 80 dancers and 190 other staff in wardrobe, staging and lighting, along with personal trainers and what Spencer describes as “the business of ballet” – human resources, finance, marketing and a philanthropy team. In the costume department, a team of 16 costumiers is at work carefully making each costume by hand, dyeing the material and sewing on buttons and sequins. “We don’t buy the costumes in, we make the costumes, and the number of artisans who are down there literally bringing things like this to life,” Spencer says.

“It’s a dying art, it’s something we hold really precious at the Australian Ballet, that the costuming, the scenery and the lighting, and the dancers, when they come together, that’s where the magic happens – and we invest in all of those things.” Spencer says a typical day for the company’s dancers begins at 10.30am with class followed by personal training, medical appointments, costume fittings and rehearsals.

She walks through the ballet studios lined with barres and mirrors, where dancers are rehearsing for the coming performance of the Copland Dance Episodes, and through to the training area. “We’ve got a full gym, we’ve got a full ice bath, physio room, rehab room,” Spencer says. “It’s really quite a comprehensive part of our organisation, and one that really surrounds the dancers with the support that they need to be able to do what they do.”

A round room made of glass is filled with hundreds of pairs of pointe shoes, and each dancer is allocated one cubby hole. Principal dancers in a full season of Swan Lake can go through six pairs of pointe shoes a week, so Spencer says the company needs plenty on hand. “Part of our artistic health model is actually what shoes they dance in,” she says.

“Each dancer has a different foot physiology, each dancer has a slightly different technique, and so their shoes are like personal protective equipment.” The Australian Ballet is one of many art institutions and museums on the program for Open House Melbourne this year. Others include the Melbourne Recital Centre, ACCA (Australian Centre for Contemporary Art), Melbourne Holocaust Museum, Artbank, Collingwood Yards, Villa Alba Museum and La Mama Theatre.

Tania Davidge, Open House Melbourne’s executive director and chief curator, launched this year’s program on Wednesday night at the Australian Ballet’s Southbank headquarters. Davidge says the weekend will be a rare chance to experience the ballet from a different perspective – not from seats in the audience, but by taking a peek behind the scenes to see where the real work happens. “From rehearsal studios to the costume department, visitors will see the precision, discipline and craft that sit behind every seemingly effortless performance,” she says.

“Alongside artist studios, design practices, galleries and theatres, places making electronic music and even hacker spaces, the ballet invites you inside to gain a deeper understanding of the people, processes and communities that shape the creative life of our city.” Open House Melbourne runs from July 24-26. Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights.

Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter. You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more.

More: