Ballet Lore: Fact versus Fiction

As easy as our dancers make it look, ballet is hard work! A professional ballet dancer will have spent years training at an elite level alongside traditional school studies. The physicality of ballet is only one aspect of the art form, with dancers spending hours researching and studying for character development. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the stage and costume departments are creating epic artworks for shows or constructing sets over in our production centre, the Artistic Health team is ensuring the health and safety of the artists, and everyone in The Australian Ballet offices is making sure all the audience sees is the beauty and grace of the performance.

Not only do the dancers train and rehearse throughout the week, but they can also perform up to 200 shows each year, clocking up thousands of hours both on and off the stage. It might not be your traditional 9-5, but it’s a challenging and demanding job with its own set of rules and responsibilities that takes up just as much (sometimes more) time than your average full-time office worker

Humans are generally more flexible as young children and open to taking in new skills at a rate unfathomable once your frontal lobe is fully closed. But this shouldn’t put off aspiring dancers, as it’s never too late to follow your dreams. In 2008, Malcolm Gladwell proposed the concept of the “10,000-hour rule” in his book Outliers: The Story of Success. Using the example of The Beatles clocking up over 10,000 stage hours to hone their skills in Hamburg before launching into the stratosphere of music history as one of the most famous bands of all time.

Gladwell offers the idea that to become an expert at something, you need to practice it (correctly!) for at least 10,000 hours. While not one hundred percent based in scientific truth, it’s a good rule of thumb to follow. Dancers who start their training later in life can still reach this magic number; in fact, 1,250 workdays, or just under 3 and a half years, will get you to expert level. After all, practice makes perfect.

While ballet dancers can sometimes only have a limited career span, this can be for a variety of reasons. Like other elite athletes, the physical toll of the job is often a factor in retirement. However, as training and recovery techniques become more advanced, ballet dancers are having longer and longer careers. Some of The Australian Ballet’s longest-serving dancers are Adam Bull, who retired after 22 years, aged 40; Amy Harris (22 years, aged 39); and Amber Scott (22 years, aged 40). And then there is Italian Prima Ballerina Assoluta Alessandra Ferri, who set the bar(re) to a new level in 2024 when she returned to the stage for Wayne McGregor’s Woolf Works at age 61.

If you think ballet is boring, then you’ve never been to one of these shows! The art form is steeped in classical tradition dating back to the 15th century, but companies and choreographers have come a long way since ballet’s Italian Renaissance origins. Modern productions centre around pop culture icons and deal with current-day themes, offering audiences new music from chart-topping artists, epic light shows and special effects to rival Hollywood.