The Leanne Benjamin Awards are to be launched at The Royal Ballet School on Thursday June 12th with Leanne Benjamin OBE teaching a Royal Ballet School Student one of her famous solos in front of a live audience.

We do hope you will be able to join us for this most special event. The masterclass has been put together for us by The Royal Ballet School to help us launch our new awards for young Australian dancers and we are enormously grateful for its support.

The awards recognise the great Australian, Leanne Benjamin, arguably the most successful Australian ballerina ever to have come from Australia. Leanne danced with four of the world’s leading companies (Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet, London Festival Ballet, Deutsche Oper Ballet and The Royal Ballet) and worked directly with many of the legends of 20th and 21st century ballet, in a career that spanned 30 years. She is an example to any aspiring Australian professional dancers. The Tait Memorial Trust is delighted to name our new ballet awards The Leanne Benjamin Awards

I hope this event will prove to be a turning point for the Tait Memorial Trust and will see us become more involved with the prestigious Royal Ballet School where so many promising young Australian dancers have completed their training.

We are thrilled that Leanne Benjamin OBE,an alumna of The Royal Ballet School who recently retired as a principal dancer with The Royal Ballet after a 21 year career, will appear on the night. She and Mark Annear, Head of Outreach and Teacher Training with The Royal Ballet School, will work with the students, who will include three TMT awardees.Highlights of the evening will include the Tait Awardees and other Australian students performing a selection of classical solos and pas de deux and Leanne Benjamin coaching a student in one of her favourite solos from the classical repertoire.

This is a unique opportunity, not only to see some fabulous dancing, but also to help promising Australian ballet students who come to London to study at what is widely regarded as one of the world’s top three ballet schools. Don’t miss it.

Focus On Leanne Benjamin – Dance Direct Blog.